Android: Tasker Support

[MarkAdamson]

Many Android apps include support for Tasker, a phone automation app which supports third-party plugins, allowing events on the phone to trigger actions in the app.

This seems like a natural fit for the Home Assistant companion app. It would allow Tasker users to call services, render templates, and get entity states directly within Tasker automations. The classic example is being able to mute/pause media players when receiving a phone call.

I currently maintain the standalone Home Assistant Plug-In for Tasker, but I would love to merge the functionality with the official Home Assistant app, allowing me to reduce the number of Home Assistant apps I have on my phone.

[JBassett]

Duplicate of https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant-android/issues/58

We currently consider this out of scope for the application since there is already a good solution.

[MarkAdamson]

That's disappointing :(

Would you perhaps reconsider? For a number of reasons:

• As I mentioned previously, many apps offer Tasker integration as a feature - power users (I think the core audience of Home Assistant) expect and appreciate this kind of integration.
• Again, I feel the functionality it would offer is a natural fit for Home Assistant. Anyone who uses both HA and Tasker will almost certainly want to use them together. Anyone who uses HA but _not_ Tasker will be completely unaffected.
• There are already good solutions available for push notifications and location tracking - this wasn't seen as a reason not to offer them in the official app.
• I (and I'm sure others) would appreciate not having to have _one more_ Home Assistant app installed on my phone. I'd also appreciate not having to configure server connection details in two separate apps.
• As a lone developer, the existing solution simply doesn't have the reach and visibility of the official app. It's been out 6 months and I _still_ see people asking how to integrate Tasker/HA, or following complicated guides and handcrafting tricky API calls.
• As the creator of the existing solution, I'd be happy to integrate it into the official app myself - adding value at very little cost to yourselves.

Thanks for the compliment on my project though, it's much appreciated. Of course, I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant :)

[JBassett]

I was a little quick to close this issue. If you are willing to add the functionality we will be more than willing to accept the PR into the application. We could always use another contributor to the app!

[MarkAdamson]

Great news, thanks for reconsidering :)

I'd be more than happy to do it. I'll let you know when I have something!

[balloob]

Feel free to join us in #devs_mobile on Discord !

[MarkAdamson]

Thanks, I will - I expect I'll have a few questions as I get started!

[scottismyname]

Really glad to see this. Tasker support would be amazing!

[heytcass]

I just wanted to come and voice additional support for this being integrated. I would love to be able to use additional Tasker functionality through HA without having to configure in multiple places. This would solve an issue I've been trying to solve with MQTT immediately.

[fernandex00]

Really glad to see this

[BCNelson]

I'm really glad to see this. One think that I think you be extremely valuable is to add the ability to send "hidden" push notifications from the server into Tasker so that polling is not required. Enforcing all of the same limits that are currently on visible notifications.

This is currently possible with Tasker but a little hacky as it requires a visual interruption to and parsing the notification.

[stainlessray]

I #cosign this request. godspeed to all who help. Please feel free to reach out for testers. I would love to test and feedback to contribute.

[robbiet480]

Hey @MarkAdamson, just checking in on progress. Feel free to join us in #devs_apps on Discord if you have questions.

[BCNelson]

With the new Tasker release 5.10 we can use Taker Commands to communicate with tasker rather than building a full integration.