It’s time to bring back the classic feature of Android’s old lock screen widget. exciting news! According to Google, Android 15 could be the virtual assistant that they are bringing back in the next release. This is a rough draft, which you can expect to see modified, although I ask that you check the submitted version.
While this focuses on the Android 15 Beta 1 version, this tone won’t necessarily be maintained with future releases before the stable rollout. There are some visual problems at the moment as far as space dust is concerned. However, widgets for the lock screen are only available for tablets that are hub-mode-compatible right now; Meanwhile, they are not available on phones yet.
Simply by accessing Settings > Hub Mode and turning on “Show widgets on lock screen”, you’ll enable them. You can also go to the respective widget privacy settings to allow any widget, not limited to just a few classified for the locking screen.
Swiping right turns on the Glance Hub, your display presentation where widgets are found. They are editable, undoable, and sorted, but they cannot be resized yet. In particular, it is worth mentioning that the tool requires to go through a screen unlocking process to work in the editing area for security reasons.
Why tablet only? Imho, the most compelling factor will be the screen size. Although rival phones and Samsung’s icons tend to be narrower as they get smaller as you move closer, tablets have more space to add more of them.
An alternative approach could be similar to Apple’s Live Activities: sliding in at the end or beginning of the lock screen so it can also be part of other apps’ scenes. From the supply indications, it seems Google has that particular option in mind.
In short, the lock screen widgets in Android 15 are newsworthy, but to reach 110% potential the developers have to be more precise. It is expected that this functionality will be launched in the successful testing phase and updates will also come out as soon as Google makes changes to this feature.
