After a lot of troubleshooting, a rom reinstallation and a couple of workarounds, I can now finally start Tasker tasks, from my Gear 2 Neo, on my Galaxy S3, which in turn can control almost anything on the phone itself, my laptops or other devices! 🙂
- An example regarding other Tasker possibilities: AutoRemote with AutoVoice Demo
(althrought I’m not into voice automation and this tutorial will not cover it, for now)
Before this, I was only able to send notifications from Tasker to the Gear 2, which is also cool but controlling your smartphone with your smartwatch gives you endless possibilities!
Back to the tutorial. There are two ways to get this working:
- On Samsung devices with a stock rom (currently 17 devices)
Samsung Galaxy S5 / Galaxy Grand 2 / Galaxy Note 3 / Galaxy Note 3 Neo / Galaxy Note 2 / Galaxy S4 / Galaxy S3 / Galaxy S4 Zoom / Galaxy S4 Active / Galaxy S4 mini / Galaxy Mega 6.3 / Galaxy Mega 5.8 / Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) / Galaxy NotePRO (12.2) / Galaxy TabPRO (12.2/10.1/8.4) - On Non-Samsung devices OR Samsung devices with a custom rom
Follow this guide on xda first, to get your Android phone to work with the Gear 2.
WARNING: I’m not responsible if you brick your phone! Read the xda guide carefully!
Regarding point 1: I can’t really help with this, as I have a Galaxy S3 with a custom rom installed (SlimROM 4.4.4) and I had to follow the xda guide from point 2. for it, but it should work out of the box and even easier. Just make sure you have Gear Manager installed from the Samsung app store and then go to the steps further below.
Regarding point 2: after following the xda guide from the link above and connecting your Gear 2 to the phone, you also need to be able to receive notifications and also install apps from the GALAXY Apps store correctly, not only the stand-alone apps but also those that install on the phone too! This usually gave the “Installation Failed. Try Later.(0)“ error, until yesterday, but thanks to a discovery from @drakenjin on xda, and my install tips, you should be able to fix these errors like this:
After installing everything and have OP’s version of samsung apps, even if you go to Settings -> Apps -> GALAXY Apps to disable it, you will see there are only two buttons: Force stop and Disable. Clicking on Disable just disabled it and no popup for factory reset of the app appeared.
Then I opened samsung apps and I was prompted to update, so I did. After updating, the version was 14070105.01.021.1 and now, after going again to Settings -> Apps -> GALAXY Apps, you will see three buttons: Force stop, Uninstall and Disable. Clicking on Disable now opened the popup to reset the app to it’s factory settings. Reset it and follow @drakenjin’s post and click Phone here to download and install the new GALAXY Apps store on your phone.
After this I had version 14070905.01.025.1, even if I’ve updated before disabling.
If everything goes well, you should be able to install anything from Samsung’s app store, to the Gear 2 and phone, especially the free launcher that we need for everything to work. 🙂
Now to the actual “hack”: Tasker + App Factory Plugin + LaunchGear!
Assuming you went through either 1. or 2. successfully and you have installed GALAXY Apps, Gear Manager and connected to your Gear 2, follow the next steps:
- Install Tasker from the Play Store, if you don’t have it already
(it’s not free but it’s worth every penny) - Install Tasker App Factory from the Play Store
(a free Tasker plugin to create separate apps that link to it) - Gear Manager -> Samsung Apps -> Search and install LaunchGear
(this one is free, thanks to Heedeok Lee)
Tasker App Factory is the actual workaround here, as LaunchGear supports only apps but not shortcuts to Tasker tasks (for now). With the App Factory you can export tasks from Tasker as separate applications which LaunchGear can then execute. (see example below)
Until I’ve reinstalled SlimROM, I always had problems with App Factory apps force-closing on me (“Unfortunately, … has stopped.“) but now with Tasker v4.4 (final) and the latest App Factory, it finally works perfectly! Not sure what got fixed for that, the rom or the apps.
Example: Gear 2 -> Phone -> back to Gear 2 again, with a notification!
- Open Tasker -> Tasks
- Create a new task and name it whatever you want, e.g. “Phone Battery Level”
- Add a new sub-task with + -> Select Alert -> Notify
- Title: Phone battery level: %BATT%
- Back.
- Add a new sub-task with + -> Select Alert -> Notify Cancel
- Title: nothing/nix/nada (leave it empty)
(so Tasker clears the notification on the phone after it appears)
- Title: nothing/nix/nada (leave it empty)
- Back.
- Important: Add an application icon using the button on the bottom-right.
(this it the icon that will display on the gear) - Go back to the main page of Tasker and click and hold “Phone Battery Level”
- Click the button on the top-right -> Export -> As app.
- Wait for it to finish -> click the robot on the bottom-right of the popup and install.
(test it by running “Phone Battery Level”. You should get the notification only on the phone) - Gear Manager -> Notifications -> check “Phone Battery Level”.
(if you don’t see the application list at the bottom, follow the steps from here) - (on the phone) Run LaunchGear, which should be installed through GALAXY Apps.
- In LaunchGear, click + and add your “Phone Battery Level” app and confirm.
- Run LaunchGear and then the app, to see your phone’s battery level on your watch! 🙂
(if your LaunchGear is black, close all recent apps on the Gear. I have it set on double-pressing the Gear main button. Hopefully Heedeok Lee will fix this issue)
And these are pretty much the basics. Not to mention what other complex apps could be created! Have fun and thanks go to @CarbonWyre, @drakenjin, Heedeok Lee, and other users from the XDA thread mentioned above.
For more information, check out my XDA thread on for this tutorial, but I plan on updating this post with more tips and tricks!
More apps:
TIPS and TRICKS:
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When you want icons that are not built into tasker, just install an application with the desired icon from the Play store. Then select that application’s icon at step 8. in the above example and export the app. After you installed the tasker app with the desired icon, you can uninstall the application from which you’ve “stolen” the icon 🙂
More to follow!
UPDATES:
- 20.07.2014 – XDA forum version of this tutorial got featured in a XDA front page post:
(Use Your Samsung Gear 2 to Control Tasker) - 21.07.2014 – XDA forum version of this tutorial got featured on XDA developers TV:
(HTC One Mini Gets Sense 6, Control Tasker with Samsung Gear 2) - 23.07.2014 – removed the Ns Auto Clear app from tips and tricks and added the additional step to the example app (step 5.), so Tasker will clear the notifications automatically.
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