Node / meshtastic / Meshtastic-Android / files / docs / ht-rHT / user / widget.md

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---

title: Home Screen Widget

parent: User Guide

nav_order: 20

last_updated: 2026-08-30

description: Add the Meshtastic home screen widget to glance at your connected radio's local stats without opening the app.

aliases:

Tff7b72- widget

Tff7b72- home-screen-widget

Tc9d1d9 - local-stats-widget

Tc9d1d9---

Tc9d1d9# Home Screen Widget

On Android, Meshtastic provides a home screen **widget** that shows live local statistics from your connected radio at a glance — no need to open the app.

Tc9d1d9## What It Shows

The widget displays the **connected radio's** current local stats:

Tff7b72- A **node chip** across the top, carrying the radio's short name in its own colors

Tff7b72- **Battery** — the radio's battery level, or _Powered_ when running on external power

Tff7b72- **ChUtil** — channel utilization (how busy the LoRa channel is, as a percentage)

Tff7b72- **AirUtil** — airtime utilization (how much of the duty cycle your radio is transmitting)

Tff7b72- **Traffic** — packets transmitted / received, and duplicates seen

Tff7b72- **Relays** — packets relayed and relay cancellations (shown when the radio is relaying)

Tff7b72- **Diagnostics** — a combined line carrying **Noise** (the background noise level in dBm), **Bad** (corrupt packets received), and **Dropped** (packets the radio discarded). Bad and Dropped appear only once they are above zero, so a quiet radio may show the noise reading alone

Tff7b72- **Heap** — free versus total memory on the radio, drawn as a bar

Tff7b72- **Nodes** — how many nodes are online, out of the total known

Tff7b72- **Uptime** — how long the radio has been running since its last reboot, shown beside Nodes

Tff7b72- **Updated** — the time the stats last refreshed, along the foot of the widget

Tap the widget to open the app, or use its refresh control to request fresh stats.

Tff7b72> ℹ️ **Note:** The values reflect the connected radio. If the radio disconnects, the widget replaces the stats with a status line — **Disconnected**, **Connecting**, or **Device sleeping**. It does not keep the last-known numbers on screen.

Tc9d1d9## Adding the Widget

Tff7b721. Touch & hold an empty area of your Android home screen.

Tff7b722. Tap **Widgets**.

Tff7b723. Drag the **Meshtastic** widget to your home screen. The app ships one widget, so the picker entry is just the app name.

Tff7b724. Resize it as needed — the layout adapts to the available space.

Tff7b72> ℹ️ **Note:** The widget is Android-only. It is not available on the Desktop or iOS builds.

Tc9d1d9## Related Topics

Tff7b72- [Tff7b72Node Metrics](Te6edf3node-metrics) — the full Signal Quality and Local Stats history inside the app

Tff7b72- [Tff7b72Connections](Te6edf3connections) — connect to a radio so the widget has stats to show

Tff7b72- [Tff7b72Local Mesh Discovery](Te6edf3discovery) — channel and airtime utilization across the mesh