Android Wear - Control and monitor your Vera (now with live Wear demo)

Community Playground General Discussions
1

With the official announcement of Android Wear, you can now look forward to custom control and alerts via AutoVera and AutoNotification. These Tasker plugins will let you create custom, beautiful, actionable notifications to control your home, right on your wrist. These notifications can be contextually aware and trigger via any number of conditions, giving you quick access to devices you’ll want to control, when you need to.

Using the Android Wear Developer Preview, I’ve created a quick demo showing how your existing custom notifications will appear on your Android Wear device. Right now, you can use AutoNotification and AutoVera to create your own custom notifications for your Android phone or tablet, and as soon as you pair your Android Wear device, those same notifications will be available on your watch.

Watch AutoVera/AutoNotification/Android Wear Demo: AutoVera, Autonotification + Android Wear Preview - YouTube

UPDATE 7/3 I was generously lent an Android Wear device for a day and was able to put together a demo as featured in the OP. Bonus, voice controls work with AutoVoice and AutoVera. See youtube description for more info.

NEW[b] Watch Android Wear Home Control with AutoApps: Android Wear Home Control with AutoApps - YouTube

With AutoVera and AutoNotification, Vera will have the tightest integration with Android Wear of all other automation solutions, out of the box, without waiting for developers to add code.

Which Android Wear device are you looking at?

LG G Watch - LG Mobile Devices, Accessories & Wearable Technology | LG USA (pre-order now)

Samsung Gear Live - http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/2014/06/26/Samsung-Expands-Gear-Portfolio-with-Android-Wear-1 (pre-order now)

Moto 360 - https://moto360.motorola.com/ (later this Summer)

2

Great to hear those apps and integrations will be available on Android Wear. I use such integrations and also control Vera scenes from my Pebble today. If I weren’t to have that sort of control on Android Wear, that’d be a reason for me to be hesitant to move from Pebble to Android Wear (are we calling it AW yet? Android Wear is too long :-[ ). And which AW device? Moto 360. No contest.

3

Is the goal to move the automation off of Vera and onto the smartphone?

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Is the goal to move the automation off of Vera and onto the smartphone?

Not at all, I’d say the goal is to supplement Vera with wearable control and contextual awareness via your smartphone. Let Vera do what it does best, act as a home gateway. Via hardware and plugins, it controls just about everything, is always on, always connected and is extensible enough for the future. The home automation is suitable for Vera to manage. Smartphone batteries are always dying.

The personal automation can be dictated by your phone/wearable, which is portable, always with you, and probably exponentially more powerful than Vera. Android and Tasker give users a level of creative control unrivaled by any OS or platform. AutoVera takes advantage of the openness of both platforms, acting as a bridge between Vera and Android and letting you control each device and plugin you have installed at home. You can feed information to Vera from Android, like location, battery life, WiFi Status, etc. You even control your Android device from Vera, as you would control Vera from your smartphone.

Checkout the screenshot attached, it shows a series of Variable Containers and Virtual Switches. The Variables are set by Tasker and AutoVera and include information reported to Vera every 10 minutes. A virtual switch acts as a refresh that initiates the task on the phone send the latest information. Same for the location, which is only updated on demand. A virtual switch toggle opens Google Maps to the lat/long indicated. This can be “toggled” from within AuHomationHD for example, going straight from AHD to Maps.

Imgur link: http://i.imgur.com/GxdIklv.png

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Doug… I like your thinking in this area of personal automation… I would like to see more of your guides going up on the guides site you have… Maybe not even a guide but a walkthrough logic on what you are doing here…

Its not that its not easy to do but sometimes I just didn’t think of a good way to do something so I didn’t do it…

6

More guides are on the way, including specifically referencing Variable Containers and Virtual Switches.

For now, here’s a shorthand explanation of whats going in the above screenshot.

Every 10 minutes, 1 Task fires on the Android Device.
The task consists of 5 AutoVera Device actions and sends 5 different System Variables from Android to the Variable Container

[ul][li]%BATT - built-in, shows battery level[/li]
[li]%WIFI - built-in, shows on/off[/li]
[li]%VOLS - built-in, shows 0-7[/li]
[li]%CHARGING - created, shows charging/discharging[/li]
[li]%LOCATION - created, shows home/away/office[/li][/ul]

These values can now be used in Vera automation. An example would be an alert to notify others of extremely low battery level, or trigger a scene when the device is home and charging.

Instead of waiting every 10 minutes for updated information, there is a mechanism to refresh these values.

Using a virtual switch that doesn’t actually perform any action on Vera, I can use the state of it to trigger Tasker tasks on the Android device. When the Refresh switch is turned on, the same Task will activate and the 5 variables will get updated to the latest info. The refresh toggle then reverts to off after a short delay.

Going further, you can use another virtual switch to control the status of the Android device. Use the %avnewstatus to toggle WiFi for Example.

