About a year ago I mounted my Nexus 7 2012 Wifi in my car, and came up with some Tasker scripts to have my phone automatically start wifi tethering as soon as I turn the key. I’d like to share with you all how I did it, and answer any questions anybody might have.
I made a video to provide a overview of my setup that can be found here. I can't post links yet so you'll have to copy and paste!
Code:
youtu.be (slash) jkDr9mLY568
Hardware
Nexus 7 Wifi 2012 rooted running stock KitKat with Xposed Framework installed.
Nexus 5 rooted running stock KitKat with Xposed. I’ve also tested this with a GNex and G2 and it worked great with both of those.
Previously I ran CM on both my phone and tablet and it worked fine.
Software
Connectivity:
Tasker
Secure Settings (I use Pro, but I don’t think it’s necessary, correct me if I’m wrong)
Tablet Talk
Tasker/Locale Plugin for Tablet Talk
SSID Selector (Tasker plugin)
All these except for SSID Selector need to be installed on both the phone and tablet.
Apps:
AutoVoice - allows you to create your own voice commands and have Tasker parse them.
GMD Gesture Control Create custom multitouch gestures.
Waze
Spotify
Waze and Spotify are the only apps I have in focus 99% of the time. I have Torque installed and it works great, but I rarely use it.
Tasker
Tablet
Profile: Wifi Tether Control
State: Power any
Entry task: Powered On
Wifi Off: This disconnects me from my home network in case I’m using my home wifi
Brightness up if Daytime profile active, turn down otherwise
Tablet Talk Action: Start BT Mode - start Tablet Talk connection to phone, this tells the phone to turn on the hotspot.
Display timeout: 20 min
Wait 4 secs - this gives the phone time to start the hotspot. I’ve found everything works better if there is a pause here.
SSID Selector - only connect to my phones wifi network
Wifi on
Secure Settings: GPS on
Auto-Sync on
Exit task: Unpowered
Stop task if the powered on task is running. This is to prevent a problem I was having where if I turned the car key too slow, it would start this task while the entry task was still running, leaving the car running but the tablet and hotspot off.
Get location and use Pushbullet to send location to phone
Tablet Talk: Disable - this triggers the exit task on the phone that turns the hotspot off
Wifi, GPS, autosync off.
Send intent to close Waze - Waze doesn’t seem to respond well to being killed, so I use an intent to turn it off. If I don’t do this it is a MAJOR battery drain.
Media Utilities Action: Pause - the built in media actions don’t seem to pause Spotify reliably, so I use this plugin
Lock screen and set lockscreen PIN with Secure Settings
Phone
Profile: Car Tethering
Entry task: Start Wifi Tethering
Ringer on
Wifi Tether on
Notify Sound
Exit Task: Stop Wifi Tethering
Wifi Tether Off
Notify Cancel: Tethering on notification
Notify Sound: Tethering off
Wait 5 secs
Turn wifi back on
Notify Cancel
I've attached all the tasks and profiles I use on my tablet. I'll add some explanations for the rest of them later on if anyone is interested. They include things like:
Gathering sunset/sunrise times to automatically adjusting brightness
Switching to Waze if there is no touches detected for x number of seconds
AutoVoice tasks and profiles for searching Spotify, Waze, and Google Maps
I really want to know how to so this
Gathering sunset/sunrise times to automatically adjusting brightness
braddaniels said:
About a year ago I mounted my Nexus 7 2012 Wifi in my car, and came up with some Tasker scripts to have my phone automatically start wifi tethering as soon as I turn the key. I’d like to share with you all how I did it, and answer any questions anybody might have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I assume your car turns off the charge port (ie: lighter port) when the ignition is off? That certainly makes this sort of thing a little easier, and sounds like your N7 is dedicated to car duties.
I like the idea of switching back to Waze when otherwise idle, I might do that myself. I do all of the rest, including the backlight management using a tiny web service I wrote for myself to get sunrise/sunset times.
