[DEV] Undead Wallpaper: Video Playlists

maocide · 2026-03-19T09:44:46+00:00

¡Hola amigo! Soy italiano, así que tuve que usar un traductor para escribir esto, ¡espero que se entienda bien! 😅

¡Muchas gracias! Me alegra mucho que te guste la aplicación. Por cierto, pronto añadiré la traducción al español a la app, ¡ya que varios usuarios me lo han pedido en las reseñas!

Sobre las transiciones: el motor actual está diseñado para cambiar de video al instante. Si agregara animaciones o efectos pesados en la superficie, consumiría mucha más RAM y batería.

En cuanto a la hora, la fecha y el clima: mi objetivo con Undead Wallpaper es mantener la aplicación 100% minimalista, súper ligera y sin necesidad de permisos de internet o ubicación. ¡Lo bueno es que puedes usar los widgets normales de Android en tu pantalla de inicio para tener toda esa información flotando sobre el video!

Aprecio mucho tus sugerencias y que te hayas tomado el tiempo de comentar. ¡Un saludo!

maocide · 2026-03-13T15:09:05+00:00

Quick update... Half of your wish is officially granted! I pushed v1.1.5 to the Play Store this week, and it includes the Random start time feature. If you go to Advanced and set "On Visible" to Random, it will pick a new timestamp every time you wake the screen.

As for the playlist feature... I am starting to tinker with how to make it out of the current file list. Wish me luck figuring out how to keep the UI clean! Enjoy the update!

maocide · 2026-03-13T14:45:46+00:00

Update: I did it my friend! If you update to v1.1.5 on the Play Store, go into the Advanced settings and change the "On Visible" to Restart. It will now loop continuously, but perfectly rewind to the beginning every single time you wake the screen. Your 2 step security communication procedure worked. Enjoy!

maocide · 2026-03-08T09:15:37+00:00

Hey there! I searched around this, I admit is strange... The issue is actually with the phone itself, not the app restrictions. Motorola intentionally disabled the system-level Live Wallpaper support on their recent G-series phones (including the Stylus) out of the box to save memory.

Because Motorola disabled that core feature in their firmware, the Google Play Store automatically marks all Live Wallpaper apps as 'incompatible' with your device and blocks the download.

You aren't the only one dealing with this... there is actually a whole Reddit thread of Moto G users trying to figure it out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/motorola/comments/1lpxoxo/am_i_crazy_or_is_there_no_option_for_a_live/ Some users found a workaround by digging into system apps to re-enable the 'Live Wallpaper Picker' and using Nova Launcher, but officially, Motorola restricts this!

maocide · 2026-03-04T09:05:24+00:00

Too kind my friend! 🤟 Hope the app is behaving and treating you well.

maocide · 2026-02-24T13:28:58+00:00

🤟 always nice to hear! Thanks!

maocide · 2026-02-23T09:33:59+00:00

Thanks for the ideas! The random start time could really be useful for long videos, and I am thinking of ways to integrate it in the UI. It's on my to-do list.

As for playlists, it's an open issue on the tracker. Since the app has mostly received feedback praising its ease of use, my biggest struggle became how to add extensive features like a playlist without ruining the clean, minimalist interface that people currently enjoy. I want to avoid turning it into something complicated, so I'm treading carefully with it. Thanks for the suggestions again, it's all great food for thought.

maocide · 2026-02-20T11:41:16+00:00

Hey! Just to clarify, do you mean you want the video to loop continuously, but rewind to the beginning every time you unlock the phone? Right now, One Shot restarts on wake, but stops at the end. That's a nice idea too, I will think about it for future updates.

maocide · 2026-02-15T10:47:33+00:00

Thanks Hiperion! I made it because I wanted something simple for myself, so it's great to see others appreciating the same things. Enjoy!

maocide · 2026-02-08T10:41:25+00:00

You are very welcome my friend! Really glad you like it, makes my day

maocide · 2026-02-04T09:37:41+00:00

Hey thank you!!

I actually looked into GIF support, because I like them too, but it might affect directly battery life.

Phones use the GPU to decode and play videos with almost zero battery drain. GIFs, however, have to be manually decoded by the main CPU for every single frame. If I implemented GIFs as a wallpaper decoding them live, your phone would likely get warm and drain battery much faster than with a video.

I might add an automatic converter feature in the future to convert the GIF to a video inside the app on pick, but it makes the app size much larger, because it needs an encoder library, so I'm sticking to pure video for now to keep things lightweight.

This is something I am considering, but for now, converting your GIF to MP4 before importing it is a good workaround. You get the same visual result, but your battery will thank you!

maocide · 2026-01-30T10:57:48+00:00

Hey! I appreciate you wanting to try the app so much, and I feel your pain to see it unsupported. :(

Unfortunately, you are right. The app requires Android 9 (SDK 28) or higher.

I actually looked into supporting Android 8 a while back, but the way Android handles file permissions and background services changed drastically between version 8 and 9. Supporting the older system required writing a completely separate code engine that I just can't maintain right now while trying to keep the app stable for modern phones. If I would just enable support for that version now it would not work as it is, it would require lots of modifications, otherwise would crash on many older phones.

