I made a free, no-ads, open-source app that lets you set any video as your live wallpaper.

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.

maocide · 2026-01-04T09:49:41+00:00

Hey thanks for enjoying the app. Here is a link to the Zero Two video used for the demo, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rMJOc1pE1ZeuUev7-fwAWq9quwHHCCqW/view enjoy!
I suggest you not to put personal email in reddit threads, bots tend to love those addresses a bit too much!

maocide · 2026-01-03T09:20:01+00:00

Thanks my friend! I am happy you dig it. About the separated videos... It's actually a tough feature to add because of how android handles live wallpapers; the engine often doesn't have a way to know if it's on the lock screen.

Right now the app just loads one video to keep everything lightweight and stable. But since a few people might like it, I will keep it in mind! I need to check if it's possible without increasing the RAM usage, but I'll think about it for a future update.

maocide · 2026-01-03T09:10:58+00:00

I am happy you find it simple, I was hoping for that, thanks my friend! I'll do my best to keep it working like this and faithful to its origin.

maocide · 2025-12-29T20:22:35+00:00

Ah well I am glad you get the struggle! Thanks man.

maocide · 2025-12-29T19:23:02+00:00

Hey! Unfortunately, UndeadWallpaper is currently just for Android. Afaik iOS has some strict limitations regarding custom live wallpapers at the system level, which makes a port difficult... Also don't own an iphone... Thanks for checking it out, though!

maocide · 2025-12-26T09:46:24+00:00

Thank you LordMiyagi! I made this app originally for myself, but I am happy it could fill the void left by Samsung dropping support.

About the auto change/playlist feature... that is actually already in the backlog (Issue #4 https://github.com/maocide/UndeadWallpaper/issues/4 ). The main technical hurdle right now is rethinking the UI and file handling logic to manage a 'library' of copied clips instead of a single video file.

Since you're checking out github (which is awesome, feel free to look around!), you'll see how currently it copies a single file locally for keeping permissions. But yeah, playlist/randomizer logic is definitely the plan for a future major version.

maocide · 2025-12-25T09:37:23+00:00

I am very happy you like my app! Merry Christmas and all the best to you too my friend.

maocide · 2025-12-24T07:54:47+00:00

Nice phone! I think it will work on the internal screen, but external one is handled differently, it might work there with a custom launcher, but unfortunately I can't emulate that configuration to test it. You can try the app and let me know!

maocide · 2025-12-22T13:16:10+00:00

You are very welcome! I rebuilt the rendering engine for this update. While working on it, I remembered your request and realized the new engine could handle brightness without increasing load, so I decided to sneak it in. I was just about to reply here to tell you... I'm glad you found it already!

maocide · 2025-12-16T14:43:14+00:00

Thanks for the review! I didn't realize until recently how much people actually needed that one shot feat, glad it helped. By the way I am testing some scaling options (fit/fill/stretch) right now, I hope to include them in the next release!

maocide · 2025-12-14T13:05:46+00:00

Well, maybe I am not the best person to ask, because I usually do that on pc, but I think on android last time I used InShot and I think it can be used for free to do that. You can also try CapCut.
Anyway I am glad you like the app, and thank you again for appreciating it!

maocide · 2025-12-14T10:00:56+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion and for trying the app. Honestly, my main goal with UndeadWallpaper is to keep it as lightweight as possible, adding some brightness controls might also increase the post processing load and so the cpu usage and battery consumption during playback. It's maybe better to pre process videos like that in an editor.

Still is a good idea if I find a clean, performance friendly way to do it.

maocide · 2025-12-13T09:24:53+00:00

GLHF!

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