Top 10 Android Widgets I Can’t Live Without

Widgets are one of the best ways to customize your smartphone experience, both in terms of style and functionality. If you want to up your widget game, here are ten of my favorite widgets that I use every day.

One of the most unorthodox widgets has to be the OnePlus weather widget. Although I only had one OnePlus phone (OnePlus 3), its Weather app stuck with me. The app gets its forecasts from The Weather Channel, so it’s pretty accurate. The widget shows you the current and upcoming weather forecast and has a nice refresh button along with information about when it was last updated.

The reason I love this widget so much is the aesthetics. Like most other weather widgets, it changes how it looks based on the current weather, but this one features the classic Google Material Design language. Although there are other weather widgets that use a similar style, I’m very nostalgic, as the OnePlus weather widget has graced my home screen since 2017.

The only problem with the OnePlus Weather app is that you probably can’t install it directly from the Play Store. Instead, you’ll need to sideload the APK to get it on non-OnePlus Android smartphones.

If you don’t like or can’t install the OnePlus Weather app, check out Overdrop. It’s my colleague Cory’s favorite Android weather widget app because you can open multiple apps from a single widget (eg, click on the date to open the calendar). I love it simply because there are over 70 awesome widgets to choose from. If I wasn’t so obsessed with the OnePlus widget, I’d use Overdrop instead.

The Google Clock widget has graced my home screen for over a decade and is the first app I install when I get a new phone. Most smartphone manufacturers have their own watch apps now, but I’m a fan of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. Even though I own a cheap smartwatch and can check the clock on the always-on screen, I still like having a clock widget in the middle of my home screen.

To be perfectly honest, there’s nothing special about the Google Clock app or widget; it’s as simple as that, and the only feature worth noting is that you can use Spotify for your alarm clock (when it’s not turned off). Its simplicity is the exact reason why I like the widget so much.

Many smartphones come with a “Search Google” widget on the home screen for a good reason—you probably use Google all the time. I know I do, which is why I can’t live without the Google Search widget.

You can use the search bar, voice search, or Google Lens to search for things, but you can also tap the Google icon to open the Google app to read How-To Geek articles on Google Discover.

Google has a serious problem with task apps, as they have yet to consolidate tasks into a single app. This is why I use both the Google Keep and Tasks widgets on my phone. Both widgets allow you to resize them, which is why I let them take up half my screen and almost never use the actual apps.

I prefer Google Keep and use its widget because it has a web app that I can use on my computer, but I also have Google Tasks for important tasks that I want to keep in Calendar. Fortunately, this dual widget situation is only temporary, as Keep and Task are set to sync this year.

Google Calendar has two equally awesome widgets that you can use. One shows you the entire month, and the other is just for the week (or the next two days). Since I already have Keep and Tasks for my current tasks, I use the widget that shows me all the events and tasks for the month. I don’t have a printed calendar, so I stay on top of birthdays and holidays.

Shazam is an app that can identify a song playing in the background, such as in a coffee shop, gym or retail store, by listening to it for just a few seconds. I love music, and when I hear a new song that I really like, I have to pull out my phone and tap the Shazam widget to save it.

While the Google Search widget has a “Search for a song” button, I always forget to use it. Plus, the Shazam widget only requires a single tap before it starts listening to the song, so it’s faster.

Spotify is my go-to app for music, so it’s only natural that I have a widget for it. It has only the most basic music player functions without shuffle or repeat, but the enhanced version of the widget allows you to play the latest playlists. Since I mostly listen to Spotify on my computer, I can use this widget to control my music when I’m not at my desk.

You should have at least one chatbot on your home screen in 2024, and I really like the ChatGPT widget. While it doesn’t let you type a Message in the widget directly to speed up your requests (it just opens the app), you can use the buttons below the message bar for quick access to images and voice typing. If you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, you should use the ChatGPT widget to get the most out of it.

Asana is one of the best work management apps out there, which is why we use it to track our projects at How-To Geek. I use the widget to review my current tasks and keep track of due dates at a glance. I’ve also used Notion and ClickUp before, and you can’t go wrong with any of the three, even if it’s just to keep track of your personal projects.

A Pomodoro app with a widget gives you an easy way to use the Pomodoro technique. Without getting into the weeds, the Pomodoro Technique allows you to break up your workflow into 25-minute chunks with 5-minute breaks in between, so you never feel overwhelmed.

While I actually prefer to use a Pomodoro timer on my computer, I use the Focus To-Do widget for personal projects, such as working on my car or around the house. The app has some other great productivity tools you can check out.

The widgets I’ve featured today are pretty basic and common for the most part. I don’t have the time or patience to customize things on my phone anymore, but if you feel the opposite, you should know that some apps allow you to create custom widgets. The most popular is KWGT. It gives you lots of highly customizable widgets (both free and paid), and you can use it to create an entire custom Android theme.