My do it on my phone, however, I don't mount the N7 itself. So I use an NFC tag as my "Start car mode" context.
khaytsus said:
So I assume your car turns off the charge port (ie: lighter port) when the ignition is off? That certainly makes this sort of thing a little easier, and sounds like your N7 is dedicated to car duties.
I like the idea of switching back to Waze when otherwise idle, I might do that myself. I do all of the rest, including the backlight management using a tiny web service I wrote for myself to get sunrise/sunset times.
My do it on my phone, however, I don't mount the N7 itself. So I use an NFC tag as my "Start car mode" context.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it stays in my car mounted on the dash unless I'm in a bad neighborhood or something. I live in Central Florida, and so far the heat has not been an issue. The battery still works fine even after sitting my dash for a year now. I know that it is a risk though, a friend of mine had a bargain bin Android tablet that blew up in her car a few weeks ago just sitting on the backseat.
Like I mentioned in the video, I just want it to work without thinking about it, I got sick of fumbling with my phone whenever I got into my car, and I didn't use my Nexus 7 that much anyway, so I decided to do this. Yes my lighter ports only work when the ignition is on. I don't think this is necessarily the most ideal way to detect when to turn the car is on though. I'd like for Tasker to implement Bluetooth proximity as a state, that might be useful. I recall seeing it on their todo list, but I'm not holding my breath.
I have an ODBII BT dongle, and I tried using that to detect when the car was on, but I found it to be clumsy and unreliable. I even experimented with the accelerometer to detect the vibration of the car running, but that wouldn't have worked too well.
In case you were wondering about battery drain while it's off, it's negligible. I'm sure if I left it off for a week or so it would probably die, but my 3.1 A charger charges it even with the screen on full brightness. The only time I've had to charge it while the car's not running is when some service doesn't shut down right due to a bug in my Tasker setup. I have had some bad luck with crappy USB cables, so make sure you get the highest quality and shortest length possible to maximize charging.
Thanks
I know this is an old post now, but this is exactly what I've been trying to achieve with my car setup with Note 3 / Galaxy Tab 8.4. Thank you for posting. This should save me a lot of time.
I have bluetooth in my Jeep and will be sending all tablet audio to the Jeep to play. I've had mixed results with it working and with it playing on the tablet so I may need to tweek Bluetooth Auto Connect. If that still wont work well I'll have to AUX cable it.
I just downloaded all your profiles and tasks and will give this a try with my setup. I really like how you have it auto start wifi tethering on the phone and then open Waze. I have an added step of activating Foxfi and then clicking a few boxes before that activates, so I need to figure that one out.
I also installed all your other profiles/tasks, though I don't know what all of them do yet. I'll need to go through them and see which ones apply to how I use my phone. Do you have any of those on your tablet as well, or are the extras just for your phone?
TheBlueDuck said:
I know this is an old post now, but this is exactly what I've been trying to achieve with my car setup with Note 3 / Galaxy Tab 8.4. Thank you for posting. This should save me a lot of time.
I have bluetooth in my Jeep and will be sending all tablet audio to the Jeep to play. I've had mixed results with it working and with it playing on the tablet so I may need to tweek Bluetooth Auto Connect. If that still wont work well I'll have to AUX cable it.
I just downloaded all your profiles and tasks and will give this a try with my setup. I really like how you have it auto start wifi tethering on the phone and then open Waze. I have an added step of activating Foxfi and then clicking a few boxes before that activates, so I need to figure that one out.
I also installed all your other profiles/tasks, though I don't know what all of them do yet. I'll need to go through them and see which ones apply to how I use my phone. Do you have any of those on your tablet as well, or are the extras just for your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't post the profiles and tasks from my phone because it should be relatively simple to implement yourself. I would highly recommend you try to build most of these profiles yourself and just use mine as a template. It'll make troubleshooting much easier if something doesn't work right.