AutoVera Status Update → Wifi Virtual Switch

If %avnewstatus ~ 1
Turn Wifi On
Else If %avnewstatus ~ 0
Turn Wifi Off
End If

You can create more virtual switches to control dozens of other system settings on Android. I hope this helps down the logic behind this scenario. The location part is essentially the same, except it uses AutoLocation values. Look for guides to both soon.

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This is VERY cool stuff. Looking forward to more.

8

Pumped for this will be cool to integrate with alarm so you know the second something funny is going on in your home.

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I was able to use an Android Wear device for a day, and while most of it was spent testing AutoVera and the AutoApps(see updated OP), I did get a feel for how it works as a daily driver. As a huge Pebble fan, I’m ashamed at how disappointed I feel going back to it. Pebble does what it does so well, but it seems archaic next to Wear. Google has a very solid platform on its hands, or rather, our wrists. It can be easy to forget that Android Wear is running Android KitKat 4.4, and it will also be able to run “standalone” apps. An example scenario would be AutHomationHD running on your phone, with a micro version able to control devices and scenes, and even offer voice control. It would be setup so that if the watch separates from the device, the watch no longer has access, so security is of less concern.

I’d be glad to answer any questions. Pre-ordered devices started shipping today so if you have one coming, it may be coming earlier than expected.

10

Be interested in detailed outline to get voice control from my Galaxy Gear Live. What do I need to install and how do I get it up and running using AutoVoice. Do I just need to install the following:

[ul][li]Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]Google Now API for Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]AutoVoice[/li][/ul]

Then just set up Tasks in Tasker to access from AutoVoice, and Google Now will recognize these commands just with the above installation and set up?

Does my phone need to be rooted to make this work?

Thanks for any help provided.

11

I just order mine!!! ;D

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[quote=“Chimpware, post:10, topic:181739”]Be interested in detailed outline to get voice control from my Galaxy Gear Live. What do I need to install and how do I get it up and running using AutoVoice. Do I just need to install the following:

[ul][li]Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]Google Now API for Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]AutoVoice[/li][/ul]

Then just set up Tasks in Tasker to access from AutoVoice, and Google Now will recognize these commands just with the above installation and set up?

Does my phone need to be rooted to make this work?

Thanks for any help provided.[/quote]

You have it pretty well covered on your own! Yes, root is required, as is Xposed Framework, Xposed Google Search API v1.3, AutoVoice, and to make your voice profiles dynamic, you should probably use AutoVera too.

Be sure to uninstall and reinstall AutoVoice, AFTER you have installed the framework and module. AutoVoice acts as a plugin to the search API and the order of install is important.

Otherwise, just set up your voice profiles as normal, and whenever you induce an OK Google command to Wear, it will pass to AutoVoice for processing.

Be sure to report back with any further questions.

13

Deleted

14

I agree, the Moto 360 looks fantastic. Watches have become accessories rather than tools to tell time a long time ago, and even our smartphones are often picked for looks as much as for function. Which is why I have been rather underwhelmed by the offering of smart watches so far. Functionality aside (and beside the fact that I don;t own an Android phone), this looks like something I wouldn’t mind being seen with.

Now if only Apple would release something as good. And open up Siri to developers. :slight_smile:

15

Another vote for the M360, wanted this the day It was announced. Just waiting for a store to actually sell it…

16

[quote=“dkc, post:12, topic:181739”][quote=“Chimpware, post:10, topic:181739”]Be interested in detailed outline to get voice control from my Galaxy Gear Live. What do I need to install and how do I get it up and running using AutoVoice. Do I just need to install the following:

[ul][li]Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]Google Now API for Xposed Framework[/li]
[li]AutoVoice[/li][/ul]

Then just set up Tasks in Tasker to access from AutoVoice, and Google Now will recognize these commands just with the above installation and set up?

Does my phone need to be rooted to make this work?

Thanks for any help provided.[/quote]

You have it pretty well covered on your own! Yes, root is required, as is Xposed Framework, Xposed Google Search API v1.3, AutoVoice, and to make your voice profiles dynamic, you should probably use AutoVera too.

Be sure to uninstall and reinstall AutoVoice, AFTER you have installed the framework and module. AutoVoice acts as a plugin to the search API and the order of install is important.

Otherwise, just set up your voice profiles as normal, and whenever you induce an OK Google command to Wear, it will pass to AutoVoice for processing.

Be sure to report back with any further questions.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply, but I guess I won’t be implementing this because I can’t root my phone - work phone…

17

Sorry to hear that. The eventual goal is to get AutoVoice running natively on Wear, as either AutoWear or an extension of the current app. Either way, a better solution is definitely in the pipeline. I’ll be sure to update this thread as alternate options for voice control present themselves. In the meantime, you can certainly take advantage of the AutoNotification control without Root.

18

Thanks, I am using Trigger + AutHomation right now to get access to commands on the phone.

19

Hey Chimp can you elaborate on how you are doing this? I would love to have some time of home control from my watch!

20

I got my Christmas gift early (Moto360) and was able to get the voice commands working from the device using

Xposed
AutoVoice
Google Now API 1.4

Now I want to be able to work with Plex and toggle my devices without voice. Still searching on how to do this.