restart Android phone when power button stopped working

Question

The power button on my Nextbit Robin has stopped working. After some investigation, it would appear that the volume down button doesn't work, either, so, I'm 99% certain that it's a software issue (related to taking a screenshot?); however, in the unlikely 1% chance, I don't want to just shut it down (through battery drain?), as it might not turn back on again if the issue is hardware related instead (whereas if I leave it as-is, it might as well last for a while as long as it never gets into a shutdown state).

It's possible to wakeup the phone by connecting or disconnecting it to a charger, and by installing a number of apps for the task, but it would appear that there is no way to actually reboot the phone, nor bring the Power-Off/Reboot menu that the power button normally brings.

How do I reboot the device?

Answer 1

It would appear that the only way to reboot the device in the case where the phone is not rooted and when the power button is unavailable is through adb.

As per StackOverflow, it would appear that Google provides an adb binary for OS X that doesn't depend on any other developer tools nor Java, so, the following set of steps would make it possible to reboot the phone:

• Have Developer options menu enabled within the Android phone
• Enable USB debugging within Developer options menu of Android
• Connect Android device via a USB cable to an OS X machine

• Execute the following commands within OS X in Terminal.app:

  cd /tmp
  curl https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r28.0.1-darwin.zip -o apt.zip
  unzip apt.zip
  ./platform-tools/adb devices
  ./platform-tools/adb reboot
  

• Before executing the final adb reboot command above make sure to allow pairing between Android and OS X by allowing it at the Allow USB debugging? dialogue popup that would appear on the phone after running the adb devices command on the OS X machine.

Answer 2

[It] would appear that there is no way to actually reboot the phone, nor bring the Power-Off/Reboot menu that the power button normally brings.

There is a way, that too without root access. AutoInput can show the power menu. It requires Tasker installed.

Setup both Tasker and AutoInput. Make sure both are "not optimized" under battery settings in your device. In addition, accessibility service of AutoInput needs to be enabled.

Setup a task in Tasker and add this action:

Plugin → AutoInput → Global Action → Configuration:

1. Action: Power Dialog
2. Password: leave it untouched

You can test the task now with the play button at the left side of the bottom bar. It should work if AutoInput was setup correctly.

You have various ways for ease of use for this task.

• You can set up a widget on your home screen that would link to this task (you'd have to assign an icon to the task first).
• You can setup a profile (a trigger) that would automatically run this action.
• You can also assign this task to a HW button (AutoInput supports that).
• You might also be able to add this shortcut into quick settings (for Android N and above I believe).