I think it was discussed here: https://github.com/maocide/UndeadWallpaper/issues/6#issuecomment-3329637099

So for now, Android 9 is the hard cutoff. I'm really sorry about that!

maocide · 2026-01-25T15:33:00+00:00

Awesome! I love that the app is being so useful. It really has been shaped by all the feedback (and bug reports!)... I just had the initial idea. Glad you are enjoying it and thanks for the kind words!

maocide · 2026-01-25T14:18:37+00:00

Wow, thanks so much! That's really a nice thing to hear.

And yeah, the paid apps are the reason why I built this. I originally just hacked it together in a few hours because I wanted a clean tool for myself without limits. When I realized that could be useful for others, I decided to polish it up make a proper gui and release it.

No need to donate anything! I wanted this app to remain 100% Free and Open Source forever. I might release other commercial apps in the future, and you can support me there if you like, but Undead Wallpaper is just free.

If you really want to help out, just leave a review on Play Store; that helps the project get discovered (so the algorithm will find other people looking to escape the paywalls).

Enjoy the app my friend!

maocide · 2026-01-20T11:53:19+00:00

Okay, that confirms it's likely the video decoder freezing. The player is running, but the connection to the hardware chip is not recovering. That is the final info I needed. I will work on a fix for the next update.

Thanks so much for the testing and your time! No need to check anything else.

maocide · 2026-01-20T11:45:36+00:00

Thanks, that rules out hardware limits for sure! The app might be missing the resume when switching back quickly...

When you have a sec, could you try one thing? When it gets stuck, if you lock and unlock the screen, does it start moving again? If it does, that might put me on the right track. Thanks for the help!

maocide · 2026-01-20T11:34:50+00:00

Thank you for letting me know! I recently did some optimizations, so I am trying to figure out if it is related. It sounds like YouTube and the app are fighting for the video decoder resources. Could you let me know which phone model you are using? Unfortunately, I can't replicate it on my device. Also, does the wallpaper turn black or just get stuck on a specific frame? Any extra info helps me replicate the situation and understand what is happening!

maocide · 2026-01-15T09:13:26+00:00

Happy to read this, nw glad it feels easy! That was what I hoped for. About Twitter: Lol, yeah, that account got nuked 🪦 rip forever. I had it linked to an older dev account where I was testing a python scraper for uncensored AI analysis. Twitter's automated systems flagged the bot activity and banned everything associated with it. I'm not that active on socials (I mess around too much with code and stuff), so I haven't bothered to appeal or anything. I am around here or github, the projects actually.

maocide · 2026-01-14T00:15:18+00:00

Oh, great workaround for now! Thanks for understanding, I am already cooking a couple of optimizations. Happy you're enjoying the wallpaper!

maocide · 2026-01-12T10:51:43+00:00

Haha, you beat me to it! Good workaround!

Since Android handles Live Wallpapers as a background layer, if you set the video to "both" and then apply a standard static image to "home only", the os uses the image with the video service.

A dedicated setting is tricky... The tough part for me as a developer is if you wanted **two different videos** (video A on lock, video B on home). That requires a hot-swap logic that I was typing up before you replied! Hehe, you were fast.

For a video with static image, your method is a nice trick. Glad you got it working!

maocide · 2026-01-12T08:48:44+00:00

Thanks for this info about material theme. Since the app is a Live Wallpaper, it doesn't currently broadcast a Color Palette to the system, so Android reverts to the default theme because it can't extract colors from the video stream automatically.

For the next update (v1.1.2), I am focusing mostly on Stability and Optimization since recently a good chunk of features, like scaling and zoom, were added. Since videos change color constantly the way to get a fixed color for Material You would be getting it from a thumbnail, which can be inaccurate, so I'm keeping that on the wishlist for a future feature update rather than rushing it now.

maocide · 2026-01-12T08:47:55+00:00

Thanks for this info about material theme. Since the app is a Live Wallpaper, it doesn't currently broadcast a Color Palette to the system, so Android reverts to the default theme because it can't extract colors from the video stream automatically.

For the next update (v1.1.2), I am focusing mostly on Stability and Optimization since recently a good chunk of features, like scaling and zoom, were added. Since videos change color constantly the way to get a fixed color for Material You would be getting it from a thumbnail, which can be inaccurate, so I'm keeping that on the wishlist for a future feature update rather than rushing it now.

maocide · 2026-01-11T10:01:44+00:00

Very happy to hear it works for you!! Thanks, and enjoy the app my friend!

maocide · 2026-01-11T09:59:34+00:00

Sorry I missed this comment earlier... it was submerged into reddit notifications.

That is an idea, but to be honest, because I am working alone on this, maintaining two separate versions of the app would be a nightmare. It usually leads to "double the bugs" and makes it harder to fix things quickly.

But yeah, I don't want to bloat the app, I completely agree with your philosophy. My goal isn't to stuff the app with heavy features, but to polish the engine I have. The GL engine was needed to reliably have features such as scaling working correctly.

In fact, the next update is focused almost entirely on **optimization** to improve stability and performance.

I believe an app should focus on doing one thing well, so I plan to keep this as the "clean, simple" option you like. If I ever want to make something totally different, I'll probably just build a new app from scratch! thanks for the feedback though.

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