Nowbar Meter

Precise internet speed monitor hijacked directly into the Samsung One UI Now Bar.

About

NowbarMeter is a specialized fork of Pixel Meter, rebuilt specifically for Samsung Galaxy devices.

Samsung severely restricted the Now Bar (Live Updates / Status Bar Chip) feature in modern One UI builds, locking it behind a hardcoded system whitelist of proprietary and partner apps. NowbarMeter bypasses this restriction. By injecting the com.samsung.android.support.ongoing_activity metadata flag and strategically spoofing a whitelisted package name (e.g., com.nhn.android.nmap), this app forces a native, real-time network speed monitor directly into the One UI Now Bar pill.

It retains all the god-tier features of the original app, including intelligent VPN traffic filtering, so your displayed speed is exactly what your physical interface is actually pulling.

Screenshots

Installation

Since this app modifies system-level UI elements, it is not available on the Google Play Store.

1. Go to the Releases Page.
2. Download the latest NowbarMeter-vX.X.apk file under the Assets dropdown.
3. Open the APK file to install it.

Features

• Samsung Now Bar Native Integration: Hijacks the One UI status bar chip to display real-time upload and download speeds perfectly native to the system UI.
• One UI 7 Payload Injection: Bypasses Android 15's hardcoded signature verification by directly injecting proprietary Samsung metadata and semFlags into the notification builder.
• Lockscreen Override: Uses system broadcast receivers to force the Live Update chip to render on your secure lockscreen, even if you have it hidden in the regular status bar.
• Built-In OTA Updater: Native, zero-dependency integration with the GitHub API that checks for new releases on launch.
• Whitelist Bypass: Uses package spoofing (com.kakao.taxi) to bypass Samsung's legacy One UI 7+ walled-garden restrictions.
• Compact Speed Text: Dynamically drops decimals on higher speeds (>= 10) so the text never cuts off or overflows the status bar icon boundaries.
• Precise Traffic Stats: Uses ConnectivityManager and TrafficStats to filter out tun0 and virtual VPN interfaces to prevent double-counting data.

Requirements

• Device: Samsung Galaxy devices running One UI 7.0 or higher.
• Android Version: Android 12 (API Level 31) or higher.
• Permissions: Notification (Crucial for the foreground service to push to the Now Bar) and Battery Optimization bypass.

Architecture

• Language: Kotlin
• UI Framework: Jetpack Compose (Material 3)
• Architecture Pattern: MVVM + Clean Architecture
• Dependency Injection: Koin
• Data Source: TrafficStats + ConnectivityManager

Support

If you find this app useful and want to help support the reverse-engineering and late nights spent fighting Samsung's UI restrictions, consider buying me a coffee! ☕

Credits

Massive shoutout to Mystery00 for building the original, open-source Pixel Meter. This fork simply adapts their brilliant networking logic to break through Samsung's UI restrictions.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See the LICENSE file for details.