How to Add Background Music to Your Android's Home Screen

How to Add Background Music to Your Android's Home Screen

Newer gaming systems like the PlayStation 4 have a nice, subtle feature that goes a long way towards helping create a more immersive experience. Any time you're on the main menu or home screen, an ambient background music track is playing, which adds an aural appeal to an experience that would otherwise be all about the visuals.

Wouldn't it be nice to get this same experience on an Android device?Imagine a scenario where every time you unlocked your phone, you were greeted by background music to accompany your launcher—then, when you opened an app and left your home screen, the music would fade away. Well, with a unique Tasker profile I've created, this can easily be a reality.

What You'll Need

First and foremost, you'll need to have the Android automation app Tasker installed. The full version of Tasker will run you $2.99 on the Google Play Store, but if you're not ready to make that much of a commitment, you can install the free 7-day trial version of Tasker from this link.

Once you've got Tasker installed, you'll also need to make sure its accessibility plug-in is enabled. If you're unsure about this, head to your phone's main Settings menu, then choose Accessibility. From here, select the Tasker option from the list, then make sure the plug-in is turned on by using the toggle switch at the top of the screen.

Beyond that, you'll need to download a background music file and save it to your phone. An ethereal, ambient song would probably work best for our purposes today, so I'd recommend heading over to the YouTube free audio library and setting the genre to "Ambient" to find a nice background track.

Step 1: Create a New Profile with Your Launcher as the Context

To begin, head to the Profiles tab in Tasker's main menu, then tap the + button at the bottom of the screen and select "Application." From here, simply choose your launcher from the list, but note that if you're using the stock launcher that your device came pre-installed with, you'll probably have to enable the "All" toggle at the bottom of the screen to find it.