Essentials is now verified? Usage access alt, ambient music updates, new notification lighting animation, qs tile categories and more in Essentials v12.6

What's New

• Essentials is now verified by the new Android Developer Verification program. Hope this helps with installation with upcoming sideloading restrictions.
  

• New notification lighting effect

• QS tile categories

• Shape effects for album art in ambient music glance

• Many improvements to ambient music glance and fixes

• Update note onboarding

• You can use usage access permission instead of Accessibility for

  • Freeze
  • App lock
  • Dynamic nightlight
    features. Enable in settings.

• A lot of translations

• And a ton of minor improvements and bug fixes

Re-uploaded to fix crash at launch. If you are experiencing this, please re-download and install the APK.

• chore: Update readme with features by @sameerasw in #315
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #314
• Update Translations by @Jack-Huang-2020 in #317
• Revert "Update Translations" - incorrect branch by @sameerasw in #321
• Develop by @sameerasw in #322
• Detect Sennheiser Momentum headphones in battery widget by @ThatOneCalculator in #325
• Translations by @sameerasw in #323
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #324
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #326
• Develop - developer verification,usage access, shapes in ambient music, qs panel security, new notification lighting animation, qs tile categories, what's new onboarding, reddit card and version update by @sameerasw in #330
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #328
• Develop - translations by @sameerasw in #331

New Contributors

• @Jack-Huang-2020 made their first contribution in #317

Full Changelog: v12.5...v12.6

Material Expressive UI overhaul, Frozen apps and Are we there yet updates and more in Essentials v12.5

What's New?

• An attempt at fixing the overflowing bottom toolbar
• A lot of Material 3 Expressive UI component updates instead of custom components.
• Your Android
  • Diagnostics and Device check for Pixel devices (Battery & storage health + hardware & sensor testing)
  • Fix crash for some devices

  • Note: device detection might still have misses, Will try to fix soon as it's mostly due to GSMArena discovery

• App freezing
  • You can now search apps
  • Added app context menu (long press) to unfreeze or even remove easily
  • Add shortcut to home in long press menu
  • Made the dedicated frozen apps activity the same as the freeze tab UI
• Are we there yet
  • Full redesign
  • Ability to save destinations
  • Customize destination details
  • ETA
• More improvements and fixes

• Develop - Oversized toolbar fix, M3E UI migration, Frozen app grid updates, Pixel diagnostics and are we there yet redesign by @sameerasw in #310
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #301
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #311
• Develop - translation s and your android crash fix by @sameerasw in #312
• fix: #303 again!!!! by @sameerasw in #313

Full Changelog: v12.4...v12.5

Hotfix for Your Android Crash v12.4

What's Changed

• The Your Android crashing as the saved data tot be db causing issues with missed skip annotations for the optimized build. Fixed.

• fix: Device info activity crash on optimized build by @sameerasw in #298
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #296
• Develop - translations by @sameerasw in #299
• version updated to 12.4 by @sameerasw in #300

Full Changelog: v12.3...v12.4

App Suspension, Kaomoji, Language picker, Accented Characters in keyboard, Custom DNS, Low Power Mode Automations and more in Essentials v12.3

What's New?

• App suspension #245
• Kaomoji in keyboard
• In-app language picker
• Accented characters in keyboard #251
• Low power mode automation #250
• Custom DNS records #262
• Time based scheduling in DIY #250
• Improved device info search and caching specs #266
• Built-in user feedback

I'm back! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

Fixes

• fix: ESSENTIALS-9 missing bluetooth permission
• fix: ESSENTIALS-N foreground service crash
• fix: ESSENTIALS-14 Security exception for media controls
• fix: ESSENTIALS-3H thread loop on Native SIGSEGV in AmbientDreamService (Android 9/MediaTek)
• fix: ESSENTIALS-29 absent path method crash on Android 10
• fix: ESSENTIALS-16 ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException on Android 14
• fix: ESSENTIALS-K IllegalArgumentException screensaver clock crash after ending
• fix: ESSENTIALS-P CameraAccessException for flashlight
• fix: ESSENTIALS-2E in widget provider null pointer crash
• fix: Remove unnecessary night light logs and checks
• fix: ESSENTIALS-H security exception on capturing bt name
• fix: ESSENTIALS-X Google maps app not found crash
• fix: ESSENTIALS-4B Vol long press runtime exception with permissions
• fix: ESSENTIALS-2K modifyign system props not allowed for statusbar on some OEMs

• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #276
• Develop - Translations by @sameerasw in #290
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #291
• Develop - App suspension, Improved device model matchign and caching, accented keyboard characters, low power and time based schedules in DIY, Custom DNS records by @sameerasw in #292
• Develop - kaomoji, in-app lang picker, user feedback, and a lot of bug fixes. by @sameerasw in #294
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #293
• Develop - translations and fixes by @sameerasw in #295
• fix: kaomoji loading in optimized builds by @sameerasw in #297

Full Changelog: v12.2...v12.3

Onboarding, Crash reporting, Full translation and more in v12.2

What's New?

