SysReadout Launcher

A minimal Android launcher that turns your home screen into a live system monitor.

A short list of your apps sits in front of a terminal-style readout of the phone: pinned status rows, monitor tables and a scrolling event log, optionally dressed as an old CRT terminal. Built for people who like to know what their phone is doing. SRL for short.

From a full CRT terminal to a plain list of apps: every look, the log and each effect can be switched on or off.

Features

Launcher

• Pinned apps as text entries, as many as fit the screen; a searchable drawer (prefix, initials, substring; opens a single match by itself).
• Gestures: up for apps, down for notifications, left/right for an app you choose, double-tap to lock, long-press for settings.
• Hidden apps, renaming, work profiles.
• Safe mode: should it ever crash twice right after starting, it comes back as a plain launcher until you resume, with the crash report under settings › about.

Readout

• 52 optional status rows: CPU, memory, swap, thermal headroom, battery current and watts, network speed, Wi-Fi and mobile signal (spelled out, never drawn as bars), IP, storage, build properties, GPU, sensors, sunrise, moon phase and more. Choose and order them yourself.
• An editable banner header with live placeholders ({year}, {device}, {android}…).
• An event stream: network and power changes, installs, app switches, background services.
• Two layouts: classic (rows, tables and stream in fixed places) or feed, one header-free list where new lines push older ones off the screen and lines already showing update in place.

System monitor (each part optional)

• Shizuku (optional, with a guided setup under settings › shizuku): processes by CPU or memory, every connection per app with the server's name, wakelocks, per-app battery drain, temperatures, per-core load, system errors from logcat. Once connected it can switch on the other access below in one tap.
• Usage access: screen time, unlocks, traffic per app, data used this month.
• Notification access: a notification log and per-app table, and what's playing.
• DNS monitor: a local VPN that carries only DNS, showing which app looks up which server.
• Location / phone / Bluetooth / activity: GPS fix and satellites per constellation, serving cell and 5G/LTE-CA details, connected Bluetooth devices with battery, steps.

Look

• 7 presets (including green-phosphor and amber DOS terminals) plus your own.
• 11 bundled fonts and your own .ttf/.otf, with size, weight, spacing, case and colour per element.
• CRT effects: glow, scanlines, curvature, vignette, colour fringe, flicker, grain.
• Lock screen: your own image, or a snapshot of the log redrawn whenever the screen turns off.

Everything is explained in the user manual.

Install

• F-Droid: submission in preparation.
• GitHub: download the APK from the latest release and open it (allow "install unknown apps").

Then make it your home screen: Settings › Apps › Default apps › Home app › SysReadout.

Requires Android 8.0 (API 26) or newer; curvature and colour fringe need Android 13.

Permissions

Nothing beyond the basics is used until you switch on the feature that needs it, and runtime permissions are requested at that moment.

Permission	Used for	When
Network state, Wi-Fi state	connection type, IP, Wi-Fi signal rows	install-time, no prompt
Change Wi-Fi state	asking for a fresh scan for the nearby networks row	install-time
Expand status bar	swipe down for notifications	install-time
Request delete packages	uninstall in the drawer's long-press menu (Android still asks you to confirm)	install-time
Set alarm	tapping the clock opens your alarms	install-time
Query all packages	real app names for system processes, connections and traffic	install-time
Set wallpaper	lock-screen image or log snapshot	only if you choose it
Internet	only the optional DNS monitor, which relays your apps' own lookups to your network's DNS server (Quad9 or Cloudflare only if the network names none)	only if you switch it on
Usage access	screen time, traffic, app switches	you grant it in Android settings
Notification access	notification row, stream and table	you grant it in Android settings
Accessibility (lock service)	double-tap to lock; reads no screen content	you enable it in Android settings
Location	GPS, satellites, Wi-Fi name, nearby networks, cell tower, sunrise rows	asked when you switch one on
Phone	5G/LTE link details	asked when you switch it on
Bluetooth connect	connected devices and their battery	asked when you switch it on
Physical activity	step count	asked when you switch it on
Bluetooth (Android ≤ 11)	reading whether Bluetooth is on	install-time on old Android

Privacy

No ads, no analytics, no tracking, no accounts. Everything is read on the phone and kept in memory while the home screen is visible; nothing is written anywhere except your settings (and, if SysReadout crashes, the last crash report, which stays on the phone until you share or delete it). The log stops when the home screen isn't visible.

Build

Requirements: JDK 17 or 21, Android SDK (compileSdk 36).

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug :app:lintDebug :app:testDebugUnitTest

The Gradle root is the repository root; the app module is app/.

Release signing

Release builds are signed from a keystore.properties file at the repository root, which is not in git:

storeFile=/absolute/path/to/sysreadout-release.jks
storePassword=…
keyAlias=sysreadout
keyPassword=…   # PKCS12 keystores: same as storePassword

Without it, assembleRelease produces an unsigned APK (what F-Droid's build server does). CI gets the same values from repository secrets (RELEASE_KEYSTORE_B64, RELEASE_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD, RELEASE_KEY_ALIAS, RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD).

Releasing a version

1. Bump versionCode (+1) and versionName in app/build.gradle.kts.
2. Add metadata/en-US/changelogs/<versionCode>.txt.
3. Commit and push to main; CI publishes a rolling latest release.
4. Put the full hash of that commit into .fdroid.yml (commit:), update versionName, versionCode, CurrentVersion, CurrentVersionCode, commit and push.
5. Tag the release commit vX.Y.Z and push the tag. release-tag.yml publishes a permanent release whose SysReadout-Launcher.apk is what F-Droid compares its own build against (Binaries, AllowedAPKSigningKeys in .fdroid.yml).

Signing certificate SHA-256: 03873cc1869db581465c718d15b58d7f80999dec058ff21617b58267760a91bb

Credits

• Fonts (licences in app/src/main/assets/licenses, also viewable in the app under settings › about): JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Space Mono, Share Tech Mono, VT323, Major Mono Display, Press Start 2P and Silkscreen under the SIL Open Font License 1.1; Px437 IBM VGA 8x16 by VileR (int10h.org) under CC BY-SA 4.0. The "SR" in the app icon is drawn from VT323's glyphs.
• Shizuku API (MIT), Haze (Apache-2.0), AndroidX and Jetpack Compose (Apache-2.0).
• Inspired by Olauncher and mLauncher.

License

GPL-3.0 — see LICENSE.