Pinned guide — covers all BigMe HiBreak variants (HiBreak, HiBreak S, HiBreak Pro, HiBreak Plus). Replaces my earlier v2.9.6 tips post.

This is a living document. Drop your own tweaks in the comments and I'll fold the good ones in.

Sections are ordered: Essential Fixes → Optimisations → Aesthetic Preferences. Skim the headers, jump to what you need.

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🔧 PART 1 — ESSENTIAL FIXES

These are the settings/workarounds that materially affect whether the phone functions as a daily driver. Do these first. Also worth considering a different launcher when first setting phone up, especially if running into issues with notification dots not clearing: See 11. Launcher Recommendations.

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1. Battery & Background App Refresh

By default, BigMe OS aggressively kills background apps to save battery. This is great for standby time, terrible for getting phone calls, SMS and WhatsApp pings. It also cause music apps to turn off in the background whilst listening.

For every app where you care about real-time notifications or background behaviour, set both of the following:

• Settings → Apps → [app] → App battery usage → Unrestricted
• Settings → Background App Refresh → [app]

Apps that should be set to Unrestricted + Background allowed (minimum recommended list):

• Phone (Google Phone — see Fix #5)
• Messages / your SMS app
• Google Play services
• Google Play Store
• WhatsApp / Signal / Telegram / Messenger — anything you get DMs on
• Gmail / Outlook / your mail client
• Spotify / YouTube Music / Poweramp / whatever you stream with
• Calendar
• Clock
• Android Auto (if you use it)
• Authenticator apps (Google / Microsoft / Authy)

If a notification ever feels "late," the app is probably still restricted. Check there first.

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2. Android Auto is broken - but there is a work-around

Since the latest updates from Google, Android Auto on the HiBreak will constantly reboot when connected, in-car voice commands won't work, and Google Maps loads as a black screen inside AA. The fix is a combination of app rollbacks and switching your default navigation app.

2a. Roll back Android Auto, Google App, and Google Maps

1. Open the Play Store → find each of Google App, Google Maps, and Android Auto → tap the three-dot menu → Uninstall updates.
2. Install APKMirror Installer from the Play Store (this is the helper app that lets you sideload split APKs).
3. Go to apkmirror.com on the phone's browser and download these specific versions:
   • Android Auto 16.4.661014-release (arm64-v8a, 120–640dpi, Android 12L+) — fixes the reboot loop
   • Google App 17.10.61.ve (arm64-v8a + arm-v7a, 480dpi, Android 12L+) — fixes in-car voice commands / Gemini
   • Google Maps 26.09.03.873668274 (120–640dpi, Android 12L+) — fixes the black screen, but see 2b below
4. Open each downloaded .apkm file with APKMirror Installer to install.
5. Disable auto-update for all three: Play Store → tap the app → three-dot menu → uncheck Enable auto-update.

If you skip step 5, the Play Store will silently re-update them and you'll have to do this again.

2b. Use other navigation apps instead of Google Maps

Even with the rollback, Google Maps on Android Auto remains buggy on the HiBreak — the on-screen buttons don't respond well, which makes it borderline unusable while driving.

Waze is the better choice on this phone. Fewer bugs, buttons actually respond, and it works correctly with AA on 3.1.6. Install it from the Play Store and set it as your default navigation app in AA settings.

If you do not like Waze there are other alternatives such as HERE WeGO and Sygic GPS

(You can keep Google Maps installed for general use — just don't rely on it for in-car navigation. See Fix #4 for the DPI workaround that lets you keep both apps tuned for different purposes.)

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3. Android Auto colour glitch on screen lock — E-ink screensaver fix

Symptom: connect to AA, screen locks or dims, and the AA display comes back with incorrect pinkish colours.

Fix: Open Screen Saver App → E-ink Centre → set to Custom:

• Antishake: ON
• AutoClean: ON
• Refresh Mode: HD256

There's also a separate unresolved AA graphical glitch some users hit even with the above applied. If you've found a fix, please comment on this thread — would also love BigMe to put it on their radar.

