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Stock-y alternative launcher for Pixel 7? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Update 3 months later:

I’m using Smart Launcher since my last post here. It’s great. I even bought the pro version. It’s not super “stock-y”, but that’s absolutely fine. I like that you can customize a lot of things!

The combo widget shows upcoming alarms and bank holidays. Also (somewhat) location-aware weather.

I think I stick with it.

Now that the Google search bar on the homescreen has become uttery useless there is no real reason to have it anymore and it is annoying anyways, so I am in search for a launcher that resembles the stock Pixel launcher.

Especially the "combo widget" that shows the time, the date, position-weather, tasks, warnings, timers, etc. all in one place.

Launchers I tried so war that don't seem to have such a widget and seem not to be able to use that widget:

Nova
Lawnchair
Niagara
Hyperion

Those are all great launchers, but this specific functionality (basically the only feature I use on my homescreen besides one single icon for one app) seems to be missing in all of them.

So my question is: does someone know a launcher that comes with an unobstrusive "combo widget" like the stock widget as described, that also allows me to remove the now useless search bar from the home screen?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you mean at a glance, you can use Lawnchair with Smartspacer to get even better experience then stock at a glance on pixel launcher.

It has all functionality of Google's at a glance, while being extendable with plugins.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Looks good, thanks! Using Smartspacer seems to replicate at least the weather feature and I was able to set it up to look like the stock widget. I'll closely monitor the performance and battery usage now :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Avoid Nova: they've sold out to a spyware firm.

I moved to smart launcher. It has a combo widget with:

Time Date Weather Next event

Doesn't show: Task Timers

But you can actually have a widget where you can swipe to page through them.

Also gesture controls.

Might not be a perfect fit but might be good enough?

Personally I can't live without the gesture controls.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Smart Launcher looks great. It has a combo widget with actually working location-aware weather that can also show upcoming alarms and calendar entries. I think instead of Lawnchair with Smartspacer I keep this launcher.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'm happy with smart launcher. It's got some quirks but it's fully replaced Nova and that's mostly what I wanted.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's not as clean looking as the one on the pixel launcher, but doesn't the Google app provide the "at a glance" widget with this same info (for non pixel phone users)

You'll probably not find it baked into any launcher the same way it is on the pixel launcher, simply because it's a Google assistant based feature, and Google probably doesn't make the necessary APIs to do this open for anyone to use.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yep, it exists, but it is super ugly. Giant rounded corners with background or border, large mono color background temperature, etc. But you may be right. If it's a Pixel launcher feature I'm out of luck here.

Some of the launchers offer an own combo widget but none of them seems to be able to show all the information. And position-aware weather seems to be impossible ...