15 free Android widgets you must have

posted by Nick T. / Aug 28, 2014, 6:14 AM

Widgets have been a staple of the Android operating system ever since they were introduced in version 1.5 of Google's platform. They are a great way for Android to show off its customization flexibility, allowing a home screen to be made as functional as possible and tailored to the user's needs.

But with so many widgets out there, finding the really good ones can be tough. That's why we've done the hard work for you. Here's our selection of 15 Android widgets that you should try – from weather and clock widgets to toggle switches and news readers. And yes, all of them are free, so there's nothing stopping you from giving them a try.

As always, the comments section below is open, so feel free to let us know which are your favorite Android widgets, or if you know of a great Android widget that we should have included on the list.

Must-have Android widgets

Beautiful Widgets Free

Contacts+ Widget

Zooper Widget

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Must-have Android widgets

Any phone's home screen needs a quality weather widget - a widget like the ones bundled with 1Weather. They are compact, yet elegant and loaded with useful weather data, such as the current temperature, the expected daily highs and lows, and probability of precipitation.

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More great Android apps:

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10 Comments

1. adamfriday

Posts: 5; Member since: Nov 13, 2013

Chronus ;)

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 6:37 AM 0

2. Mxyzptlk unregistered

I'm not really a widgets person but the reddit one would be decent.

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 7:13 AM 1

3. sorgo

Posts: 10; Member since: Sep 26, 2011

Where's DashClock widget?

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 7:32 AM 1

4. Elusivellama

Posts: 73; Member since: Aug 26, 2014

I have Slider Widget because the Touchwiz way of maintaining system sounds is garbage. With Touchwiz, I can pull down the notification tab and hit the sound icon to off or vibrate, but it only sets it to the last remembered state. In other words, I can have the sound icon to 'off' (greyed out with a line going through it) but my system media volume can be at max. Totally inconsistent and typically Samsung. Slider Widget lets me know, right from the home screen, which system sounds are active and what volume they're at. Just double tap an icon and it toggles it either to full volume, or off. As for the other widgets, I'm not a big fan of weather / dictionary etc widgets when I can quickly pull up google search / google voice search and type in my query. The Google Keep widget looks good, so does the Reddit one (although I prefer to have Reddit in a browser window).

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 9:41 AM 1

5. RandomUsername

Posts: 808; Member since: Oct 29, 2013

Power Toggles is all I need :)

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 1:28 PM 0

6. akki20892

Posts: 3902; Member since: Feb 04, 2013

i'm using 3th and 7th.........and wth 11th

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 1:49 PM 1

7. wk10k

Posts: 9; Member since: Aug 06, 2012

All you have to do in touchwiz is hit the volume rocker then the gear icon and all of your individual volume sliders are there. Not that hard.

posted on Aug 28, 2014, 5:42 PM 0

8. refillable

Posts: 1071; Member since: Mar 10, 2014

I don't know why but I only find the #2 beautiful while others give me a cluttered layout.

posted on Aug 29, 2014, 8:54 AM 0

9. yogi.306

Posts: 4; Member since: Nov 03, 2014

Add "Any Text Widget" to this list : play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bhanu.anytextwidget its very Simple, nice design app for making Text widgets for android, app have all the basic function requested.. Developer made it clean app, not lot of confusing options, only the important function to make simple text widgets on homescreen and lockscreen.