An ad-free, tracker-free StandBy mode for Android. Charge your phone in landscape and get a glanceable nightstand display — clock and today's calendar — with no ads, no in-app purchases, no analytics, and no network permission at all.
Inspired by iOS 17's StandBy. Built because the Play Store alternatives show you an ad the moment your phone touches the charger.
| Analog face | Night mode |
|---|---|
 |
 |
- Auto-launch on the charger — plug in, turn the phone sideways, the clock appears; unplug and it goes away. Optional, works fully manually too.
- Digital or analog clock, date, and a subtle battery indicator.
- Today's calendar events beside the clock, with per-calendar filtering. Optional — the app is clock-only without calendar access.
- Night mode: tap anywhere to toggle between system brightness and a configurable night level (1–40%). OLED-friendly pure black, and the whole layout pixel-shifts every minute to prevent burn-in.
- No network access. The APK does not request the
INTERNETpermission, so it cannot phone home, fetch ads, or upload anything — the platform enforces it.
The full permission list, each optional and user-visible:
| Permission | Used for | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar | today's events next to the clock | no — clock works without |
| Display over other apps | auto-launch when charging | no — manual launch works without |
| Notifications | the persistent notification Android requires for the charger-trigger service | only with auto-launch |
| Run at startup | re-arm the charger trigger after a reboot | only with auto-launch |
No INTERNET, no location, no contacts, no storage — see the
permissions budget in PLAN.md.
Anything beyond that list needs a written justification first.
Nightstand is distributed as a signed APK on the releases page — it is not on any app store.
- On your phone, download
nightstand-x.y.z.apkfrom the latest release. - Open the downloaded file. Android will ask you to allow installs from your browser (Settings → Install unknown apps) the first time — allow it, then confirm the install.
- Or, with a computer and USB debugging:
adb install nightstand-x.y.z.apk
Updates install over the top the same way; settings are kept. All releases are signed with the same key — Android refuses mismatched updates, so a tampered APK can't replace a genuine install. To check a download yourself:
apksigner verify --print-certs nightstand-x.y.z.apk
# Signer #1 certificate SHA-256 digest:
# 1777f274935d861ce20048e62324c4b969338c38d20bd0621e37603ceaa7a981On first launch a setup sheet walks you through it:
- Auto-launch when charging needs Display over other apps — it is the one system permission Android requires for an app to appear on its own.
- On Samsung (One UI): set App info → Battery → Unrestricted, or the system quietly kills the charger trigger after a few days.
./gradlew assembleDebug # APK in app/build/outputs/apk/debug/Requires a JDK on PATH and the Android SDK (point local.properties at
it with sdk.dir=...); Gradle provisions its own JDK 17 toolchain.
Release builds are signed if local.properties provides
release.storeFile, release.storePassword, release.keyAlias, and
release.keyPassword; otherwise assembleRelease produces an unsigned
APK.
- No
INTERNETpermission, ever. Weather, sync, anything that needs the network is out of scope by design. - Minimal permissions, each optional where the platform allows.
- Plain AOSP APIs, no vendor SDKs. Primary test device: Galaxy S23+ (One UI 7 / Android 15). See PLAN.md for the roadmap.