Over the years, we've been preaching about the usefulness of the automation tool called Tasker. It can be a bit difficult to grasp at first, so we even created a dedicated forum specifically for Tasker as a place people can go to learn (and teach) about the various things you can do with it. Tasker has a plugin system that 3rd-party applications can leverage to help build upon the goal of creating a total automation platform. AutoVoice is one of the more robust Tasker plugins and it just received an update to version 3.5 that actually lets you create a custom virtual assistant for your device.
The idea of creating a custom virtual assistant that can actually replace Google Assistant may seem far-fetched at first. However, there's actually a lot of unique things that we can do once you have things up and running the way you want. Naturally, there will be a number of things you need to set up ahead of time, but once that is done you can really start to enjoy the power of device automation with some custom voice commands. The first things we can do with this update is create some custom responses for various phrases that are used when interacting with Google Assistant.
This can be anything from responding to a common voice command such as "Good Morning," to taking this a step further and offering to perform a custom set of automated tasks after you say "Good Morning" to your virtual assistant. A great example of this is shown in the video above where João Dias is offered a few preset options after the custom assistant completes the first custom response. This includes watching a movie, going back to sleep, or preparing for work. We see the preparing for work option selected which then has AutoVoice turning on the PC, opening up some of his favorite websites, and then opening up the Tasker application.
This new update to AutoVoice also lets you completely replace Google Assistant entirely from the Settings area where you select your default applications. Instead of having Google Assistant set as your default assistant app, simply choose AutoVoice and it will handle all of your voice commands from then on. AutoVoice now supports English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish with this update, and you can also use AutoVoice directly with the Amazon echo by creating virtual Smart Home devices on it.
There's a lot to digest here and the demo video above barely scratches the surface of what you can do with it. You'll just need to grab the latest update before you can begin setting things up.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autovoice