Home Screen Widgets

Home Screen Widgets

Ava ships 8 Android home screen widgets that can be placed on any Android launcher — not just Ava's own Minimal Launcher. Long-press your home screen, find the Ava Exclusive Widgets group in the widget picker, and drop one onto any page.

Compatible with Android 5-16.

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Widget Catalog

Widget	Description	Tap action
Title & Description	A responsive card with a custom title and description	Opens configuration
Core Service	One tap toggles the Ava core service on/off	Toggle service
Restart	Tap twice to restart Ava	Double-tap to restart
Exit	Tap twice to exit Ava completely	Double-tap to exit
Dark Mode	Toggle Ava's dark mode	Toggle dark mode
Music	Now-playing info with play/pause	Play / pause
Network	WiFi connection status and signal	—
Sensor	Home Assistant entity reading with a history wave	Opens configuration

All widgets are resizable (horizontal and vertical) and support Android's reconfigurable feature — tap a placed widget to reconfigure it without removing it first.

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Title & Description Widget

A simple card with a custom title and description. Text size scales with the widget dimensions and caps against the actual text so long labels still fit.

• Two instances keep completely independent content
• Tap to open the configuration activity and edit title, description, and text scale
• Rendered through RemoteViews, so it updates correctly even when Ava is not in the foreground

Sensor Widget

Displays a live Home Assistant entity reading with a mini history wave chart.

• Accepts any entity ID — sensor, binary_sensor, switch, lock, cover, etc.
• Tap to configure — pick from entities Ava already knows, or type any entity ID
• Shows a sparkline of recent values when enough history is collected
• Displays On / Off for binary entities, numeric value with unit for sensors
• Shows Unavailable when the entity is not found or HA is unreachable

Setup:

1. Long-press home screen → Widgets → Ava → Sensor
2. Drop it on the home screen
3. Tap to configure
4. Enter the entity ID (e.g. sensor.living_room_temperature)
5. The widget begins collecting history and renders the wave

Action Widgets

The Core Service, Restart, Exit, Dark Mode, and Music widgets are one-tap (or double-tap) action shortcuts. They are useful on:

• A phone where Ava runs as a companion — toggle the service without opening the app
• A tablet with a third-party launcher — restart Ava from the home screen if it ever stalls
• A kiosk where the home screen is visible — quick dark mode toggle for night use

The Restart and Exit widgets require a double-tap to prevent accidental triggers. A "Tap again" hint appears after the first tap.

Network Widget

Shows the current WiFi connection status and signal strength. Useful on kiosk devices where you want to see at a glance whether the device is still connected.

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Using Widgets with Ava's Minimal Launcher

These same widgets are also available in Ava's Minimal Launcher widget drawer. Drag one onto the Minimal Launcher workspace and it behaves the same way — resizable, configurable, independent geometry per orientation.

See Home Launcher for more on the Minimal Launcher workspace.

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Using Widgets on Other Launchers

The widgets work on any standard Android launcher that supports AppWidgetProvider:

• Stock launchers (Pixel, Samsung One UI, etc.)
• Third-party launchers (Nova, Lawnchair, etc.)
• Kiosk launchers
• Ava's own Minimal Launcher

Why this matters: A user named Quinn has Ava on a phone alongside their normal launcher. They drop the Sensor widget on their main home screen to see the living room temperature at a glance, and the Music widget for quick play/pause — without ever opening the Ava app. The widgets pull live data from the same HA connection Ava maintains in the background.

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