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

One of the best ways to personalize your Android phone or tablet is to add a widget to the home screen. Android widgets have been around for a very long time, but in most versions of the operating system you can only place them on your home screen. Android used to allow you to add widgets to the lock screen, but it’s been almost a decade since the operating system let you do that. The upcoming Android 15 update, however, will allow you to add widgets to the lock screen, but there is one significant problem.

Earlier this year, I revealed that Google was working on returning support for lock screen widgets in Android 15. I made this claim based on the existence of a new “space common” – an area accessible by swiping inward from the right side of the screen. locked screen. This common space allowed me to add widgets from selected apps that were still using an old API designed for Android’s old lock screen widget functionality. This, coupled with the fact that the common area was accessible from the lock screen, led me to believe that this work was indeed related to a revived lock screen widget feature.

However, I warned towards the end of my previous article that Google might limit lock screen widgets to tablets such as the Pixel tablet. Indeed, some code tied the new lock screen widget support to Android’s hub mode, which is a set of settings specific to dockable tablets. With the release of Android 15 beta 1 earlier today, I can now confirm that Android 15’s lock screen widget feature is intended for tablets.

While browsing the first beta of Android 15, I discovered strings relating to the new toggles that will appear under Settings > Hub Mode on devices like the Pixel tablet. A toggle will allow the user to “show widgets on the lock screen” even “without unlocking your tablet.” Meanwhile, another toggle gives the user the option to “allow any widget on the lock screen.” The latter is interesting because previously the aforementioned Common Area only supported adding widgets with the former KEYGUARD category activated. With a little tinkering, I was able to get these new options to appear in Android’s hub mode settings, as shown below.

Under the hood, this feature is known as the “visible hub,” which makes perfect sense since you’re not actually placing widgets directly on the lock screen. Instead, you swipe to open a new page where widgets can be added. Unfortunately, I am unable to display the new lock screen widget feature correctly as I was unable to get it to work fully. I was, however, able to manually launch the page where you can add lock screen widgets, which allowed me to see how the “Allow any widget on lock screen” option toggles the availability of the widgets concerned.

When “allow any widget on lock screen” was disabled, I was able to add the following widgets:

When “allow any widget on lock screen” was enabled, I was able to add these widgets in addition to the previous ones:

• Chromium
• Contacts
• Digital well-being
• Google TV
• Google Keep
• Translate
• Youtube Music

While it’s a shame that Android 15’s lock screen widgets are likely limited to tablets, there is a silver lining. I’ve previously reported that Google could leverage its At-a-Glance view on the lock screen to surface widgets on smartphones. While I don’t have any new details on this effort, I hope it makes an appearance in an upcoming Android 15 beta soon.