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WidgetAI

iPhone battery widget: see your battery, your way

· WidgetAI

iOS already has a battery widget. The built-in Batteries widget shows your iPhone's charge, and if you use AirPods or an Apple Watch, theirs too. It's fine. It does the job. But it looks exactly one way, and you don't get a say in it. You can't change the shape, the color, the font, or what happens when the battery gets low. It's the same tile for everyone.

That's the gap WidgetAI fills. Instead of picking from a fixed set of widgets, you describe the battery widget you want, and the AI builds it.

Describe the battery widget you want

You start a chat and say what you're after. A few things people ask for:

  • "A battery widget as a ring gauge with the percentage in the middle."
  • "Show my battery as a horizontal fill bar."
  • "Just the number, really big, in a bold rounded font."
  • "Battery percent plus a little bolt icon when it's charging."

The AI reads that and designs it. If it's not right, you keep talking. "Make the ring thicker." "Move the number below the bar." "Use a monospace font." Each message refines it, and when you're happy you add it to your Home Screen like any other widget. There's a battery template to start from too, so you don't have to begin with a blank page.

Battery level, charging state, and whether you're plugged in are all on-device signals. WidgetAI reads them straight from your iPhone, locally, with your permission. Nothing about your battery is sent to a server to be read. That's true of every device signal in the app, but it's worth saying plainly for battery, because a widget that watches your charge shouldn't need the internet to do it.

Tricks that make it fun

Once the basic widget exists, this is where it gets interesting.

Colors that follow the level. You can set rules so the widget changes color based on the charge: green above 50%, amber in the middle, red under 20%. It doesn't have to be just the ring or the number, either. The widget's whole background can follow the battery level, so a glance across the room tells you where you stand without reading a single digit.

Gradients. Fills and backgrounds can be gradients instead of flat color, which reads nicely on a ring gauge or a fill bar.

A segment-grid look. You can render the battery as a grid of filled and empty cells, like a retro charge indicator or an old-school battery meter. It's the same data as the ring, just drawn as blocks, and it looks great in the small size.

Mix these however you like. A ring gauge with a gradient fill and a background that turns red under 20% is one sentence away.

Why every battery widget moves in 5% steps

If you've ever noticed your battery widget jump from 80% to 75% while the status bar says 78%, you're not imagining it, and it's not a bug in the widget. Here's the honest version.

On modern iOS, the public battery API that third-party apps are allowed to use reports the charge level rounded to the nearest 5%. There is no public 1% API for apps outside Apple. So any widget you install, from any developer, can only ever know your battery in 5% steps. Most battery widgets never mention this. They just show you 75% and hope you don't look too closely at the status bar.

We'd rather tell you. WidgetAI is subject to the exact same limit, because it's an iOS limit, not an app choice. When your widget shows 75%, that's the API rounding, not us being lazy. If you need the exact percent, Apple's own surfaces have it: the status bar shows the precise number, and Control Center and Settings do too. Those are Apple's, and Apple gives itself access it doesn't hand to apps.

None of this makes the widget less useful. For "do I need to find a charger," 5% resolution is plenty. It's just the kind of thing we think you should know before you wonder whether your widget is broken. If you want the fuller picture of where widgets hit walls like this, we wrote up what iOS widgets can't do.

A note on freshness

The other thing worth knowing: widgets are snapshots, not live readouts. iOS refreshes them on a budget it controls, so the battery number can lag a little behind reality. You might glance at the widget and see a figure that's a few minutes old while the status bar has already moved on.

Again, this is how iOS works for every widget, not a WidgetAI quirk. We explain the mechanics in how iOS widget refresh works if you want the details. The short version: the widget catches up, it just doesn't tick second by second.

FAQ

Why does my battery widget show 5% steps? Because the iOS battery API available to third-party apps reports the level rounded to 5%. There's no public 1% API for apps, so every battery widget on the App Store has this limit. For the exact percentage, check the status bar or Settings.

Can I get a battery percentage widget with the exact number? You can get a big, clear percentage widget, but the number will still be a 5% step, because that's all any app can read. Apple's own status bar shows the precise percent.

Does the battery widget need internet or an account to read my charge? No. Battery level and charging state are read on-device, locally, with your permission. They never leave your phone to be read.

What can the battery widget look like? A ring or arc gauge, a fill bar, a big number in a curated font, or a segment grid. You can add data-driven colors and gradients, and change any of it by chatting. Here's how the AI builds your widget.

What sizes does it come in? Small and medium today. You can put the same battery design in either.

Make your own

The free plan gives you 3 widgets and 20 AI edits a month, which is enough to build a battery widget you'll actually keep, and a couple of others besides. Pro lifts those limits as an in-app purchase.

If you want more Home Screen ideas, we rounded up the best iPhone Home Screen widgets for 2026. And when you're ready to build your own battery widget, WidgetAI is on the App Store. iPhone only.