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Tu t o r i a l s

Automate your Android

phone with SwiP

Create trigger-

based profiles for

popular A ndroid

tasks, with this

open source

automation app

D

o you find yourself performing the same

tasks, over and over again on your Android

phone? It may be time tr y a task automation

app. You can use these apps to create profiles of your

most commonly used settings, for example a Home

profile where your dev ice automatically connects to

your home Wi-Fi. Profiles are triggered automatically

when certain conditions are met, for example when

your Android device’s GPS detects that you’re at home.

We featured some of the biggest names in

automation on page nine, but SwiP is a new release

that provides an open source alternative. This means

the app’s source code is publicly available, so anyone

can help develop it. You can download SwiP for free

from the Play store, which also contains a link to the

app’s source code. SwiP doesn’t require root, although

you can access additional functionality on a rooted

dev ice. SwiP currently doesn’t work on tablets.

SwiP comes with three example profiles.

Take a closer look at these by tapping their

accompanying pencil icons. The next screen

contains all the options you can enable, disable or

tweak as part of this profile. To edit an option, tap it

and make your changes in the subsequent pop-up.

Try sample profiles

1

Save your profile by tapping the tick icon in

the toolbar. You can manually activate this profile at

any point, but you can get more out of SwiP by

creating triggers. A trigger automatically activates

its assigned profile when certain conditions are

met. Tap on Triggers in the toolbar, followed by ‘+.’

Create a trigger

This menu is split into sections. In Sound^5

you can set the volume of your notifications, media,

ringtone and alarm. In Connectivity you can specify

whether mobile data, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are

enabled. In Display you set the brightness of your

screen and how long it waits before going to sleep.

Sound, Connectivity etc

4

To apply either of these sample profiles,

return to the main SwiP menu and tap the name of

the profile that you want to activate. The next step

is to create some custom profiles of your own.

Tap the ‘+’ icon in the toolbar and then give your

new profile a name.

Create a new profile

2

By default, every option is set to

‘Unchanged.’ This means applying the profile won’t

affect this item’s current state – if your Wi-Fi is off

when you apply the profile, it’ll stay off, and vice

versa. Work through this menu, tapping and

changing all the options you want to update.

Buildyourprofile

3

Works with » Android 4.0.3 and up