Help Smart Actions - Best Practices

SFBayArea · Nov 14, 2011

I have two smart settings that I want to set up on this phone and still can't figure out how.

1. I have a rule to set to the home location based on the GPS input. However, I want the phone to turn on my WiFi once it is determines that I am at home. For some reason the WiFi is grayed out in the rules and I have to turn it up manually every time I am home.

2. Is there a way to set up rule to turn Bluetooth when I am in the car?

Martimus · Nov 14, 2011

SFBayArea said:
I have two smart settings that I want to set up on this phone and still can't figure out how.

1. I have a rule to set to the home location based on the GPS input. However, I want the phone to turn on my WiFi once it is determines that I am at home. For some reason the WiFi is grayed out in the rules and I have to turn it up manually every time I am home.

2. Is there a way to set up rule to turn Bluetooth when I am in the car?

1. Unfortunately I don't believe that it's possible to use GPS to trigger enabling WiFi at this time. If I'm not mistaken Smart Actions currently uses WiFi to do this.

2. Unless Bluetooth is already active I'm not sure what you could use to trigger a connection in your car. It seems to me that a Bluetooth connection with your car is the most logical trigger to indicate that you're actually in your car.

IDEAL41 · Nov 14, 2011

SFBayArea said:
I have two smart settings that I want to set up on this phone and still can't figure out how.

1. I have a rule to set to the home location based on the GPS input. However, I want the phone to turn on my WiFi once it is determines that I am at home. For some reason the WiFi is grayed out in the rules and I have to turn it up manually every time I am home.

Wanting to do the same thing...would like wifi on and phone data off when at home...if gps is enabled all the time then you would think it would be possible to have the wifi switched on when you are at the location specified....but the "wifi" is not available as an option....I am going to try again tonight, making sure I have a clear gps signal and a good wifi signal.

jmt9779 · Nov 14, 2011

guys, i'm really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this. i'm looking to increase battery life by using wifi at home and killing off cell data and maybe throwing in another random action or two. it seems like time constraints and wifi hotspot connections are the two best triggers to use but:

time constraints don't work for me because my schedule varies day-to-day, so having wifi turn on and having cell data turn off every night at 8:00 could be convenient for when i'm home, but would suck if i'm out somewhere. and leaving wifi on all the time and using a connection to a wifi spot as the trigger doesn't make sense either because having wifi on all the time would just kill the battery even more.

unfortunately i think it's just more convenient and saves the most battery for me to just do it all manually, like we all used to do with our previous phones, which sucks (for me) because even though my battery is what i expected with this phone, it's tough getting used to charging a brand new phone twice per day.

can someone answer me this: is it possible to use smartactions in a way it wasn't really intended?...like, setting up a "home" and "not home" profile and just trigger all the actions manually?...like, open the smartactions app and turn the profile on?

(also, overnight, when you guys all put the phone on a the charger, why bother having anything turn off if the phone has constant juice flowing?)

thanks!

Martimus · Nov 14, 2011

jmt9779 said:
guys, i'm really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this. i'm looking to increase battery life by using wifi at home and killing off cell data and maybe throwing in another random action or two. it seems like time constraints and wifi hotspot connections are the two best triggers to use but:

time constraints don't work for me because my schedule varies day-to-day, so having wifi turn on and having cell data turn off every night at 8:00 could be convenient for when i'm home, but would suck if i'm out somewhere. and leaving wifi on all the time and using a connection to a wifi spot as the trigger doesn't make sense either because having wifi on all the time would just kill the battery even more.

unfortunately i think it's just more convenient and saves the most battery for me to just do it all manually, like we all used to do with our previous phones, which sucks (for me) because even though my battery is what i expected with this phone, it's tough getting used to charging a brand new phone twice per day.

can someone answer me this: is it possible to use smartactions in a way it wasn't really intended?...like, setting up a "home" and "not home" profile and just trigger all the actions manually?...like, open the smartactions app and turn the profile on?

(also, overnight, when you guys all put the phone on a the charger, why bother having anything turn off if the phone has constant juice flowing?)

thanks!

It's possible... if I'm not mistaken simply don't include a trigger in the profiles that you create. They should then become manually triggered profiles that you enable by clicking on them in the Smart Actions app.

Another way you may be able to do this is to simply leave WiFi on all of the time and then set a trigger of when your phone connects to your home AP... no time limits would even need to be defined.

jmt9779 · Nov 14, 2011

Martimus said:
It's possible... if I'm not mistaken simply don't include a trigger in the profiles that you create. They should then become manually triggered profiles that you enable by clicking on them in the Smart Actions app.

Another way you may be able to do this is to simply leave WiFi on all of the time and then set a trigger of when your phone connects to your home AP... no time limits would even need to be defined.

pretty good. gonna give it a shot.

the problem with leaving wifi on all the time is that it's an extra drain on the battery throughout the day, so i was thinking of possibly using the wifi connection to my home network to be the trigger, and then just toggling on my the wifi radio on the phone when i walk in my front door, so it connects to my network, then the other actions kick on.

at this point, i'm overthinking it. gonna go tinker

steakneggs · Nov 14, 2011

I can't find or understand why there is no trigger for the car dock or multimedia dock??!??!?

