Location Without Tears

This is an overview guide to choosing a method for fixing your location with Tasker. At the end are some advanced power-saving strategies.

Power / Accuracy Comparison

Method Power Usage Acc Need Net Need Wifi
State: Cell Near * *
Location: Net ** ** Y
Location: Net & Wifi*** */***** Y Y
State: Wifi Near **** ***** Y
Location: GPS ***** ***** Y

More stars mean higher power usage or higher accuracy (Acc).

Detail Comparison

State: Cell Near

Setup
Create a state context, select Cell Near. Click Update and walk around a bit to scan for cell towers nearby.
About
Uses information about the cell towers the phone uses for telephony to record and match a location.

When the display is off, frequency of checks is controlled by Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks.

Plus / Minus

Location: Net

Setup
Create a location context, and deselect GPS.
About

Net location accuracy varies greatly. It's very important that you create a large radius around the spot you wish to detect.

Frequency of checks is controlled by Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Network Location Check (screen on) and Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks.

More Info.
Plus / Minus

Location: Net & Wifi

Setup
Create a location context and deselect GPS. Make sure your device's Wifi is turned on when you want a more accurate location fix.
About

Net location can be assisted by nearby access points when Wifi is turned on (Google has a map of APs for many areas).

Turn Wifi off when not needed to conserve power e.g. use a Time context to turn wifi off at night.

Plus / Minus

State: Wifi Near

Setup
Create a State context, click Wifi Near, fill in the SSID of an Access Point (AP) with the best signal near where you want to identify.
About
Wifi Near does regular Wifi Scans and will activate when it recognizes an AP you have configured is nearby. Note: you don't have to connect to the AP. You could configure e.g. the neighbours AP if the signal is strong enough.

Check the Wifi Toggle box if you don't want wifi on all the time. It will then be toggled when Tasker needs to do a scan.

Plus / Minus
Location: GPS
Setup
Create a location context, and deselect Net.
About

Frequency of GPS checks is controlled by Menu / Prefs / Monitor / GPS Check (screen on) and Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks. Higher frequencies mean more battery usage but that location changes will be noticed more quickly.

When indoors, GPS will try a long time to get a signal, using a lot of battery. Adjust it at Menu / Prefs / Monitor / GPS Timeout. Make the timeout as low as you can until you start losing effectiveness.

More Info.
Plus / Minus

Advanced Strategies

Multiple Contexts
Tasker does not check high-power contexts until all lower-power contexts in the same profile are active. You can use this to reduce power consumption. For instance, if you use the Wifi Near state to detect coming home, you could add a Location: Net context to the same profile, so that wifi scanning will only take place when you are in the right neighbourhood.
Location Control
Disable GPS/Net location when they're not needed by creating a separate profile with e.g. a Time context which disables GPS during the night.

This works because Location contexts assume you are in the same location until there is a fix which says otherwise.