Automate vs. Tasker?

[Wern-Yuen Tan]

This looks like a really cool app ... have been a long-time Tasker user, can someone explain what the key differences / benefits Automate offers vs. Tasker?

[Automate developer]

As the developer I'am biased. And i haven't used Tasker that much, as i couldn't get my head around the wierd, non-standard UI.

But a big difference is that you can dynamically create "triggers" (profiles) with "input arguments" at run-time. I don't think that's possible with Tasker?
Multi-tasking is another, you can use the Fork block to spawn of an unlimited number of sub-tasks.

Tasker may currently have a few more actions (blocks), but i'll be adding more as feature requests come in, and i get the time to make 'em.

I'd like to hear your opinion! Unless you're rabid Tasker fanboy. ;)

Getting feedback is the reason for the open Beta.

[Wern-Yuen Tan]

Thanks for the quick reply ... to be honest I haven't started using Automate, but have developed a lot of Tasker profiles through the years so wanted understand the benefits / trade-offs before making the jump to a new platform

Automate does look a lot more flexible, with more intuitive UI. On dynamic triggers, I believe Tasker can do this through Profile controls, Variables, and If/Else statements, though not very elegantly

One question I have is on battery efficiency ... which is quite important to users with a lot of concurrently running profiles (>50). What sort of "fixed cost" RAM does Automate require, how do "variable cost" RAM scale with the number of profiles one has turned on simultaneously? When looking up triggers, does Automate ride on existing system wakelocks, or does it generate its own?

Will take a spin on Automate this weekend and give it a try!

On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Automate developer <henrik.l...@gmail.com> wrote:

As the developer I'am biased, and haven't used Tasker much, i couldn't get my head around the wierd, non-standard UI of Tasker.

But a big difference is that you can dynamically create "triggers" (profiles)  with "input arguments" at run-time.

I don't think that's possible with Tasker?

Multi-tasking is another, you can use the Fork block to spawn of an unlimited number of sub-tasks.

Tasker may currently have a few more actions (blocks), but i'll be adding more as feature requests come in, and i get the time to make 'em.

I'd like to hear your opinion! Unless you're rabid Tasker fanboy. ;)

Getting feedback is the reason for the open Beta.


On Friday, October 31, 2014 4:05:37 AM UTC+1, Wern-Yuen Tan wrote:

This looks like a really cool app ... have been a long-time Tasker user, can someone explain what the key differences / benefits Automate offers vs. Tasker?

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[Viggo Jorgen]

Well, I'm Tasker user from almost it's beginning and Automate form first alpha.

Main difference I notice between them ist that Tasker tries cover all user needs, by giving them action for literally everything. Against popular opinion, Tasker isn't very complicated, thre's almost no programming involved. It's just like playing with Legos - all you need to do is knowing what you want to build, and do so using prefabricated blocks.

Automate is more sophisticated, it gives you basic elements but you need to tell them what they have to do. It requires from users "programmer approach" to achieve what they want. That makes Automate very flexible and advanced but also sometimes more complicated tool than Tasker... for example my battle with flow silencing ringtones under specific circumstances. After help from dev it finally worked, but I was amazed how much work and thinking was needed for something what in Tasker can be done in like two minutes.

Still I've got hard time figuring all out, but I believe that reason behind this is fact that I've never ever have anything to do with programming...

In comparision to Tasker, Automate integrates more tools, which in Tasker are only available as plugins (and not all of them), for example Google Drive access.

Next thing better done in Automate is interacting with user - all dialogs and popups are created automatically with native Android look.

In Tasker we have got scenes. Powerful? Yes. But creating them is horrible, unintuitive experience.

I didn't noticed any significant differences in RAM/battery usage.

Having in mind fact that Automate is still in beta (sometimes little bumpy here and there), I believe it's safe to say that it will be best automation app available.

[Automate developer]

Automate shouldn't use any more battery than Tasker, it's all event based.

RAM should be an issue either since everything, both running flows and fibers (variables), are stored in a database on internal storage and are only loaded into memory when they're actually executing code, and not while waiting for an event.

A wake-lock is only held during code execution, so disk writes etc, don't get interrupted.

On Friday, October 31, 2014 9:04:34 AM UTC+1, Wern-Yuen Tan wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply ... to be honest I haven't started using Automate, but have developed a lot of Tasker profiles through the years so wanted understand the benefits / trade-offs before making the jump to a new platform

Automate does look a lot more flexible, with more intuitive UI. On dynamic triggers, I believe Tasker can do this through Profile controls, Variables, and If/Else statements, though not very elegantly

One question I have is on battery efficiency ... which is quite important to users with a lot of concurrently running profiles (>50). What sort of "fixed cost" RAM does Automate require, how do "variable cost" RAM scale with the number of profiles one has turned on simultaneously? When looking up triggers, does Automate ride on existing system wakelocks, or does it generate its own?

Will take a spin on Automate this weekend and give it a try!

[Takashi SASAKI]

AFAIK from my observation Automate has less RAM footprint than Tasker.

[tea.cl...@gmail.com]

I know this post is years old but your explanation about the differences between Tasker and Automate is the best I've found. I think I will try the Tasker trial but, having used Automate for a while, I think that's where my £2.99 will go.

[bigblue...@gmail.com]

Q: Google Assistant showed me some plugging or app options, one of them was "auto voice" but it requires Tasker as AV is a plugin. Upon finding Tasker I felt tricked because Tasker cost money whereas the plug-in is free... so then I found automate which is free and although not as advanced probably great for a novice who wants free, would that be correct logic?

I also noticed Tasker had a lot of same Dev. plug-in options and neat tools. Does Automate or other free tasker's have similar also free tools?

Thanks!

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Few of the Auto* plug-ins are free.

Automate is just as advanced as Tasker, if not more.

Automate support the same plug-ins as Tasker, but they're seldom needed since Automate has much more features built in.