My Android Home Screen: Explained

I've done something like this before on my Mastodon account, but recently I was inspired by Cliff Wade’s Android home screen post and the weekly screen share feature in David Pierce’s newsletter “The Installer”. So here's my current Android home screen with some details about what everything is and does.

This is my main home screen. I'm using Nova Launcher beta. The date and battery level widgets are part of a KWGT widget pack called Glare. The weather widget is from a weather app called Weather Today. In the launcher’s dock I've got a search widget for the Cromite browser, which searches Kagi.com. Below that is the widget for Perplexity search. Off to the right is a folder of shortcuts I access somewhat frequently: Gemini, Moshidon new post widget, Linkwarden, and Koofr.

Another tool I'm using for quick access to some apps is an app called Panels. Samsung has something like this in OneUI. It allows you to add a little swipe area to either side of your screen that brings out a customizable app/widget panel when activated. This allows me to get to some frequently used apps without first going back to the home screen.

A swipe to the right takes me to the Smartspacer page to the left of my main screen. This is a tool that integrates with Nova Launcher beta to give you a page of widgets. Here are the widgets I'm using there:

• NotesNook new note
• ChatGPT
• Digital well-being screen time
• NZB360 upcoming episodes
• Pano Scrobbler top artists weekly

The next screen to the right of my main screen is for my Etar calendar widget, and Samsung Health steps and sleep widgets.

And finally, the last screen to the right of my main home screen is for my Edison Mail email widget.