Tasker Battery Drain (posts moved from WC presence thread by admin)

#1

Oh, I’m aware.

I’ve since moved on. Although a bit more complex, Tasker + Sharptools has been amazing.

[Install Instructions] webCoRE Presence Sensor on your Android (beta)
#2

You were able to keep tasker from draining your batter in 3 hours? How did you do this? I tried tasker for a week and I could never keep my phone running for more than 4 hours without the battery draining completely.

#3

I have dozens of profiles in Tasker, and typically, Tasker uses about 1% of my battery. It sounds like you had something programmed too frequently. (For example, by default, ‘location’ and ‘WiFi near’ are checked every 10 minutes if the screen is off. This can be changed and forced to be checked anytime, but GPS and WiFi drain a lot of battery. This is not Tasker’s fault though, since it is using the antennas built in to your phone)

You can ‘layer’ the code in Tasker so the checks that use no battery are checked first (near a certain cell tower, for example), and only if they are true, does the higher battery usage (like GPS) get used. This keeps your location accurate with little to no noticable battery drain.

#4

I just don’t like the whole “profile” thing. I want events to happen when I come home. It shouldn’t then re-do those things over and over and over and over again while I’m home. And tasker did that. I tried disabling profiles when one hit and then re-enabling others at different times. I finally gave up and went back to AutomateIt. I just like it a lot better and it seems much more logical. Not as many plugins as tasker but it also doesn’t kill my battery in 3 hours.

#5

All the issues you mentioned are rookie mistakes… I made them myself numerous times… but there are easy solutions for each. If you think about it, every form of presence sensors has to find a balance between speed, battery life, and false alarms. Each time one is adjusted, the other two shift as well. (for better or worse)

To be really fair, if you look at all the advanced presence sensors pistons here, you will usually see some type of capture/store/recheck to help with the false alarms. It is the same concept with Tasker. (I admit though, the learning curve is a bit steep)

#6

If you follow this, you won’t have that issue.

#7

Thanks…but I hadn’t even gotten to setting up Tasker to do my presence detection yet. I was only using it for other things such as setting wifi on and off, setting my sound profile, etc. And just doing that it was draining dead in 4 hours. So, I guess I’m doing something wrong but I can’t seem to find any simple information on how to not get it to do that. And for a paid app, that is VERY disappointing.

#8

I wasn’t using it for presence detection. And quite frankly, if I’m going to pay for an app I shouldn’t have to figure it out. If these are such rookie mistakes, then how do you fix them? I don’t have the luxury of learning and dealing with a dead phone after 4 hours when my phone is my business. And quite frankly, I find your response rather insulting.

#9

I apologize if you felt insulted. I was only trying to be helpful and share some things that happen to all new users of Tasker. It is, without doubt, the most complex Android app I have ever seen or used. Honestly, I will never use Android without Tasker, but because of the complexity, it is very rare that I recommend that app to others. It takes a certain type of person to really get the most out of it.

And to show good will, if you ever do decide to try it again, I will gladly help you with any issues you have along the way. The ownership of the app changed a couple of months back, so maybe it will be more user friendly in the future.

#10

I hate to sound like a **** as well, but Tasker is a powerful tool. If you want to, you can use it to set your brightness to 100% and screen timeout to 24 hours. If you do that, you can’t blame the tool. Somehow, you did something similar.

If you want to travel down the road of Tasker, then the thread I linked is probably a great crash course. Do nothing but the profiles mentioned and you’ll find that the battery hit is pretty much non-existent. Then branch out from there in your journey.

#11

Yeah, cause I’m a complete moron. Jesus guys, give me a little credit here. I mean really, how insulting can you be to someone you don’t even know.

#12

Keep things civil please guys… I’ve stared out the flagged word above though the post itself is harmless, actually, it’s trying to be helpful.

#13

Respectfully, I disagree.

#14

I have no idea what your technical level is. You could Linus Torvalds, my grandmother, or somewhere in between. I thought I gave a perfectly good example of how using Tasker exactly as designed can quickly drain your battery. It really doesn’t matter though, as it’s getting a bit offtopic.

The answer is that Tasker works for this (and thousands of other things) and works pretty darn well. The thread I posted is full of people who have used it successfully, including myself.

Your choice my friend.

#15

Actually, the thread is for the WebCore presence sensor. And I’m not the only one that seems to have this problem since you agree that it happens. Personally, I cannot take the time to experiment to get my phone to stay on for more than 4 hours. I work on the road and away from AC for most of the day and my phone is all I have. Personally, for the amount I’ve paid for the app and other plugins, there should be a clearer set of instructions. I’ve gotten better support for free software than Tasker.

#16

@flyize @Ryan780 @WCmore

Moved the above posts to this new thread to keep subjects separated.

#17

@Ryan780’s questions seem to be more of a general Tasker support issue though, or am I totally missing something? If it’s related to SharpTools + Tasker, the guys in that thread are more than willing to help, including (one of?) the SharpTools devs.

edit: Or @Ryan780, maybe just install Tasker and NO profiles. Let it run for a couple of days, and see what happens.