GrapheneOS / Android desktop mode

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This is my yearly look at Android Desktop Mode.

The idea is to use my phone, docked to a screen, keyboard and mouse as a remote desktop platform. The goal is to run a remote desktop through RDP, Citrix Workspace, or another such app, and use MS Teams and other stuff supplied by that remote machine/VM. That way, I would not need a laptop since my phone has enough power to do the RDP thing.

Phone version

Pixel 9 XL

GrapheneOS 20251225

Android 16

Setup 1 ("Amazon Basics")

Phone connected to Amazon Basics USB-C docking station with HDMI display

Screen gets recognized and added (1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution), a taskbar shows up at bottom, but no tasks other than Camera can be launched from it. After the screen lock activates, the taskbar is gone. Mouse works, keyboard not tested (?!). Taking a screenshot of the Android Desktop is not possible.

Setup 2 ("HP")

Phone connected to HP USB-C docking station with HDMI display.

What works in Android 16

HP: Desktop appears on HDMI screen, mouse and keyboard work. Taskbar at the bottom of the HDMI screen. Remote desktop works and displays. Phone-local apps and the remote desktop can live on the phone desktop and can be resized without problem.

What doesn't work in Android 16

HP: Screen resolution is weird. Smaller screen space, but pixel count seems to be full-width and then scaled down to smaller screen space.

Fennec HTML zoom is very weird and seems to orient itself on the phone-screen measurements, not on the HDMI screen measurements. Further debugging is needed.

External camera and microphone don't seem to work with the Citrix Workspace app.

Fitness tracker: Unexpected benefits

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End of 2024, I got me a Huawei Band 8 on a lark, seeing that there was a used exemplar at Amazon for € 24. I mainly wanted to try out how well it works with GadgetBridge, and even if it doesn't, a small computer with a screen for € 24 sounded interesting.

Good

  • works with Gadgetbridge. "Deep Sleep" is not recognized/supported, but that's not really important to me.
  • saves me 10 minutes in my morning routine, as I don't reach for my phone anymore when getting up, preventing one cycle of mails and doomscrolling
  • even can install custom watchfaces
  • cheap replacement bands on AliExpress, in various colours

Bad

I didn't find a good way to create custom watchfaces: * Huawei SDK requires registration * Huawei Theme Design Tool is Windows only, but I didn't try it yet * nothing found on Github

GadgetBridge cannot upload my own pictures as backgrounds. I would like this, as I prefer to have pictures that I took myself around me.

Surprises

  • gets too hot in direct sunlight at 25°C , warns about it and then switches off

Discovering KDE Connect

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I recently discovered KDE Connect. It is a mobile app with a desktop companion to connect the machines.

KDE Connect Logo

It's not only for connecting your mobile to your desktop, or laptop PC. It also connects these machines among each other. This means you can use it for convenient file sharing between machines, and not only for sharing between mobile and desktop.

This actually proves more convenient than file sharing via a common SMB share.

It has various other features:

  • automatically pause music playback on your machines when a phone call comes in
  • display incoming text messages on other machines
  • launch custom commands on the desktop from the phone
  • presentation remote

These features sound all convenient but except for the auto-pausing of sound playback, I have not used them.

It's available on Android, Apple, Windows, Linux and many other OSes.

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