Quick Summary
- The best Android widgets are app extensions that can give you easy access to the main features right from your home or lock screen.
- All the Android widgets mentioned in this list are extremely useful, but my favorites are KWGT Kustom Widget Maker, 1Weather, and YouTube Music.
Why use your smartphone the traditional way when you make use of the best Android widgets? These efficient shortcuts bless you with one-tap access to your overflowing Android app gallery. These adorn your home or lock screen with a customizable interface.
The Play Store has a sea of widget-friendly apps that promise to cater to your whims. This is where my list of the most valuable widgets for Android comes in as your savior. Here, you can get handpicked widgets focused on utility, customizations, weather, time management, habit tracking, and more. Let’s start!
How to add widgets to your Android home screen
Widgets are app extensions that reside on your Android device. They offer quick app access, promote functionality, and bless you with a personalized smartphone experience.
Before acquainting yourself with the best Android widgets, you might need a refresher on how to add widgets to your home screen.
- Long-press a blank space on your home screen.
- Select Widgets from the pop-up menu.
- Tap and hold the app for which you want to add a widget.
Before you can use widgets, you’ll need to install the corresponding apps. So, let’s check out some robust apps that will likely enhance your Android experience.
1. KWGT Kustom Widget Maker – Editor’s Choice
Let’s agree that not all apps have a widget that fits your preferences. Thankfully, KWGT ensures you don’t have to settle for less. With this WYSIWYG editor, you can build your widgets layer by layer from scratch. Contrarily, you can visit the Featured section that houses 1000+ free widgets to use.
One of the best features of the KWGT widget maker is its diversity. You can build any widget you like without any hassle. This can include clocks, calendars, battery indicators, location, alarms, countdowns, system information, and more.
The app boasts many tools to customize your widgets’ appearance and functioning. You can try different text variations, switch backgrounds, add haptics, and more.
Highlights
- Offers 100+ free widgets
- Multiple customizations
- Let’s you create widgets from scratch
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $5.99)
2. 1Weather – Weather tracking made easy
Skip being your personal weather forecaster. Instead, add the 1Weather app widget to your Android home screen. Including this widget gives you instant access to the current temperature, date and time, and weather forecasts.
FYI, the app offers 12 free widget variants, each having a unique theme, shape, and information. All the widget types this best weather widget for offers Android are fully customizable. You can change their color, set background transparency, and theme per your taste.
Besides the current data, the 1Weather widget helps you track hourly, daily, and weekly weather conditions. It also shows essential data like wind speed, humidity, precipitation, etc. Plus, the app has an active radar for rain updates and sends warning alerts for severe weather conditions like tornadoes.
Highlights
- Latest weather updates
- Shows future forecasts
- Includes date and time tracker
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $1.99)
3. Google Translate – Best language translator widget for Android
The Google Translate widget is your go-to tool to waive off linguistic complications. A simple installation of this extension gives you the power to get hassle-free text transcriptions and image translations across 108 global languages.
Google Translate offers two widget variants: saved translations and quick actions. The saved translations widget helps you revisit your recent history and saved phrases. On the other hand, the quick actions widget speeds up your translations by offering instant access to its tools.
As expected, both the Google Translate widget variations are fully customizable. You can adjust their size and transparency at your convenience. With the Google Translate widget, you can easily connect and interact with people and places with a single tap.
Highlights
- Instant translations
- Multiple language support
- Does image translations
Price: Free
4. YouTube Music – Best free widget app for Android
YouTube Music is one of the most popular widgets for Android users. Why? Because this amazing extension can satiate your musical fantasies like no other tool. It saves you from the hassle of visiting the official YouTube Music app for every teeny-tiny requirement.
The portal offers three widgets: Now Playing, Turntable, and Recently Played. With a single tap on these widgets, you can change songs, thumbs up or thumbs down, and start/pause them per your mood. You can also see the song name and the display picture, making it easy to decide what to play and skip.
Highlights
- Easy to resize
- Multiple one-tap actions
- Customization friendly
Price: Free
5. Flipboard – Your personal magazine widget
Too busy to keep track of the latest news from your favorite fields? Hop on to the Flipboard widget that will work as your personal magazine corner. Thanks to this intuitive extension, you can view all the story titles directly on your Android home screen. Skip launching Flipboard every time you want to catch up on the new stuff.
The app offers two widget variants- small and medium- for you to choose from. FYI, both the widgets let you move up and down to skim through different titles. You can also visit the app and set the time limit of how frequently you would like to receive updates on the widget window. This can be set to hourly, daily, or never.
Highlights
- Quick access to all story titles
- Stay updated with the latest news
- Two widget options
Price: Free
6. Google Calendar – Most helpful Android widget
Google Calendar is an excellent tool to create, plan, and organize your schedules. The app supports two widget variations: the Calendar schedule and the Calendar month view. Where the former shows the list of tasks and upcoming events on a day-to-day basis, the latter lays out the schedules inside a monthly calendar grid.
The widgets are fully customizable, allowing you to add new events in a single tap. In addition, you can change the color theme of your schedules based on their priority or edit the name and date without launching the official app.
