It took me a long time to gain an understanding of how ADB Wifi works, and why we seemingly need to jump through so many hoops to get it...
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The original was posted on /r/tasker by /u/mylastacntwascursed on 2025-08-12 23:07:04+00:00.

It took me a long time to gain an understanding of how ADB Wifi works, and why we seemingly need to jump through so many hoops to get it (automatically) going. I’ve seen a lot of questions on this sub that indicate it’s a complicated topic for most of us. I hope sharing what I’ve learned may help others.

Parts of this explanation may not be applicable to Android versions lower than 11 (at the time of writing, the latest Android version is 16).

What is ADB?

ADB stands for Android Debug Bridge. It provides a way for developers to connect their development machine to an Android device and test apps. This comes with the privilege to do things and access information apps can’t normally do or access. This elevated privilege is highly sought after by power users to make their devices do things otherwise not possible (unless rooted).

What is ADB Wifi?

In the Tasker community, ADB Wifi usually refers to either the Tasker action that lets you utilize ADB privileges, or the device configuration needed for this action to work (e.g. “how to set up ADB Wifi”, “automatically enable ADB Wifi at boot”).

More broadly, it refers to using ADB over a wifi connection as opposed to a USB connection between your development machine and Android device.

How does it work?

When you enable USB debugging or Wireless debugging in Android’s Developer options, a process called ADB daemon (adbd) is started. This process accepts connections over USB or wifi. When both options are disabled, the daemon is stopped and any connections are dropped. (Note that Wireless debugging is automatically disabled when disconnecting from a wireless network, and be aware that this happens when rebooting a device.)

We’ll call any piece of sofware that succesfully communicates with the ADB daemon a client. Traditionally, this client runs on a development machine (i.e. desktop, laptop), but for our purposes it is very beneficial we can also run it on the phone itself.

When a client first connects with the ADB daemon, Android will show a popup asking if you want to allow the connection. You can allow it once, or have it remember your choice. At least that is how it works with a USB-connected client. When connecting over wifi (or more precisely: TCP), the connection is simply refused when the client hasn’t previously been authorized, and you need to either authorize it over USB first, or use one of the pairing options in the Wireless debugging menu. This can involve entering a pairing code, which some of you may know from setting up Shizuku, LADB or Termux.

After being authorized, the client can be used to issue all kinds of commands on the device with ADB privileges. Which is why authorization is important. Which is also why pairing and connecting over wifi happen over an encrypted connection.

So how do I authorize Tasker?

Tasker’s ADB Wifi is kind of outdated. It can’t establish an encrypted connection to the ADB daemon. Instead, Tasker’s documentation tells us to use an already authorized AND connected client to instruct the ADB daemon to start accepting unencrypted connections on port 5555.¹ This is the adb tcpip 5555 command you may have encountered. (Note: this also restarts the daemon, disconnecting all existing clients—like the one you were using to issue the command—and changes the random port on which it listens for encrypted connections to some other random port.)

After this is done, you can use the ADB Wifi action for the first time, and Android will ask if you want to allow the connection from Tasker in the same way it does when clients connect over USB. If you choose to always allow it, you won’t be asked again.

¹ This was the only way before Wireless debugging existed; Tasker’s only fault is that its initial implementation of ADB Wifi never got updated.

Now Tasker is authorized, can it connect to the ADB daemon after a reboot?

Since by default the ADB daemon only accepts encrypted connections (and there’s no way to change this without root), Tasker still can’t connect to it after a reboot, even when it’s an authorized client. (Try using the ADB Wifi action with host localhost and the random wireless debugging port; it will timeout because it doesn’t know how to respond to the ADB daemon trying to initiate a secure connection.)

This is why, after every reboot, you still need a modern authorized client (e.g. adb on a PC or in Termux) to make the ADB daemon listen for unencrypted connections on port 5555 before you can use Tasker’s ADB Wifi.

I have Shizuku running, can I use it to run adb tcpip 5555?

No. Even though Shizuku acts as a modern ADB client, it doesn’t give us direct access to itself; it only allows us to execute commands and code as the ADB shell user, which doesn’t open up new ways for us to communicate with the ADB daemon, as far as I know.

The good news is: soon Tasker will officially support using Shizuku to run shell commands & more with ADB privileges, eliminating the need for the whole legacy implementation of ADB Wifi once it reaches feature parity; it’s currently in beta.

Notes

  • I have omitted including links to things like Tasker’s userguide or Android’s developer documentation, as this usually immediately gets my posts removed by Reddit’s AutoModerator. Guess we have spammers to thank for that, but it sucks. I’ll try to include a comment with some links for further reading.
  • For simplicities sake (and my own sanity), I have omitted how the ADB client is actually a combination of a client and a server, which is also called a daemon by e.g. adb.