About Zync
A live view of the data you care about.
Zync is an Android home-screen widget that reads any JSON or REST API and keeps the number you check all day where you already look: your home screen.
01
What Zync is
A tracker holds three things: the source URL Zync reads, the result format that picks the values out of the response, and the way the result is drawn on the widget. You write no code — the format is a short template, and the mapping docs cover every rule it supports.
The result of that tracker is what the widget shows. Not a dashboard you have to open, not a notification you have to dismiss — the current value, on your home screen, as often as you asked for it.
The same trackers can be shared: from the app to the community, or as a public link that renders the widget snapshot someone sent you.
02
Why we built it
Most of the data people check every day is already published as JSON: a price, a queue length, a score, a balance, a sensor reading. Reading one of those values usually means opening an app, waiting for a spinner, and scrolling past everything else on the way.
Zync was built for the version of that habit that fits in a glance. Point it at a URL, describe the value, and the home screen carries it. The fetching happens where the data is read — on your device — so a tracker you keep to yourself never needs an account.
03
How it works
You create the tracker in the app, pin it as a widget, and choose how often it should refresh. The widget wakes on that interval, fetches the source, applies the result format, and redraws the text. A tap on the widget body refreshes it early; a tap on its title opens the tracker picker so the same slot can show something else.
When the network is gone or the screen is off, Zync skips the request and keeps the last good result instead of painting an empty card. A small icon marks the widget when a refresh fails, so a stale number never passes for a live one.
Everything about the request — method, headers, auth, body and variables — is described in Advanced Options, and the full walkthrough starts at How to start.
04
What it does not do
Android only, today
The widget ships for Android home screens. An iPhone version is on the waiting list, and nothing about it is promised yet.
No browser, no scraping
A source must answer with data directly — JSON, or plain text that reads like it. Zync does not render a JavaScript page to dig a value out of it.
No background tracking
A tracker can read your location, but only once, only when you tap the location button, and only into that tracker’s request. There is no background location access.
No server copy of your sources
A tracker you keep to yourself stays on your phone. Nothing reaches the Zync backend unless you upload it to the community or share it.
05
Privacy, briefly
Trackers you do not share stay on your phone, encrypted. Usage telemetry is off unless you turn it on, and it never carries the contents of your sources. The details — what is collected, for how long, and how to delete it — live in the privacy policy.
06
Contact
Questions, a source that will not parse, or a tracker you want to see in the community — write to p48.group@gmail.com. Include the source URL and the raw response if the result format is the problem; that answers most questions in one reply.