Android 15 has a new screensaver that turns your device into a smart home dashboard

Google has started rolling out Android 15 to Pixel devices today, introducing 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.

In case you aren’t aware, we first encountered the Home Controls screensaver in the third beta of Android 15, released in June. On Pixel devices, the screensaver can be found under Settings > Display & touch > Screen saver. As of now, the feature is only rolling out for the Pixel Tablet, but we hope it makes its way to other Android devices soon.

So, how does it work? After choosing Home Controls as the screensaver and then docking 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 picking this view as your screensaver, you can effectively turn your Android tablet (or your phone, if you prefer) into a smart home dashboard when it’s docked.

Like many other Pixel-specific features, it might be natural to assume that this new screensaver only works on Pixel devices or with the Google Home app. Neither is true, though. In fact, the Home Controls screensaver can technically work on all Android devices running Android 15 as long as they support screen savers in the first place. As evidence, the phone I used to demonstrate the feature in the photos shown above is the Nothing Phone 2a running the Nothing OS 3.0 Open Beta, not a Pixel phone.

Furthermore, the Home Controls screensaver doesn’t only work with the Google Home app. It works with Home Assistant, too, as demonstrated below:

Interestingly, neither the Google Home app nor Home Assistant provide 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 of either Google Home or Home Assistant.

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

Smart home apps need not do anything special to support Android 15’s Home Controls screensaver apart from providing the aforementioned custom activity. They do, however, need to ensure that the custom activity and its controls are accessible when the device is locked, but that’s about it.

The Home Controls screensaver could be one of the more useful changes in Android 15. If you’ve tried it out already, let us know what you think of it in the comments below!