Android 15 lets you add widgets to the lock screen, but only on tablets

One of the best ways to customize your Android smartphone or tablet is to add widgets to your home screen. Android widgets have been around for a very long time, but most OS’s only allow you to place them on your home screen. Android used to let you add widgets to your lock screen, but it’s been nearly a decade since the operating system allowed you to do so. However, while the upcoming Android 15 update will allow you to add widgets to your lock screen, there’s a big catch.

Earlier this year, I revealed that Google was working on bringing back support for lock screen widgets in Android 15. I base this argument on the existence of new “shared spaces.” This is the area you can access by swiping in from the right side of the screen. lock screen. This shared space allows you to add widgets from selected apps that still utilize the old API created for Android’s old lock screen widget feature. That, plus the fact that shared spaces can be accessed from the lock screen led me to believe that this piece is indeed related to the revived lock screen widget feature.

However, towards the end of my last article, I warned that Google might restrict lock screen widgets to tablet devices such as the Pixel Tablet. That’s because there was code that tied support for the new lock screen widgets to Android’s Hub Mode, a set of settings specific to dockable tablets. With the release of Android 15 Beta 1 earlier today, we can confirm that Android 15’s lock screen widget feature is coming to tablets.

While exploring the first Android 15 beta, we discovered strings related to the new toggle shown below. Settings > Hub Mode On devices like Pixel tablets. One toggle allows users to “show widgets on the lock screen” “without unlocking the tablet.” Meanwhile, another toggle gives users the option to “Allow widgets on lock screen.” The latter is interesting. Previously, the aforementioned shared space only supported adding old widgets. KEYGUARD Categories are now enabled. After playing around a bit, I was able to make these new toggles appear in Android’s Hub Mode settings, as shown below.

Internally, this feature is known as the “at-a-glance hub.” This makes a lot of sense since you don’t actually place widgets directly on the lock screen. Rather, it opens a new page where you can swipe to add widgets. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the new lock screen widget feature fully working, so we weren’t able to properly introduce it to you. However, I was able to manually launch a page where I could add lock screen widgets. This allowed me to see how the “Allow all widgets on lock screen” toggle affects widget availability.

By disabling “Allow widgets on lock screen” I was able to add the following widgets:

Enabling “Allow widgets on lock screen” allowed me to add the following widgets in addition to the previous one:

• chromium
• contact address
• digital wellbeing
• Google TV
• google keep
• translate
• YouTube Music

While it’s a shame that Android 15’s lock screen widgets will likely be limited to tablets, there is a silver lining. I previously reported that Google might leverage the At a Glance view on the lock screen to display widgets on your smartphone. There are no new details regarding this initiative, but we hope to see it soon in the upcoming Android 15 beta.