Android Auto looks set to gain true home screen widget support, and the implications are bigger than a new coat of paint. Code references to a feature codenamed “Earth,” along with behavior spotted in recent test builds, suggest Google is experimenting with projecting select phone widgets onto the car display.
Early implementations appear limited—only one widget at a time, and not every widget renders correctly—but even this first step could make routine driving tasks faster, safer, and less fiddly. With most new vehicles supporting smartphone projection—S&P Global Mobility estimates that well over 80% of new cars in the U.S. ship with Android Auto or similar—widgets are a logical evolution. Done right, they reduce taps, keep interactions glanceable, and slot naturally beside navigation and media.
Three widgets that could shine on the Android Auto dash
Fuelio Quick Actions and Trip Control
Fuelio has long been my unsung hero for car ownership. Its Quick Actions widget surfaces the things I actually need on the road: log a fill‑up, add an expense, start recording a trip, set a reminder, or scan a receipt. Instead of digging through menus after a refuel, I’d tap once on the dash, capture odometer and price while the details are fresh, and move on.
Trip Control is the ideal complement. Fuelio’s trip logging is strong, but it is simple to forget since it is buried. Placing this widget alongside Maps will propel me to log multi-hour trips, compare routes, and comprehend actual fuel economy. Over a month, little captures accumulate into a lot of information—which stations cost me more money, whether cruise control saves me gas on my road journeys, and how tire modifications affect usage. For road‑trippers, gig drivers, or anyone else, it is real-life usefulness, not simply gadgetry.
Google Home Favorites for driveway control
As noted earlier, a single, simple panel for the intelligent home makes a lot of sense in the car. Google Home’s Favorites widget puts one-tap controls to the devices you probably use the most—driveway gate, porch lights, garage door, thermostat. According to Parks Associates, more than 40% of U.S. internet households are predicted to have at least one intelligent home device, and that figure grows every year, so it’s not a specialized use case.
My frequent real-world error is leaving my porch and hallway lights on before I leave. I could park, watch, and tap twice with the Favorites widget. No flipping between programs, no missed voice commands at the house, no U-turn to save a few kilowatt-hours. Because it is a first-party Google widget, it is expected to be optimized for automotive displays and touch targets early on, lowering the risk of finicky interactions.
KWGT custom dashboard that feels native
KWGT is the wildcard that could make Android Auto feel truly personal. The app allows you to create your own widget from scratch and control everything—that is, typography, colors, layering, logic, and data sources. If I could lay out my dream Cockpit No. 1.2, it would be a kind of minimalist “everything” tile: big legible clock with seconds, current weather conditions, my next calendar event’s ETA, sunrise and sunset, and a tiny now‑playing strip.
Designed high contrast, with large, easy tap areas, it would look native to Android Auto while doing more with less of the info you reliably check. The beauty of KWGT is iteration. If the above is too busy, strip back a few elements; if my habits and patterns change with the seasons, I could swap in daylight cues for winter or add an air‑quality index when wildfire smoke rolls in—all possible. There’s a reason power users swear by it on phones; having that same delightful flexibility on the dash is a dream scenario.
Android Auto widget support is early but promising
Based on current behavior in test builds, widget support is still in the earliest of days. Only one widget appears to be allowed at a time, some widgets render with layout quirks, and first‑party options—notably Pixel Weather—look comparatively stable. None of this is surprising; Google’s Android for Cars App Library is designed to maintain strict UX guardrails, and it’s typical for Google to optimize its own components before extending others.
I imagine that the whitelisting of refinements, better default touch targets, and laser focus on low‑distraction glanceability are all forthcoming. Safety and glanceability, after all, come first.
Safety and glanceability must drive widget design
Widgets in the car are only a win if they serve to shorten interactions. NHTSA guidance puts it most succinctly by emphasizing minimizing visual and manual tasks; even a two‑second look at a screen can double crash risk, and research by the AAA Foundation shows certain in‑vehicle tech can draw a driver’s eye for up to 40 seconds after a task.
- Bigger fonts for readability
- Simpler elements with high contrast
- One‑tap actions that reduce steps
The three picks above clear the bar in that regard because they eliminate steps you’d otherwise spend fumbling through screens or grabbing your phone out of your pocket. The punchline is clear: Android Auto widgets could make familiar, frequent actions a quick, safe glance. Provided Google gets the rollouts right and developers follow their driving‑first logic, Fuelio, Google Home, and KWGT could well be the first trio of integrations that make your car screen seem smarter without making it busier.
