Although mobile apps get all the attention, widgets that give you constantly updated useful information on your Android phone’s home screen have become pretty important as well. One member of Reddit’s Android community asked his fellow Android fans for a list of widgets that they “can’t live without” and they listed some fantastic Android widgets that you may or may not have heard of. For your enlightenment, we decided to take their five most popular widgets and summarize what each one brings to the table.
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Chronus
Chronus describes itself as “an elegant Home & Lock screen Clock, Weather, News feed and Calendar widget.” Its design is an evolution of the CyanogenMod cLock widget and it has tons of great features that make it a one-stop center for important information, including a “weather panel with Yahoo!, OpenWeatherMap and yr.no weather providers,” a “news Feed panel and built-in RSS sources and Internal Article Reader” and a “calendar panel showing a scrollable list of upcoming events.”
Google Keep
This is Google’s own in-house widget that’s designed to make sure you never forget an appointment or task. Google Keep lets you use voice commands to make lists and write notes that will remind you to do things at a later date. It also has some nifty photo features that will let you “grab a photo of a poster, receipt or document and easily find it later in search.”
Aix Weather Widget
For people who want widgets that are specifically tailored to tell them what it’s like outside right now, Aix Weather Widget describes itself as “a pure homescreen app widget that shows temperature, maximum/minimum precipitation and sun rise/set times graphically to give you a compact and accurate forecast.” The app gets its data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and NOAA National Weather Service and it says its data will be particularly accurate for Europe and North America.
DashClock Widget
Simply put, this app aims to light up your lock screen with the most critical information you need to know. Among other things, DashClock displays your missed calls and texts, your priority unread emails you’ve received, your next scheduled alarm and your next scheduled appointment. In other words, it gives you everything you need to help you get through the day without having to unlock your phone once.
Power Toggles
And finally, Power Toggles is an app that makes it easier to toggle through more than 40 of your phone’s key settings including its Wi-Fi, its mobile data connections, Bluetooth, flashlight functionality, custom application shortcuts and custom system shortcuts. Anyone who wants quick access to frequently used settings without going to their settings screen should really check this out.