I would like to disable GPS unless my phone is in it's dock and unfortunately BT isn't an option..

jmt9779 · Nov 14, 2011

steakneggs said:
I can't find or understand why there is no trigger for the car dock or multimedia dock??!??!?

I would like to disable GPS unless my phone is in it's dock and unfortunately BT isn't an option..

you could always do something similar to what i'm doing with wifi (see my above posts), where the trigger is somewhat manual... mine is turning on a wifi toggle, whereas yours could be toggling on GPS.

what i mean is: get in your car, toggle on GPS (that's your trigger) and your actions can be to launch navigation or maps, change your ringer, etc. so you'd have one tap (maybe two, since GPS widgets only take you to that setting and you have to tap it on from there) before you drop the phone in your car dock.

just a thought.

dmaxfan · Nov 14, 2011

For you guys worried about leaving wifi on, download wifi on off from the store. Its a pretty good widget.

budwizer · Nov 14, 2011

dmaxfan said:
For you guys worried about leaving wifi on, download wifi on off from the store. Its a pretty good widget.

Or you could use either of the native ones "Toggle: WiFi" or "Toggle: Power Control" widgets that come baked in the phone. I'm actually using an app called Quicker that you envoke from the notification bar.

Picarddh · Nov 14, 2011

OK here is how I set up my car dock Smart Action:

Triggers : Time (Used all except night every day)
Charging (Any)

Actions: Brightness 100%
Volume 100%
GPS On
Bluetooth On

I have to keep Wifi on because I have a trigger for my home network but if that doesnt apply to you set a rule for Wifi to be off. As soon as I am away from my network, have the phone in the car dock charging this will trigger and my GPS will turn on. Hope this helps!!!!!

cereal killer · Nov 14, 2011

jmt9779 said:
guys, i'm really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this. i'm looking to increase battery life by using wifi at home and killing off cell data and maybe throwing in another random action or two. it seems like time constraints and wifi hotspot connections are the two best triggers to use but:

time constraints don't work for me because my schedule varies day-to-day, so having wifi turn on and having cell data turn off every night at 8:00 could be convenient for when i'm home, but would suck if i'm out somewhere. and leaving wifi on all the time and using a connection to a wifi spot as the trigger doesn't make sense either because having wifi on all the time would just kill the battery even more.

unfortunately i think it's just more convenient and saves the most battery for me to just do it all manually, like we all used to do with our previous phones, which sucks (for me) because even though my battery is what i expected with this phone, it's tough getting used to charging a brand new phone twice per day.

can someone answer me this: is it possible to use smartactions in a way it wasn't really intended?...like, setting up a "home" and "not home" profile and just trigger all the actions manually?...like, open the smartactions app and turn the profile on?

(also, overnight, when you guys all put the phone on a the charger, why bother having anything turn off if the phone has constant juice flowing?)

thanks!

Yes and this is how to do it. These times will only be an example.Set up a smart action trigger by time. Lets say 8:00pm -10pm and have the action be turn on wifi and shut down data. Name that smart action home. Now when you are looking at the smart action take the trigger and slide it left. That will make it so that you have to manually enforce it. You will see on the main smart action screen the "home" smart action must be touched to trigger that action. Set up the rest of your profiles that way and you are good to go.

Just know that once you touch it after you are done using it you will have to disengage it again to get it be a manual action.

Good luck!

cmatthaios · Nov 15, 2011

The way I got everything to work depended on my schedule. Since I have a consistent week, its easier using time triggers.

I have triggers for times I am sleeping, commute to work, work, commute to home, and then home evenings. This is all M-F. Saturday Sunday I don't have triggers since its never the same.

milkshed27 · Nov 15, 2011

Wasn't there supposed to be a Smart Actions setting to reduce the speed of the processor? Sanjay mentioned it at the Razr announcement. I've looked through the actions but I can't seem to find anything related to the processor.

He starts talking about Smart Actions at about 22:30 and he mentions reducing the speed of the processor at 23:00.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GJw2sYycyM

SFBayArea · Nov 15, 2011

Ok, little by little, more and more I am getting disappointed with these so called "smart actions". Why would I want to keep WiFi always on, ITS A BATTERY DRAINER, same thing goes for the bluetooth. I believe there are software on the market that were released at least two years ago that would turn on BlueTooth if you are moving faster than 15 miles an hour. Same thing goes for the WiFi, why GPS trigger of being at home or at work does not allow WiFi to be turned on automatically. I mean if I need to turn on and off all these services manually through power widget, then why the heck do I need "smart action"? A simple free software like "timeriffic" will do most if not all of the actions smart actions do.

pm1066 · Nov 15, 2011

There's a "yeah but" in here...for example, how does your phone know it is going 15 mph or faster? GPS being on and locked is the only way. There is no magic involved here. I'd be interested to know what specific, single app you have found that does everyhting SA can do.

