Android 15’s Home Controls screensaver turns your device into a smart home dashboard

Google released the source code for Android 15 last month, giving us a look at how the new features in the latest operating system work under the hood. The Android 15 update introduces several new features such as Private Space, partial screen sharing, app pairs, and a new screensaver called Home Controls. Home Controls is a very useful screensaver that turns your Android device into a smart home dashboard when it’s docked, and after researching how it works, I realized it’s even better than I originally thought.

In case you don’t know, Google introduced the Home Controls screensaver in the third beta of Android 15 released in June. The screen saver can be found below Settings > Display & touch > Screen saver on Pixel devices; on other Android devices, the location in Settings for changing the screen saver may differ (if it already exists).

After you choose Home Controls as your screensaver and then dock your device, Android will launch the Favorites view of the Google Home app. The Favorites view provides quick access to your favorite smart home devices in the Google Home app. By choosing this view as your screensaver, you can effectively turn your Android tablet (or your phone, if you prefer) into a smart home dashboard when docked.

The Home Controls screensaver is one of the most useful changes in Android 15, and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it. I think part of the reason for this is that Android 15 isn’t available for most Android phones yet, so most people haven’t had a chance to try it yet. Furthermore, those who are aware of the Home Controls screensaver may assume that it only works on Pixel devices or with the Google Home app. However, neither is true.

In fact, the Home Controls screensaver works on all Android devices running Android 15, as long as they support screensavers at all. As proof, the phone I used to demonstrate the feature in the photos above is the Nothing Phone 2a running the Nothing OS 3.0 Open Beta, and not a Pixel phone.

Moreover, the Home Controls screensaver does not only work with the Google Home app. It also works with Home Assistant, as demonstrated below:

Interestingly, neither the Google Home app nor Home Assistant offer their own screensavers for this feature. Without getting too technical, the Home Controls screensaver is actually provided by the Android SystemUI app, which in turn embeds the Home Control activity from Google Home or Home Assistant.

In last year’s Android 14 update, Google introduced an API that allows apps to embed a custom activity into the Device Controls interface. Device control is the feature that lets you access your smart home controls through a Quick Settings tile or a lock screen widget. SystemUI in Android 15 takes the same custom activity and places it in a screensaver when you enable the Home Controls screensaver.

Smart Home apps don’t need to do anything special to support Android 15’s Home Controls screensaver, aside from providing the aforementioned custom activity. However, they do need to ensure that the custom activity and its controls are accessible when the device is locked, but that’s about it.

I’m excited to see Android 15 rolling out to Android devices in the coming weeks and months so more users can play with the new Home Controls screensaver. If you’ve already tried it out, let us know what you think in the comments below!