Highlights
- Ideal for organizing tasks
- Monthly calendar grid
- Quick view for all tasks
Price: Free
7. Google Keep – Best note-taking Android widget
Your favorite note-taking app, Google Keep, has three unique widgets to simplify your life. The first one gives one-tap access to all the functions you can perform using this multipurpose app. This includes shortcuts to create a text note, list, record voice memo, scribble handwritten notes, or click pictures.
In the second widget, you can view a particular set of notes saved in your Google Keep library. This can include your entire note collection or simply the pinned ones. You can even add notes from the widget. Lastly, the third widget keeps track of a single note, which is especially helpful for lists and reminders where you can quickly check off the completed tasks.
Highlights
- Handy experience
- All notes in one place
- Check-off lists instantly
Price: Free
8. Tick-Tick – Ideal widget for multitaskers
Tick-Tick thrives as one of the most popular task management apps for Android devices. The portal houses over thirteen widgets that can simplify your work and boost productivity. As part of the cluster, Tick-Tick has widgets catering to habit tracking, task completion, focus distribution, weekly and monthly agendas, daily timelines, etc.
The main highlight of the Tick-Tick app is the Pomodoro feature that helps you stay focused on your tasks. Similarly, the Pomodoro timer widget lets you track the remaining time for an event, saving you from procrastination.
You can add new tasks, check off the completed ones, and edit the existing to-do lists from the widget. A single tap on the widget will help you stay motivated to complete your tasks.
Highlights
- Easy to-do lists
- Quick access to tasks
- Special Pomodoro widget
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $0.99)
9. Ampere – A widget for your Android battery check
Good battery health means improved phone performance. The Ampere app widget focuses on this aspect by allowing you to monitor your Android’s battery essentials. You can choose between seven widgets, each focusing on a particular parameter.
These extensions help you track all the essential indicators, including battery percentage, current, voltage, and temperature. Further, you can switch to the dark, light, and translucent modes to match the widgets with your home screen display.
FYI, most widget features are triggered only in the paid PRO version of the app.
Highlights
- Helps track battery health
- Customizable
- Multiple widget variants
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $1.49)
10. Contacts Widget – Cool widget for Android
If you love staying close to your family and friends, then Contacts Widget is perfect for you. The stunning collection of 50+ friendly widgets makes you enjoy one-touch calling and chatting from your home screen.
Start by importing contacts from your Android Contact book and adding them to different folders for an organized experience. This widget also allows you to sort and remove contacts from your Android phone. The app has separate widgets for maintaining a shortcut folder, shortcut single contact, last call list, last SMS list, and more.
Contacts Widgets offer quick access to SMS and lets you view profiles and chat on social media platforms. Thanks to its integration with ten messenger and social networks. Moreover, the widget is fully customizable, so you can easily change fonts, themes, and other essential settings.
Highlights
- Integration with social networks
- Sort contacts in folders
- 50+ widgets
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $0.99)
11. Sectograph – Best clock widget for Android
Make the most of your 24 hours with Sectograph- your efficient time manager. The widget adorns an interesting pie chart-cum-clock design to help you track your schedules and tasks with ease. It gives a compact view of all your Calendar events and new events created by you.
The app displays your scheduled events as colored sectors on the clock dial against your set time frame. Besides, it shows the event name, time left to start it, target, and actual progress. This clear analytics view helps you prioritize your goals based on their deadlines.
One of my favorite attributes of this app widget is its seamless customization. You can easily change the color scheme, theme, widget buttons, clock hands and dial, sector settings, transparency, and more. These custom edits ensure your widget matches your home screen aesthetics without being a visual noise.
Highlights
- Aids work management
- Stunning design
- Syncs with Calendar
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $1.99)
12. Tasker – Automates tasks on Android
Tasker is the catalyst that triggers the productivity of your Android smartphone. It automates your frequently performed tasks, saving you from the monotonous experience. Now, by adding the tasker app widget, you can trigger most of these automations directly from the home screen.
For instance, you can create handy widgets to launch apps, adjust brightness, change music, send messages, make calls, and more- all without visiting the app. In addition, as these widgets are easy to customize, you can choose the size, look, and functionality that syncs with your home screen design.
Highlights
- Easy to use
- Quick access to vital functions
- Saves time and effort
Price: Free
Most widgets support auto-updates. However, sometimes, you can force an update by opening the app related to the widget.
You must restart your phone if your widgets aren’t working. Plus, you can check for internet connection stability (if required) or check for updates.
To resize a widget, you must long-press on them and then drag the edges to squeeze or enlarge them. However, take note that not all widgets support resizing.
Wrapping up
With Android widgets, you can enhance your smartphone experience. Keeping this in mind, I have listed these best widget apps for Android. I hope you will like them. Also, share your favorite Android widget I missed in my post.
Read more:
- Best Android launchers (Free and Paid)
- Best custom ROMs for Android you can install
- Best AI apps for Android (Free and Paid)
- Best podcast apps for Android
Leave a Reply