Smart actions works very well in cases where you can use a time trigger, like people who do the same work routine every day. It also will do the location based stuff, which works well for people who have that stuff on. At worst, you can set up the actions to do a bunch of power saving stuff manually for actions you don't do on a schedule. I have a workout setup that triggers when I have headphones in, but I can also manually disable it from automatically starting (slide the trigger to the right) on days when I want to listen to music but don't want all the power saving features I have set up. I also have set up a manula trigger that simply turns on GPS and Maps when I hit the button, which is a time saver if nothing else.

One area this app could really be improved is it needs a quick access widget. I do agree they need to refine the triggers better too--some of them in practical use don't make as much sense as the Moto boys probably thought.

Agrajag · Nov 15, 2011

I find this app a bit frustrating from a standpoint of potential. For example, imagine the ability to have it use text-to-speech (which is built-in). Imagine having it work with an alarm and the alarm trigger says, "If it's a morning alarm then when the alarm is turned off use TTS to say, "Good morning Rich. It's currently 58 degrees and rainy clearing up later this afternoon. The top news story this morning is....."

I'd love to have it welcome me home when I get there. People would freak out, etc. I have things I forget when I go places so to set a trigger from the calendar and have it say, "Don't forget to ask the doctor about...." (based on the address).

The options are endless here. Why does this app not exist?

SFBayArea · Nov 16, 2011

Ok, guys after playing with different settings on this so called "smart actions" I called quits. The smart action was always needed me to turn on WiFi manualy to recognize GPS location of my house or my work and if for some reason it got a glitch and WiFi turned off I would get a loud ring at work when I want it to be on vibration. I dowloaded Timeriffic - free software from the market and it does everything smart action plus it will allow you to turn on and off WiFi depending on the time. I only decided to keep one setting in smart action - battery saver where everything shuts down when I shut my screen. Seems to be working well now.
However, I think Motorola could've make a much better application out of this smart action.

Agrajag · Nov 16, 2011

Of Timeriffic does everything Smart Actions does then why are you still using it for Battery Saver?

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm asking for details as these two comments seem in conflict. I too am disappointed with Smart Actions and feel there should be something better.

pm1066 · Nov 16, 2011

As importantly, how is battery life on timeriffic? Or is it more for convenience than battery saving?

Martimus · Nov 16, 2011

The one challenge I see with Timerific is that it is time based. To me I simply cannot do things in a time-based environment. I need triggers based on actions and locations. I think if I were to choose an app to replace Smart Actions on my phone, I'd likely upgrade to Tasker. Tasker is a very flexible... it's also very complex. But it should also support enabling/disabling wireless which Smart Actions simply won't do at this time.

One of these days I may invest the $6 in Tasker but, for the moment, Smart Actions works OK for me. For a version 1 app, Smart Actions does a pretty decent job!

Agrajag · Nov 16, 2011

Timeriffic is dead for me too due to the constraint of just working with Time. No way to do things like go into vibrate when I'm at the movie theater, etc.

jmt9779 · Nov 16, 2011

SFBayArea said:
Ok, guys after playing with different settings on this so called "smart actions" I called quits. The smart action was always needed me to turn on WiFi manualy to recognize GPS location of my house or my work and if for some reason it got a glitch and WiFi turned off I would get a loud ring at work when I want it to be on vibration. I dowloaded Timeriffic - free software from the market and it does everything smart action plus it will allow you to turn on and off WiFi depending on the time. I only decided to keep one setting in smart action - battery saver where everything shuts down when I shut my screen. Seems to be working well now.
However, I think Motorola could've make a much better application out of this smart action.

just curious, but why would you want to do this? (the bolded part.) how would you ever know if you got an email or a text or anything? i must be misunderstanding how this works...

SFBayArea · Nov 16, 2011

Agrajag said:
Of Timeriffic does everything Smart Actions does then why are you still using it for Battery Saver?

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm asking for details as these two comments seem in conflict. I too am disappointed with Smart Actions and feel there should be something better.

Well, timeriffic does almost everything

. For instance as many of the rules settings noted in this thread are based on the time Timerrifc will do better, at least in my experience. If you need to use WiFi as the rule for the smart action you can use timeriffic to turn it on and off at the times you think you will be at your home or work and than use smart rules to take the rest.

Szadzik · Nov 16, 2011

SFBayArea said:
Well, timeriffic does almost everything . For instance as many of the rules settings noted in this thread are based on the time Timerrifc will do better, at least in my experience. If you need to use WiFi as the rule for the smart action you can use timeriffic to turn it on and off at the times you think you will be at your home or work and than use smart rules to take the rest.

What if your shifts at work are totally irregular? Timeriffic will not work, will it?

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