Find My Phone
Hi Brad,
Just like to say thank you for sharing... you are streaks ahead in using tasker! I bought tasker about 1 year ago and fooled around with it and got the basic stuff I needed to work just fine. However, now I will be installing a nexus 7 as a fixed in dash carpc... replacing my old actual carpc running windows with centrafuse/riderunner, I will need to automatize pretty much everything as I will not have access to the side buttons.
I have imported your profiles and task and I am tweaking them for my needs. Only thing it complaining about is "Find My Phone", could you give me some pointers, if you can remember.
Thanks again...
Jared.
braddaniels said:
About a year ago I mounted my Nexus 7 2012 Wifi in my car, and came up with some Tasker scripts to have my phone automatically start wifi tethering as soon as I turn the key. I’d like to share with you all how I did it, and answer any questions anybody might have.
I made a video to provide a overview of my setup that can be found here. I can't post links yet so you'll have to copy and paste!
Code:
youtu.be (slash) jkDr9mLY568
Hardware
Nexus 7 Wifi 2012 rooted running stock KitKat with Xposed Framework installed.
Nexus 5 rooted running stock KitKat with Xposed. I’ve also tested this with a GNex and G2 and it worked great with both of those.
Previously I ran CM on both my phone and tablet and it worked fine.
Software
Connectivity:
Tasker
Secure Settings (I use Pro, but I don’t think it’s necessary, correct me if I’m wrong)
Tablet Talk
Tasker/Locale Plugin for Tablet Talk
SSID Selector (Tasker plugin)
All these except for SSID Selector need to be installed on both the phone and tablet.
Apps:
AutoVoice - allows you to create your own voice commands and have Tasker parse them.
GMD Gesture Control Create custom multitouch gestures.
Waze
Spotify
Waze and Spotify are the only apps I have in focus 99% of the time. I have Torque installed and it works great, but I rarely use it.
Tasker
Tablet
Profile: Wifi Tether Control
State: Power any
Entry task: Powered On
Wifi Off: This disconnects me from my home network in case I’m using my home wifi
Brightness up if Daytime profile active, turn down otherwise
Tablet Talk Action: Start BT Mode - start Tablet Talk connection to phone, this tells the phone to turn on the hotspot.
Display timeout: 20 min
Wait 4 secs - this gives the phone time to start the hotspot. I’ve found everything works better if there is a pause here.
SSID Selector - only connect to my phones wifi network
Wifi on
Secure Settings: GPS on
Auto-Sync on
Exit task: Unpowered
Stop task if the powered on task is running. This is to prevent a problem I was having where if I turned the car key too slow, it would start this task while the entry task was still running, leaving the car running but the tablet and hotspot off.
Get location and use Pushbullet to send location to phone
Tablet Talk: Disable - this triggers the exit task on the phone that turns the hotspot off
Wifi, GPS, autosync off.
Send intent to close Waze - Waze doesn’t seem to respond well to being killed, so I use an intent to turn it off. If I don’t do this it is a MAJOR battery drain.
Media Utilities Action: Pause - the built in media actions don’t seem to pause Spotify reliably, so I use this plugin
Lock screen and set lockscreen PIN with Secure Settings
Phone
Profile: Car Tethering
Entry task: Start Wifi Tethering
Ringer on
Wifi Tether on
Notify Sound
Exit Task: Stop Wifi Tethering
Wifi Tether Off
Notify Cancel: Tethering on notification
Notify Sound: Tethering off
Wait 5 secs
Turn wifi back on
Notify Cancel
I've attached all the tasks and profiles I use on my tablet. I'll add some explanations for the rest of them later on if anyone is interested. They include things like:
Gathering sunset/sunrise times to automatically adjusting brightness
Switching to Waze if there is no touches detected for x number of seconds
AutoVoice tasks and profiles for searching Spotify, Waze, and Google Maps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all the info and stuff. I'll have to check out the GMD and Autovoice apps. I just got a Nexus 7 set up in my car and am loving it so far. I have Tasker helping me out greatly because I too don't want to take my S6 out of my pocket when I'm driving.
