Tasker is a powerful application, and now with Google Home, you can combine them both and create some incredible automation. Here are two methods that you can use Tasker via Google Home.
Method One. Send commands using AutoVoice
For the first method, you can use AutoVoice, which is a very popular plugin for Tasker. If you never used it before, you can download it from the Google Play Store.
After you download the plugin, you need to link AutoVoice to Google Home so open the Home app. Tap on the Menu icon and then Explore. Search for AutoVoice, then tap on Link and select your Google account. Now, whenever you want to use AutoVoice via Google Home, just say OK Google, plus Ask AutoVoice or Let me talk to AutoVoice and then the command that you would like to send to Tasker.
OK Google + Ask AutoVoice + Command
Now, the next step is to create a Profile in Tasker that will recognize the command sent from Google Home and execute a specific task. Here is an example profile so you can have a better understanding of how to do it.
Let’s create a profile to turn WiFi on and Bluetooth off when we are home and the opposite when we are not home.
Open Tasker on your device. Press the “+” icon to create a new profile. Tap on Event, Plugin, AutoVoice and select Recognized. Here you need to configure Autovoice with the phrase that you are going to use via Google Home. So, tap on The Hard Way and then tap on Command Filter. Then, type “change phone status to (?<status>.+)”. The end part of the phrase is going to create a variable called “status.” Now, anytime you say the phrase, Change phone status to, either Home or Not Home. It will enter the words Home or Not Home in the “status” variable. Last, you need to select Use Regex, and you can back out to create the Task that will execute the actions.
For this Task, use the If condition. So, tap the “+” icon, Task and select If. Search and select the variable AutoVoice recognized: First “status” (%status) which is the variable just created. Then, set the value to home. Then, add the actions to turn WiFi on, Bluetooth off and also a flash notification to let you know when this condition gets triggered. Then, use Else If to trigger the opposite actions for when not at home. To make it easy, you can copy the options above and change the values.
OK, so the profile is now completed. To save the changes, you can back out entirely from Tasker, or you can also tap the checkmark icon in the top right corner in Tasker.
AutoVoice also has an advanced feature that uses Natural language from Dialogflow formerly known as api.ai. With Dialogflow you can create a better conversation system where you can set up multiple phrases to trigger a specific action, and you can also customize the response that you get back from AutoVoice via a Google Home. I am not going to be covering this feature in this article, but I did make a tutorial video a while back when it was still in beta. You can check it out here.
If you guys would like to see an updated Natural Language tutorial, Let me know via social media or you can also comment on the above video.
Method Two. Send commands using IFTTT and the Join app.
The second method that you can use to send commands to Tasker is by using IFTTT and the Join app. I preferred to use this way better because 1, I do not have to ask Google to call a service like AutoVoice, 2, I can also set up multiple phrases to trigger a command and 3, I can customize the Google Home response.
To set up the previous profile using this method, you can use the following steps.
The first thing that you want to do is go to IFTTT and create a new Applet. Click on This and search for Google Assistant. Now, select Say a phrase with a text ingredient. Here you can enter multiple phrases that can trigger this command. For this example, type change phone status to $. The “$” Dollar symbol works like a variable which means that when you say Change phone status to Home or Not Home, it will replace the “$” Dollar symbol with the words Home or Not Home. Now, for the response, you can enter Sure setting phone to $ mode. Using the “$” Dollar symbol here as well, will enter Home or Not Home as part of the Google assistant response.
Click on Create Trigger and then select That. Search and select Webhooks. Then select Make a web request. Before you continue, you need to get the Join API link. So go to:
https://joinjoaomgcd.appspot.com
Here select your mobile device and then click on Join API. To get the API URL, click on Show Next to API key. Now, in the Text field, type status=:=value. Copy the URL and go back to the IFTTT website. Paste the link into the URL field. Then you need to replace the word value with a Text Field Ingredient, and you need to surround the text with <<<>>>. The whole Text Field Ingredient would look like this:
<<<{{TextField}}>>>
Moreover, the entire URL should look somewhat like this:
https://joinjoaomgcd.appspot.com/_ah/api/messaging/v1/sendPush?text=status%3D%3A%3D<<<{{TextField}}>>>&deviceId=YOUR_DEVICE_ID&apikey=YOUR_API_KEY
Now, this is very important, for some reason a space is entered at the beginning of the Text Field ingredient so you will need to remove it to avoid issues with the Tasker profile so, put the cursor at the beginning of the Text Field Ingredient and press the backspace. Last, click on Create Action and then Finish.
Next, create the Tasker profile that will recognize this commands so open Tasker. Press the “+” icon to create a new profile. Tap on Event, Plugin and then Join. Now tap on Text and then under Text Filter, type the same information that you entered for the Join API Text field (status=:=). Now, go into Variable Names and set up a new variable called status. Now, back out and create the Task.
You can use the same steps followed on the task for the first method above. The only difference is that for the IF condition, you would search and select the option Join Received Push: status (%status). which is the variable we just created for this Join profile. Everything else pretty much stays the same.
OK, so the profile is now completed. To save the changes, you can back out entirely from Tasker, or you can also tap the checkmark icon in the top right corner in Tasker.
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