How to add a transparent clock and weather widget on Android

To add a transparent weather widget, install a clock and weather app that offers one, touch and hold an empty spot on your home screen, choose Widgets, and drag the widget onto the screen. You then set how see-through it is in the app’s widget settings. The steps below use Transparent Clock & Weather, but they are the same for most widget apps.

1. Install the app

Install Transparent Clock & Weather from Google Play and open it once, so it can find your location (or so you can search for your city) and download the first forecast.

2. Add the widget to your home screen

1. Go to the home screen and make sure there is room for the widget. The most popular sizes are 4×1, 4×2 and 4×3 (four columns wide).
2. Touch and hold an empty spot until a menu appears.
3. Tap Widgets.
4. Scroll to Transparent Clock & Weather and pick the widget you want.
5. Touch and hold it, then drop it on the home screen. On some phones you tap the widget and then Add instead.

If your phone has no Widgets option on a long press, open the app drawer and look for a Widgets tab at the top instead.

3. Make it transparent and change its style

1. Open the app and go to Settings, then Widget settings.
2. Set the background transparency, from fully see-through to solid.
3. Pick a skin, text colours and a weather icon pack.

A fully transparent widget is easiest to read on a dark or plain wallpaper. On a busy photo, a little background opacity keeps the time and temperature legible.

If the colours you choose are ignored, check whether High contrast text is on in your phone’s Accessibility settings. It forces a fixed text colour on every widget; turning it off lets the widget use your colours again.

4. Show the weather for more than one place

Save more than one location in the app. You can then tap the location name on a widget to switch places, or add several widgets and give each its own place. If tapping the name does nothing, go to Settings, Widget settings, Shortcuts and turn on Enable location hotspot.

5. Resize the widget

Touch and hold the widget and drag the handles that appear around it. If it still takes more space than you expect, your launcher’s home screen grid may be coarse; a larger grid (for example 5×5) in the launcher settings gives you finer control.

If the widget stops updating

The widget is refreshed by a background task that Android schedules. The most common reason a widget freezes is a battery saver stopping that task.

• Let the app run in the background. Open your phone’s Settings, Apps, Transparent Clock & Weather, Battery, and choose Unrestricted (on some phones: turn battery optimization off for the app).
• Turn off power saving modes, or add the app to their exceptions. Samsung calls these “sleeping apps”, Huawei “protected apps”, Xiaomi “battery saver” per app. Task killers and cleaner apps can stop widgets too; exclude the app from them.
• Update the app. Fixes for specific phones ship in regular updates.
• Re-add the widget after an update. Remove it from the home screen and add it back; this clears a widget that stopped responding after an update.
• Check the location setting. In Settings, Weather & location settings, make sure Use my location is on if you want the widget to follow you, or set a fixed location instead.
• Free up some storage. A phone with almost no free space can stop widgets refreshing.

Phone makers handle background updates differently. The FAQ and the Transparent Clock & Weather help have steps for specific Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and other models.

Frequently asked questions