My Nexus 7 has "screen always on while charging" enabled in Dev options. I haven't set the fastboot oem off-mode-charge to a zero yet since I don't think I need it to turn off completely, though I will probably do this since I can't reach the power button with a decent amount of effort.
Turn car key, Nexus 7 comes on and turns on wifi (state -> power any = wifi on). This is mostly because it stopped connecting to my S6 tether unless I toggled wifi off and on. I plan on using airplane-mode but haven't set that up yet since it was not available in Tasker (maybe it is in Secure Settings, I hope).
My S6 turns on wifi hotspot when bluetooth connects to "Alpine CD Receiver". I added an Exit task of "wait 5 seconds, then wifi on" to get wifi to enable again since it wasn't automatically.
The Nexus 7 bases some tasks off of the state = wifi connected to S6 tether. Tasks include turning on bluetooth (I need it to connect to Alpine head-unit AFTER the S6 or else the Alpine goes wonky), setting car mode to ON and going home (Car Home Ultra), launching the speed volume app so my volume fluctuates with speed (I don't want to have to touch the Alpine volume knob), and performs the media key operation of "play" to resume whatever music I had playing.
One difference for me is that I want to still use my phone for talking and don't want to do any texting from the car, so I don't use Tablet Talk. Although...texting via voice commands on the tablet would be handy. I will definitely set that up, so thanks for that idea.
It all works pretty well, but I'm only a day or two into doing all of this so I need to tweak stuff still.
Can anyone explain how automatic exit tasks work, like on my S6 - if it loses BT connection for just a second, wifi hotspot turns off, which then triggers the Nexus to perform a bunch of automatic tasks like exiting car mode, turn off bluetooth thus stopping music, etc. It seems to me like Tasker should show you the tasks it will perform when the State is exited. Sure, you can add exit tasks...does adding an exit task cause it to no longer perform its own invisible/assumed exit tasks? I am still a Tasker newb. In fact, this post clued me into the fact that Tasker has exit tasks, haha. I'd like it if it had some threshold so it wouldn't start doing these exit tasks so quickly. Like, maybe a "wait 5 seconds" exit task to see if the State turns on again. I'll do some reading and testing.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(imgur and google photos links don't work on XDA???)
link
Exit task not running
I was able to get the auto_connect to my hotspot with the waits. :victory: So thank you for the tip. However, I am running into issues of the task running an exit. It just doesn't seem to run when I disconnect from my Bluetooth device. Any ideas?
By the way, I am able to run each individual task and it works
Hey. I'm having a really hard time (5h) now figuring how to trigger the tether or in my phone. My car doesnt habe a bluetooth so i've been trying to trigger the tether with my tablets bluetooth. The problem is that the bluetooth needs to be activates from the settings each time. I tried with bluetooth suto connect addon but couldnt get that work either. I have Samsung s8+ and lenovo tab 4. Someone please help me
since i am such a cheap bastard, i opted not to pay for tasker and ended up doing it with llama and e-robot, except it was for my g2 dedictated to nav duty rather than a nexus 7.
with bt auto connect on the g2and autotether on my main phone (bacon), it is a pretty much a hands free affair as long as i leave bt on on the bacon. presence of charging source and screen on/off are being used as the triggers to toggle airplane mode, bt, gps and the nav app
the only problem is, i get a massive battery drain with this setup. i usually find my phone either fully discharged or almost there when i come back on the next day. did the exact same on my mom's galaxy note 3 and thay one fares much better albeit not great (about -10% overnight). the battery on the g2 was replaced not too long ago. dunno, maybe it is the version of lineageos i am using (14.1 for d802/f320)
Wanna start apps when I'm in my car. When BT is enabled my Profiles work and detect the near devices. If BT is off it seemes Tasker is not scanning for BT at all.
Bug or Feature?
Using latest Tasker on Galaxy S7 edge.
schmil said:
Wanna start apps when I'm in my car. When BT is enabled my Profiles work and detect the near devices. If BT is off it seemes Tasker is not scanning for BT at all.
