There are some really good automation apps out there. Some of them are powerful enough to automate your living room, like Tasker, while others such as Llama feature an emphasis on location profile settings and the context-aware configurations.

XDA member UndeadCretin has been updating his MacroDroid app since 2012 to provide a competitive alternative to the known automation giants. MacroDroid features a simple user interface that offers a much less intimidating user experience than the high learning curve of Tasker. It is also much more aesthetically pleasing than Llama's outdated look and feel.

The simple UI and quick step-by-step process of making MacroDroid profiles is both easy and powerful, allowing you to automate the uploading of pictures to social media, managing your networks depending on context, sending text messages containing certain strings of data such as your location, and much more. While it lacks the plugin capabilities of Tasker, it still offers a strong set of over 45 triggers and 70 different actions, as well as many constraints to make your scripts as smart as possible. The developer has been supporting the application for a while now and is active on the forums to guide you or help you with any problems you might have.

The big downside is that the free version is limited to just 5 macros, with an additional limit on constraints and actions. This is bad news for everyone wanting to immensely automate your devices, but for everyone else that simply wants a quick alternative for some small automated sound profiles or data and network management, the application does the job with a small memory footprint and a straight-forward programming system. If you'd like to check out MacroDroid, visit the forum thread!