The lock screen image that we typically see is either the same wallpaper as we have on our home screen, or one that we specified to be used on the lock screen. However, some people like to add a blurred effect to their lock screen and this tutorial shows you how to do that with an Xposed Module.
As I talked about earlier, when I’m waiting for a new smartphone to come out so that I can do tutorials specifically to it, I enjoy doing generic tips that work on all types of smartphones and tablets. If I can reach a certain tier on my Patreon page then I will have the time to focus on creating both one device tutorial and one universal Android tip each day, but until then I need to bring in some extra money with other jobs. These lull periods though let me come up with guides that can help anyone.
With a lot of attention being put on Xposed Framework lately, I wanted to start showing off some features that we can enable on our smartphone with various modules.
One popular feature that I see requested from the community is the ability to blur the background image of the lock screen. Thankfully, the GravityBox Xposed Module has that feature built in and it’s very easy to set up. One you have Xposed Framework installed you can then install GravityBox directly through the Xposed application.
Blur Lock Screen Image
- Launch the GravityBox application
- Tap on the Lockscreen Tweaks option
- Tap the Background Style option at the top and choose one (blur doesn’t work on the Default Wallpaper option)
- Then we can tap the empty check box next to the Blur Effect option to enable it
- And we can adjust the Blur Effect Intensity to set how strong the blur effect is
Explanation
There are a lot of different combinations that you can choose from here with GravityBox’s Lockscreen Tweaks section. I prefer setting the Background Style to the Last Screen, but you may find something else that you enjoy better. So to start, let’s go ahead and launch the GravityBox application so that we can dive into its Lockscreen Tweaks section. There are dozens of features here and I’ll be going through them little by little but for now let’s just focus on adding a blur effect to the lockscreen.
By default, the Background Style option will be set to your Default Wallpaper, and this doesn’t support any blur effect since it has an opacity slider of its own. Instead, we need to change that Background Style option to either Color Fill, Custom Image, or Last Screen. Again, I prefer the Last Screen option but you should definitely experiment here and find one that you like the most. There isn’t a right or wrong option here as it is just a personal preference.
Once you have selected one that you like (or want to try out), then you’ll see a Blur Effect option appear below it. By default, this box shouldn’t be enabled but tapping on the box should put a little checkbox in it so that it’s enabled. Now, if you want, you can press the Power button a couple of times and see how it looks with the default Blur Effect Intensity setting. But again, this is something that I recommend that you go in and experiment to find out what you like the most.
Moving that slider all the way to the left will overlay a very weak blur effect to the point where you can actually read the text from the lockscreen (if there are is any text to read at all). The further to the right that we move that Blur Effect Intensity slider to the right, the harder it will be to see what is on the lock screen. So, if you chose the custom image option then it would make sense to move the slider to the left so you can see more of the image. But, if you’re using the last screen option then you may want to move it further to the right so people can’t read the text.
It really is all up to you and it’s something I recommend that you experiment with.
