I replaced my Samsung home screen with a TV launcher; my phone finally feels calm

I've used the Galaxy S21 as my primary phone for more than four years, and I've never found One UI Home this boring. I tried multiple launchers to break the boredom, but nothing stuck with me for long.

I ultimately came back to Samsung, though I never stopped trying various launchers on my spare Android phone to see if I could replace One UI Home with one someday.

During my experimentation with Android launchers on my spare phone, I did something bold. Instead of trying a phone launcher, I installed a TV launcher on my phone.

I used it for fun at first, but then I decided to install it on my main phone to see whether it could change how I use it. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

However, it did something I never expected. I replaced my Samsung home screen with a TV launcher, and my phone felt calm.

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Posts 5
By  Rajesh Pandey

I installed the Projectivy Launcher on my Galaxy phone

It's easy to install on your phone

Although many prefer Niagara as their go-to Android launcher for minimalism and to reduce distractions, I haven't found a one-size-fits-all launcher app for phones. Niagara comes close, or should I say the closest, to being perfect, but it has its issues.

I'm not setting the stage to say that Projectivy is the unexpected launcher app that turned out to be the perfect launcher for phones. Far from it, but it gave me a fresh perspective on what a calmer phone could look like.

Projectivy is available on the Google Play Store, but you can't install it from there, as it isn't a phone app. So I went to its official GitHub page, downloaded the latest Projectivy APK, and installed it on my phone.

It was as simple as installing any other APK from an external source.

Projectivy is undesirably good as a phone launcher

It feels weird, and that's exactly the point

When I replaced One UI Home with Projectivy on my Galaxy phone, it felt terrifying to use the launcher in landscape. You can't change it to portrait, so you have to hold the phone in landscape for everything to make sense.

It's a mountain to climb to undo years of muscle memory to use a phone like this, and it isn't worth it. But for someone who is fighting phone addiction or wants to reduce distraction, Projectivy feels like the most extreme solution.

It's difficult to find your apps by swiping left or right on the screen while holding the phone in landscape. You can reorder the apps, but a phone-sized screen can fit only five to six apps, so Projectivy puts them front and center.

While this is a huge limitation, you can use it to your advantage, like I did.

I use four apps on my phone daily for work and some entertainment, so they're immediately visible on the Projectivy home screen. This way, I don't sacrifice convenience for less distraction.

I don't feel the urge to swipe left or right because the experience is so unfamiliar and undesirable, which keeps me away from mindlessly opening apps.

Once again, prevention is better than cure.

However, not everything in the Projectivy Launcher app is preventive. Some features act as facilitators. I liked its ability to launch specific apps on boot, and you can set this up from your home screen. This is advanced stuff.

You can do this from the App shortcut menu, which also lets you hide app icons, reorder them, adjust settings, uninstall apps, and more. This App shortcut menu offers more options than what a phone launcher usually does.

It doesn't take away access to the essential controls that make your phone calmer. I haven't asked the developer whether this is by design or an accident caused by the launcher being limited to TVs.

But whatever the reason, I've enjoyed using it.

I'll move on from Projectivy soon

Phone launcher apps can learn a lot from the Projectivy Launcher, but it shouldn't be the default phone launcher.

I like how it makes my phone less inviting, but it compromises on many things we are all used to. For example, it isn't easy to access the notification panel when the Projectivity Launcher is the default.

Making it harder to access the notification panel plays a decisive role in making the phone feel calmer, but there is no way to bypass this limitation at will without switching to another launcher app.

I could turn the restrictive app access to my advantage, but I couldn't do the same with the notification panel. I'll move away from it very soon with a heavy heart.