Smart Island

A lightweight Android overlay that turns notifications, calls, and media playback into a floating glanceable island.

Downloads | Features | Getting Started | Privacy | Contributing

---

Overview

Smart Island is an open-source Android app that adds a small animated pill near the status bar. It listens for notification events locally, groups active items, and expands into a richer view for quick actions, media details, incoming calls, and notification previews.

The project is designed to be transparent, hackable, and privacy-conscious: notification data is processed on the device, settings are stored locally, and the app currently does not request the Android INTERNET permission.

Downloads & Safety

• Download APK: Obtain the pre-compiled application package directly from the GitHub Releases (Latest) page.
• Total Downloads:
• Security Verification: To ensure transparency and safety, you can inspect the files using VirusTotal or review the automatic building and packaging logs under the GitHub Actions tab.

Screenshots

Features

Area	What Smart Island does
Floating overlay	Draws a compact island above other apps using Android's overlay window APIs.
Notification listener	Converts active notifications into glanceable island cards.
Smooth animation	Morphs between collapsed and expanded states with Compose animations.
Multiple notifications	Keeps a stack of active notifications and lets users move between them.
Calls and media	Detects incoming calls, music/media sessions, artwork, playback state, and progress.
Battery charging	Displays charging percentage, pulsing charging icon, and remaining charge time estimates.
Quick actions	Opens, dismisses, or launches supported notification content from the expanded island.
Custom controls	Lets users adjust width, height, position, and corner radius.
Local settings	Persists island preferences with AndroidX DataStore Preferences.
Demo modes	Includes notification, call, music, and battery charging demo buttons for quick testing.

Architecture

flowchart LR
    A[Android notifications] --> B[SmartIslandNotificationListenerService]
    B --> Repo[SmartIslandNotificationRepository]
    E[DataStore settings] --> Repo
    Repo --> D[SmartIslandOverlayService]
    D --> F[WindowManager overlay]
    F --> G[Jetpack Compose island UI]
    G --> H[Open, dismiss, expand, or launch floating window]

Loading

Tech Stack

Layer	Tools
Language	Kotlin
UI	Jetpack Compose, Material 3
Android services	NotificationListenerService, foreground service, WindowManager overlay
State and storage	Kotlin coroutines, StateFlow, AndroidX DataStore Preferences
Build	Gradle Wrapper, Android Gradle Plugin, JVM 17

Requirements

• Android Studio with Android SDK 36 installed
• JDK 17
• Android device or emulator running Android 8.0+ (minSdk 26)
• Overlay permission enabled on the test device
• Notification listener access enabled for Smart Island

Getting Started

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/agupta07505/SmartIsland.git
cd SmartIsland

Build a debug APK on Windows:

.\gradlew.bat assembleDebug

Build a debug APK on macOS or Linux:

./gradlew assembleDebug

Install the debug build on a connected device:

./gradlew installDebug

Then open Smart Island and complete the runtime setup:

1. Grant overlay permission.
2. Enable notification listener access.
3. Turn on Smart Island from the app.
4. Use the demo buttons or trigger real notifications to test the island.

Privacy And Permissions

Smart Island needs powerful Android permissions because it is an overlay and notification experience. The project keeps that behavior visible and local.

Permission	Why it is used
SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW	Draws the floating island above other apps.
BIND_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SERVICE	Reads notification metadata so the island can show notification, call, and media states.
FOREGROUND_SERVICE and FOREGROUND_SERVICE_SPECIAL_USE	Keeps the overlay service running while the island is enabled.

At the time of this README, the app does not request INTERNET, does not include analytics, and does not send notification content to a remote server. See PRIVACY.md for the full privacy note.

Project Structure

SmartIsland/
|-- app/
|   `-- src/main/
|       |-- AndroidManifest.xml
|       |-- java/com/agupta07505/smartisland/
|       |   |-- data/       # Settings model and DataStore repository
|       |   |-- model/      # Island notification and mode models
|       |   |-- service/    # Overlay and notification listener services
|       |   |-- ui/         # Compose screens and island components
|       |   `-- MainActivity.kt
|       `-- res/
|-- gradle/
|-- build.gradle.kts
|-- settings.gradle.kts
`-- README.md

Development Notes

• Use the Gradle Wrapper committed in this repository.
• Keep secrets, keystores, local SDK paths, generated APKs, and personal notification screenshots out of git.
• Test overlay behavior on a physical device when possible; OEM Android builds can handle overlay and background-service rules differently.
• Some floating-window behavior depends on Android version and device support.
• The pass-through touch region and freeform "open in floating window" gesture rely on best-effort platform APIs and may be unavailable on some devices/OEM Android builds.
• For signed GitHub Actions releases, see docs/RELEASE_SIGNING.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request, and use the issue templates for bug reports or feature ideas.

By contributing, you agree that your contribution will be licensed under the same GNU General Public License v3.0 terms as the project.

Security

Please report suspected vulnerabilities responsibly. See SECURITY.md for the reporting process and what information to include.

License

Smart Island is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Copyright (C) 2026 Animesh Gupta.