Bug or Feature?
Using latest Tasker on Galaxy S7 edge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. I'm using RR ROM.
Have you found a solution?
I know this is a year old but I found a bunch of posts like this while looking for the useage of BTNear, so I figured I'd throw it out there for the next guy. It sounds like you didn't select the "Toggle" option. Without it, it will only turn on your Bluetooth the first time and it leaves it on to scan every X amount of seconds. It won't Toggle on, scan for BT device and then toggle off. Would explain why it runs fine at first and then after you turn off Bluetooth when you reach your destination. It either tries to scan with BT off and fails or it breaks the code when BT is mysteriously off and exits. Hope it helps someone.
I recently purchased a new VW car and have been using Android Auto on the built in display. The first time I used it it all worked perfectly, since then it hasn't. My Android Auto no longer gives me notifications when I receive texts. And if they do show up on the home screen and I click the play button to read them, it shows the four dots as if its thinking but nothing happens and I have to cancel out of it.
Additionally, I've noticed that my bluetooth smart lock doesn't seem to be working at all. Every time I connect it asks if I want to add my car to my trusted devices. Each time I say yes but it NEVER seems to save it. It will then later sometimes prompt for permission to read my messages. To this I again say yes but it doesn't seem to make the message issue go away even after I do this. I am not sure if these two issues are related (I'm hoping they are).
Can anyone tell me why the hell my smart lock can't seem to register and remember my car? And why wont android auto read my messages properly? (Pixel XL. Phone calls and navigation all are working properly)
Same issue here
You have to give Android Auto all permissions it asks for at the first start. And be sure to use a very good cable. There are many USB C cables on market which are not fully supporting USB C features and the system do expect them.
I'm in the same situation with my VW Atlas. Problem is with both my Pixel (running Android O) and my wife's Nexus 6p (running Nougat). I have given it all permissions, including some that it didn't ask for. I also have been using the little 4 inch cord that came with the 6p, so the cable or its length should not be an issue. In addition to the above, my car also forgets its bluetooth pairings if I try to connect the AA cable before the bluetooth has connected. I've been learning to do that but sometimes I forget. It's got to be an issue with the VW software.
I have come across these issues myself in a Golf Mk7 both with a Motorola Droid Turbo and now with a Google Pixel 3 XL.
In the case of getting Android Auto to read/send messages where you just get the four dots bouncing up and down and doing nothing else, that's a setting with the Google Assistant app. Go into that app on your phone (the round G icon) and drill into settings and under Voice >> Voice Match, make sure "OK Google" detection is turned on. Even though you might not be actually using it, it has to be turned on for this to work. Totally lame and non-intuitive, but that's what fixed that for me.
As for the car falling out of your Smart Lock and for repeatedly prompting you for permission to access your text messages, I have only had this issue with AA in my VW and not in other cars, so it's a VW-specific issue and something to do with the bluetooth hardware. I do not have a fix for it but the workaround is you must have BT turned on on your phone first and let it connect fully to your car OUTSIDE of AA. Make sure at that point you permit text message access (if prompted) and check your Smart Lock and add your car to it if needed. Then going forward whenever you connect to your car you MUST let BT connect fully first before you plug in and fire up AA. It's unfortunate that you can't just plug in and go w/o waiting for BT first but that's the only way I've gotten this to work without re-prompting me for SMS access permissions and Smart Lock.
Good luck!
Dear all
First post so here goes. Had my 7 plus exactly a week.
Specs as follows:
Model TA 1055
Android 8.1
1st June 2018 Security patch
unrooted but themed with Substratum (Swift Black)
So my phone won't detect either my amazon bluetooth adapter plugged into my bedside radio or my creative bluetooth speakers. My lenovo p2 can find these without issue. Strangely it can connect to my PC's bluetooth which gives a passcode. I've cleared bluetooth cache and still not fixed. Anybody else had bluetooth issues?
