I tried Waydroid on Arch and its amazing. It runs Android apps flawlessly. And with a touchscreen device, I feel like I have an Android tablet running inside my Linux machine.

But I still don’t know what to use it for…

What apps do you use with Waydroid? What use cases do you have for it?

    • The Hobbyist@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Well yes, but also no.

      Whenever you search for a solution to your problem, it stems from the realization that something is a problem. But sometimes, you have a thing which has been done for a long time, it was a problem with no solution and you’ve had to accept that. How would you determine one day that things can be done differently and better without constantly reevaluating everything? It’s not realistic.

      In my view, it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask “what problem does waydroid solve?” To figure out if you have that issue and you didn’t know of this solution.

      Sorry, just my 2 cents.

      • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Also, Learning is Fun, so here I have a new toy, let’s have fun seeing what I can learn to do with it, then - as you say - that might solve a problem or improve a thing I hadn’t thought of before.

      • oo1@kbin.social
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        3 months ago

        Too right.
        Someone needs to make a start on the “periodic table of emulators” It might as well be OP.

  • JoeKrogan@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Ive thought about using it for bank apps so I dont have hassle if I lose the phone or it gets robbed. Has anyone tried this ?

    • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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      3 months ago

      I imagine it would fail CTS and SafetyNet. Kind of curious if shizuku works on it

  • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Playing Slay the Spire.

    It does have a native Linux version but it doesn’t sync cross-platform. So since I like playing on the go it is nice to also be able to play at home on a bigger screen.

    • 1111@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Did it work out of the box for you? Doesn’t load for me on either of my machines that have waydroid

      • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Do you have an ARM emulator installed? I don’t think the game ships an x86 build. Other than that it just worked.

        • 1111@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Is that what libhoudini is? I heard of it, but don’t recall if I installed it

          • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            I think so. IIRC there are a few different implementations. But if you configure any of them Android will automatically use it to run non-native apps.

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    People with linux phones use it to run android apps: Signal because using electron is worse than waydroid for battery life, banking apps, bullshit government apps without web versions, etc. It’s terrible for battery life, but it works.

    Anti Commercial-AI license

    • oldfart@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Also, thr emulated Android web browser runs much smoother than any native one

  • oo1@kbin.social
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    3 months ago

    if you want netflix witjh DRM stuff like offline downloads waydroid can do it I think via the android app…
    You need to use a waydroid-utils script to install “widevine” for drm.
    This is a solution i’ve tested for someone else not me;
    I think it works, but it’s not been rigorouly road tested.

    Posssibly other DRM services will work if you can tolerate that type of thing.

    My guess is that the main use for it is android app development and testing.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      you might want to look into stremio or the servarr suite if youre having to jump through these hoops anyway

      • oo1@kbin.social
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        3 months ago

        waydroid is pretty easy to get working - and I think will be usable by the actual end user once set up.

        I did look at stremio but I couldn’t see a way to do the offline downloads thing on netflix.
        That is a desirable feature for the person who travels a lot and they just want to have some videos for when they’re off-line or on limited bandwidth like on the train or bus.

        This servarr thing looks way more complex - though I admit I might be a bit too dim for it as I couldn’t figure out what it actually does.
        Thanks for the suggestions though - waydroid looks easiest to meet all the needs. I’m sure someone smarter than me will have fun with that weird servarr suggetion - it does seem to have a whole lot of features.

        • tux7350@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Servarr is a stack of applications that sets up a media suite. Radarr and Sonarr handle the managing of movies and TV shows, respectively. Prowlarr searches for the media through either Torrenting or Usenet. Then you’d need a downloader like SABnzbd or Deluge. Ombi is another application to handle requests and finally you’d need a streaming app like Plex, Emby or Jellyfin.

          Think of it like a marionette; you’re making a bunch of services work together for one goal. Most people use docker and create a docker compose file to manage all the services. Typically the flow goes like this, a person makes a request to Ombi for something to watch. That request goes to Radarr or Sonarr, which creates a folder and populates the Metadata from IMDB. Then a request is sent to Prowlarr to find the media. Once found its sent to the downloader, like Deluge, to actually grab the media. After it’s done, Radarr / Sonarr will import the media into the correct folder. Now you’ve got a perfect collection for Plex / Emby / Jellyfish to start streaming your media. Really awesome suite once you get it up and running.

  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Lotta people in here saying what they use it for, but the only ppl I know irl running waydroid are playing softcore gatcha games on it.

  • tomalley8342@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Definitely not to have android apps on a Linux tablet, because in-waydroid rotation doesn’t work, and rotating the tablet itself breaks the windowing system until you reboot the container. Issue first reported in 2021.

    • Alex@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      This is the way 😉 although the Minecraft launcher is pretty good these days running under Waydroid is considerably less hacky as it’s not having to thunk between android and Linux userspace.

  • mub@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Does it still run Roblox? Since it stopped working under wine (again) I read it was the only way to get Roblox on Linux.

  • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    The only thing I can truly think of is Signal. If there was a native Gtk app for signal that was near feature complete I would probably ditch Android altogether. Maybe OSMAnd~, but that’s a nice to have.

    • Adonnen@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Flare isn’t feature complete but you can run it in the background for all notifications.

  • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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    3 months ago

    Used to use it for Apple Music but Cider 2 does what I want now, especially since Apple started locking down AM on rooted devices (of which Waydroid basically is) for no good reason.

    • CedarMadness@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      Cider doesn’t support lossless, but then again neither does the version of android supported by waydroid currently

      • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        3 months ago

        I was able to get lossless back then. It’s a matter of enabling fake_wifi for the app in Waydroid. You have to play a track for it to activate, but that’s also a bug I’ve experienced on my actual phone.

        • CedarMadness@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          I could enable it in the app, but Android versions below 10 resample everything down to 16 bit / 44.1 khz and Waydroid is stuck on Android 9 for now.

          Now I guess I’d have to pass safety net or hide root and I can’t be bothered. I just plug my phone into the dac instead

          • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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            3 months ago

            Yeah I got a headphone dongle for my phone. Cider 2 is still nice though, 256kbps AAC (whether CBR or VBR) is fine for most people, and it seems to stay in that bitrate.