ChatGPT’s conversational AI capabilities have sparked interest in accessing it quickly and hands-free. For Android users, setting ChatGPT’s Voice Mode as a lock screen shortcut would enable this instant voice access. However, Android’s restrictions prevent choosing a custom app shortcut. With a clever workaround, you can hijack an existing shortcut to launch Voice Mode anyway.
The issue is that Android 14+ on Google Pixel devices limits lock screen app shortcuts to a preset list. You can’t freely select a shortcut to open any app activity you want, even with root access.
But Android does let the System UI modify these shortcuts since it runs as the system user. So the trick is to change the configuration of an existing shortcut like the QR code scanner.
For Pixel Phones, you can run this ADB command:
adb shell “device_config put systemui default_qr_code_scanner ‘com.openai.chatgpt/com.openai.voice.VoiceModeActivity'”
This tells Android to open ChatGPT’s VoiceModeActivity when the QR shortcut is tapped. You’ll need to use another app like Google Lens for actual QR scanning.
To prevent changes from reverting, run:
adb shell device_config set_sync_disabled_for_tests persistent
Alternatively, you can enable the note-taking role for Tasker and have its Notes shortcut launch a Voice Mode task. But this method would need root to directly open the unexported VoiceModeActivity.
Works similarly on Samsung Galaxy devices using SystemUI Tuner or running ADB commands like:
adb shell “settings put system lock_application_shortcut ‘1;com.openai.chatgpt/com.openai.voice.VoiceModeActivity;1;com.samsung.android.smartmirroring/com.samsung.android.smartmirroring.player.SecondScreenActivity'”
While a bit technical, this shortcut hijack lets you quickly summon ChatGPT’s voice capabilities from Android lock screens. It takes advantage of System UI’s elevated privileges to work around the limitations of app shortcuts.
With ChatGPT’s popularity, don’t be surprised if Google and Samsung eventually allow custom lock screen app shortcuts. But for now, this clever workaround does the trick on Pixel and Galaxy phones. Hands-free conversational AI is just a tap away.