TA-1046 here with June patch and I have bluetooth issues as well.
I was not able to connect my Gear S3 smartwatch to my phone, untill I decided to turn off BT and turn it back on again.
Suddenly it worked.
Then I was not able to update my S3 apps from the Samsung App Store, untill I stopped BT and turned it back on again.
It seems to me that there is a BT issues in the June patch.
How it was before, I don't know as I received this phone 2 days ago and it updated automatically to June update.
Sorry for adding more negativity to this forum than assistance.
I am also having similar problem with connecting to my LG sound bar. It picks it up when i search, saves it but does not connect.
BT issues
Well unfortunately I have to say same. BT even can't see any device during scanning. Other devices each between other works. Other devices also see N7+ and can pair with it. Seems like scanning doesn't work for me on N7+.
I tried reset networks, clear BT cache couple of times - didn't changed anything. Still wanna avoid factory reset.
No mods, no root.
I'm bit surprised (in the sad way) by this device :-/
In the meantime BT has worked quite well for a couple of days, untill today.....
I could connect to my Gear S3, but not much later I notice new notifications on my phone but no popup on my watch.
It turned out that BT was not connected anymore.
Manually connected and the same process happens again.
Untill I rebooted my phone. From then on, my watch stayed paired with the phone and didn't loose connection.
speedme said:
In the meantime BT has worked quite well for a couple of days, untill today.....
I could connect to my Gear S3, but not much later I notice new notifications on my phone but no popup on my watch.
It turned out that BT was not connected anymore.
Manually connected and the same process happens again.
Untill I rebooted my phone. From then on, my watch stayed paired with the phone and didn't loose connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I lose the connection to my Gear S3 several times a day.
AlfredENeumann said:
I lose the connection to my Gear S3 several times a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try resetting your Gear S3 to factory defaults and remove BT settings on phone.
(also clear BT cache).
I had to set up my watch a couple of times.
Still it disconnects sometimes, but then a normal reboot of the phone helps to get the connection back.
Submitted this to another thread, but I'll copy paste it here.
I recently got Bluetooth headphones and found that playback easily got choppy if a part of my body was in between my headset and phone, or if the phone got locked. I did find a solution to this however, and not sure if it would work for everyone that has Bluetooth issues as well.
It seems as if Bluetooth has its own app on Android 8.1, and due to this, it's getting managed by Doze or the automatic app power saving that's on by default. I switched off battery management using the following steps:
1. Go to Settings
2. Apps & Notifications
3. Tap on the option that says "See all x apps"
4. Tap on the top right hand 3 dots.
5. Tap on "Show system"
6. Scroll down until you find "Bluetooth" and tap on it
7. Tap on Battery
8. Tap on Battery Optimisation
9. Press the blue dropdown that should say "Not optimised", and select "All apps"
10. Find Bluetooth again, tap on it.
11. Optimise should be ticked, tick "Don't Optimise" instead, then press Done.
My Nokia 7 plus cannot find other Bluetooth devices.
I cleared cache, went to battery optimisation settings, ticked on the Bluetooth icon and selected *"Don't optimise"* turned on my Bluetooth to search for other devices and still this same problem persists. Can't find other Bluetooth devices including phones, tablets and headsets. I'm really confused on why there should be such a problem. I don't want to Reset to Factory settings. But I'm not being left with any other choice. I'm so upset that I have to spend so much and yet other cheap phones can search for other devices so easily.. please I need a solution immediately
When i had my pixel 5, the Bluetooth automatically turned on after a few minutes of driving, i can't find how to do that in pixel 7. Options does not looks to be the same...
How can i do that or what can i use as an alternative?
Android Auto as alternative
That's why i want Bluetooth on, if it's activated android auto will connect directly.
You can probably do it in Tasker, but I am not sure how you would detect you are in the car. Constant GPS checking would be power hungry.
Assuming you have home WiFi, a partial solution would be to turn Bluetooth on when it no longer sees your router. You can even turn it back off when you get home.