Add chronometer to Android Glance widget

Question

Is there a way to add a chronometer (timer) that counts up to an Android Glance widget? I was able to add it using XML layout, but the count-up stops approximately 2 seconds after the widget gets updated. Could it be that this feature is currently not supported by Glance?

The chronometer implementation was done following this post: How to use Timer in the Glance widget?

Answer 1

It isn't inherently designed to support continuously updating content like a running chronometer that updates every second. The behavior you're experiencing, where the chronometer stops updating a few seconds after the widget is refreshed, is due to the nature of how app widgets and Glance are designed to conserve battery life and system resources by minimizing background activity.

However, achieving a second-level timing functionality in a Glance widget, although challenging and not straightforward, can be approached in

1. Scheduling the widget to update itself (not recommended coz heavy battery usage and poor UX)
2. ForegroundService
3. BroadcastReceiver (ACTION_UPDATE_TIMER)