• New app onboarding
  • Acknowledgement
  • Preferences
  • Help and how to
  • A little Easter egg :)
• App crash reporting (Sentry)
• Full translation
  • ar cs si af fi ko uka nd re ro hu pl pt no el ach da sr sv vi and more
  • These full translations were done from word-to-word translations so some might not be accurate
  • If you find any that doesn't represent the meaning well, please contribute and update the translations
  • https://crowdin.com/project/essentials-android
• Avoid progressive blur on unsupported devices
• Avoid progressive blur on power saving
• Auto freeze app list text color fix #264
• Fix bottom toolbar in certain languages
• Fix app theming inconsistencies
• More fixes and improvements

• Develop - Your android minor improvements by @sameerasw in #258
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #257
• Develop - translations by @sameerasw in #259
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #265
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #269
• Develop - Full translations, fix blur, onboarding, a lot more fixes by @sameerasw in #274
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #270
• Develop - tr and version by @sameerasw in #275

Full Changelog: v12.1...v12.2

Your Android, Expressive UI with blur, More root improvements and fixes in v12.1

What's New?

• Your Android
• New expressive UI
• Progressive blur in the UI (Android 13+, Can be turned off)
• Use Shizuku for Pixel charging optimization QS tile
• Generalize using Root alternative for all Shizuku use cases
• Fixed occasional crashes in release builds with the new charging QS tile
• A lot more fixes and changes

Samsung devices (Android 15) seem to have broken the progressive blur implementation of Android so it's disabled for those devices.

• Develop - Charging optimization with shizuku, UI redesign, Your android by @sameerasw in #253
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #249
• Develop - Translations by @sameerasw in #254
• Develop - Generalize root for shizuku, Blur toggle and more fixes by @sameerasw in #255

Full Changelog: v12.0...v12.1

Dynamic AOD, Charging Qs Tile and more stuff in v12.0

What's new?

• Dynamic AOD: Automate AOD based on notifications
• Charging optimization QS tile (Pixel)
• Keyboard: Delete clipboard entries
• Developer options QS tile directly opens in settings
• Developer option: Auto grant accessibility
• App lock light theme support
• More fixes, improvements

• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #240
• Develop - Charging optimization, Delete clipboard history, Dynamic AOD, Auto grant accessibilit, Light theme app lock and more by @sameerasw in #246
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #244
• Develop - Developer options directly open when qs tile long pressed, splash with branding and translations by @sameerasw in #247
• fix: Themed icon in app drawer by @sameerasw in #248

Full Changelog: v11.6...v12.0

Freeze fix, Optimized debug build, Frozen app export and more in v11.6

What's Changed

Hotfix for Freezing app crash

• Develop - Freeze fix, Optimized debug build, Drozen app export and more by @sameerasw in #242

Full Changelog: v11.5...v11.6

UI updates, Eye dropper (A17+) and more stuff in v11.5

What's New

• UI updates
  • Removed swipe navigation for performance and smoothness
  • Better scaling and normalizing the UI
  • Expanded bottom toolbar
  • Improved navigation
• Eye dropper (Color picker) Android 17 BETA 2+
• Fixed battery notification permissions
• Minified builds with smaller APK
• More fixes and improvements

• Develop - Generalize styling, Eye dropper QS by @sameerasw in #235
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #226
• New Crowdin updates by @sameerasw in #236
• Upstream by @sameerasw in #237
• Develop - Version update by @sameerasw in #238
• Develop - Color picker API impl by @sameerasw in #239

Full Changelog: v11.4...v11.5

Critical bug fix for Batteries notification with no devices in v11.4

What's Changed

• Fixed a critical bug that caused the app to crash upon opening if the batteries notification was enabled while no devices are connected to be displayed.

- If you are experiencing constant crashes of the app, please update immediately to this version

What happened?

• I have missed to test the app without any devices connected.
• Since the app does not start the battery service unless a device is connected due to efficiency reasons, that causes a crash when the notification tried to query the current battery data without the service running.
• A temporarily workaround would have been connecting any device to show up which should stop preventing the app to launch.
• Sorry about that (T＿T)

• Develop - Critical bug fix with batteries notification by @sameerasw in #227

Full Changelog: v11.3...v11.4