7 Great Text-Based Widgets, For Those That Would Rather Read Their Home Screen

You need to do more reading!

Widgets are the easiest way to customize your Android device to add extra functionality to an otherwise static screen. But why would you want to look at the pictographs of this info when you could read it instead? Er, yeah, assuming you’re a word nerd like myself or a designer who prefers text to icons. Either way, several cool text-based widgets out there will display everything. From the time to your phone’s battery level using words. Yes, only words.

Minimalistic Text: Widgets

Don’t let its name fool you! Minimalistic Texts customization options are anything but minimal. This is a great widget to download if you’re looking for a pack. Minimalistic Text comes with four widget layouts clock, time, date, battery level, and weather in Fahrenheit or Celsius. You can also choose the widget’s orientation, horizontal or vertical, which can make for a unique home screen layout.

Minimalistic Text: Widgets (Free)

World Clock

The Clock is my favorite text-based clock widget because it looks simple and elegant right off the bat. You can customize Clock’s font style and clock style, e.g., display 2:04 as twoOfour or twoZEROfour. And toggle the transparent background on or off. For more functionality, such as a text date option, you can purchase Clock Evolution for $1.53.

World Clock (Free)

Text Clock

Text Clock widget is an ultra-simple clock widget that displays the time in a slightly different format than the Clock. Instead of writing out numbers, the Text Clock widget displays the time as we say it. In other words, 2:04 is shown as four past two rather than twoOfour. Likewise, 9:30 is displayed as half past nine, and 11:45 p.m. is a quarter to midnight. The text Clock widget has fewer customization options. But you can choose to show the date, not as text, battery level, or change the widget’s font color.

Text Clock (Free)

BattStatt Pro

BattStatt Pro is a free, open-source battery-level widget. Unlike the Text Battery Widget, BattStatt Pro is very customizable. It used to be the paid version of BattStatt Free, has since become free. You can change text style, color, size, capitalization, bold news. And set the widget tap action to show your battery info or usage screen. BattStatt Pro comes in three sizes and 8 languages.

BattStatt Pro (Free)

Text Battery Widget

Style-wise, the Text Battery Widget looks like a Clock, but it displays your phone’s battery level instead of the time. The free version limits customization, though you can change the widget’s language. It supports 12 different languages, including Japanese and English. For $1.42, you can grab the Pro version, which lets you tweak text style, color, and size.

Text Battery Widget (Free)

AmazingText Free

At first glance, AmazingText Free looks like a useless widget like Text Widget. AmazingText Free is a simple widget that places a static text string on your home screen. However, unlike Text Widget, AmazingText Free lets you select a custom tap action for each created widget. In other words, you can launch an app or a shortcut from your widget. AmazingText Free is one of the easiest ways to develop text-only app icons.
If you want more presets, fonts, and effects, you can fork over $1.50 for AmazingText Plus.

AmazingText Free (Free)

Simple Text-Text Icon Creator

It’s not precisely a widget. But Simple Text Icon Creator is an application that lets you create cool text-based icons to replace your stock icons. There are a few ways to change icons. You can use a custom launcher or an icon changer such as Icon Changer. And choose a font, text size, x y coordinates, background, orientation, and add gradients shadows. You can create icons from scratch or use one of the app templates. The app does have a widget feature, which lets you add single 1×1 widgets. Basically, icons to your home screen, choosing a custom tap action.