Android’s lock screen widgets are getting a slick new background blur effect

Material 3 Expressive, the latest version of Google’s design language, brings a more visually engaging and playful feel to Android through a new physics-based animation system, vibrant colors, larger buttons, and background blur effects. While Google has updated many UI elements to Material 3 Expressive, some parts of the OS still use the old design. For example, the lock screen widgets page doesn’t use the same background blur effect found elsewhere, but that’s finally changing.

Last week, Google launched the Android Canary program, giving developers year-round access to preview new Android features. The first Canary build is slightly newer than the latest Android 16 QPR1 beta, meaning it contains some changes not yet present in the beta. One of these changes affects the lock screen widget page, which now features a blurred version of your wallpaper.

Here’s a gallery showing what the lock screen widget page currently looks like in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2:

And here’s a gallery showing what it looks like in the first Android Canary build:

In the QPR1 beta, the lock screen widget page has an opaque background using your wallpaper’s dominant color. The July Android Canary build, however, applies the same blurred wallpaper effect seen in the Recents screen, notification pulldown, and keyguard. This small visual tweak doesn’t change functionality, but it aligns the lock screen widget page with the rest of Android’s Material 3 Expressive design.

Google reintroduced lock screen widget support in Android 15 QPR1, though the feature remains exclusive to tablets for now. The company has confirmed that lock screen widgets are coming to phones in Android 16 QPR1, but the feature isn’t active in the current beta or Canary builds. With only one beta left in the Android 16 QPR1 program, we’ll hopefully see the feature land on phones in the upcoming third beta release.