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4. E-ink Centre DPI adjustments for Android Auto + navigation apps

By default, the Android Auto UI and Google Maps render with text/buttons that are either too large to fit cleanly on the head unit or too small to be legible. The fix is to set per-app DPI overrides in the E-ink Centre.

Important caveat: each app's DPI setting applies to both the phone screen and the car display — they're not independent. So when you tune for AA, the phone view of that app changes too. You have to pick a balance between what looks good on the phone (e-ink) and what works on the car display.

Recommended DPI values:

• Android Auto: 150–200
  • Open Android Auto settings on the phone → E-ink Centre → set DPI to 150–200.
• Navigation App (if used inside AA): ~190
  • Open Maps on the phone → E-ink Centre → set DPI to ~190.

The "two apps, two purposes" workaround

Rather than constantly re-tuning DPI when you switch between driving and walking, split the work across two apps:

• Waze → optimised DPI for Android Auto / driving
• Google Maps → optimised DPI for walking / public transport on the phone

This way each app sits at the DPI that suits its primary use, and you don't have to fiddle with sliders every time you get in or out of the car.

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5. Default Phone app keeps resetting to BigMe Phone after reboot

After every reboot, the system reverts the default dialler to the built-in BigMe Phone app (the light icon) instead of Google Phone (the dark icon). Both are literally called "Phone," so the icon shade is your only visual cue.

Fix after each reboot: Settings → Default Apps → Phone App → select Phone (dark icon).

It's annoying. Until BigMe fixes the persistence bug, this is a manual step every reboot. Add it to your reboot checklist.

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6. Bluetooth audio not coming through — A2DP offload fix

Symptom: BT headphones / car stereo connect fine but no audio plays.

Fix:

1. Settings → About Phone → tap Build Number 7 times to enable Developer Options.
2. Settings → System → Developer Options.
3. Scroll to Disable Bluetooth A2DP Hardware Offload → toggle ON.
4. Reboot.

This is a known Qualcomm/Android quirk and the offload toggle resolves it on the HiBreak.

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⚙️ PART 2 — OPTIMISATIONS

Quality-of-life stuff. Not strictly required, but the phone is meaningfully better with these in place.

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7. Debloat the phone

There's a lot of preinstalled software you'll never touch. Follow the excellent existing debloat walkthrough rather than me duplicating it here:

➡️ Debloating the HiBreak Pro and setting up (guide)

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8. Volume buttons as page-scroll buttons (article reader setup)

Massively underrated for an e-ink device. Page-turn with the hardware volume rocker in reader apps:

➡️ My Favourite Article Reader Mode Setup (Google Reading Mode + Volume Button Page Turning)

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9. Per-app accessibility tweaks

For e-ink, less motion = less ghosting, and higher contrast = better legibility. Worth checking these in every app you use heavily:

• Reduce animations — in-app setting if available (most Google apps, many third-party apps have one).
• Low vision / high contrast mode — better contrast on e-ink.
• Simple mode — some apps offer a stripped-down UI (Uber's Simple Mode is a great example; far more usable on e-ink than the default).

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10. Better default apps

• Camera: Camera for Android — much better controls and image processing than stock.
• Weather: Weawow — clean, highly configurable, e-ink-friendly widgets.
• Note Taking: inkit — for low-latency note taking with palm rejection (Stylus models only: HiBreak Plus)

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🎨 PART 3 — AESTHETIC PREFERENCES (personal taste — share yours!)

This is where it gets subjective. Below is my preferred setup, plus the launchers I'd recommend depending on what you're after. Drop your own combos in the comments and I'll add them up here as they roll in.

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11. Launcher recommendations

The default BigMe launcher has two persistent issues: notification dots don't always clear on some apps, and clock/date format options are limited. Switching launchers fixes both.

• Want a grid-style launcher similar to the BigMe default? → Nova Launcher
• Want something minimal / list-based? → Niagara Launcher or inkOS or AIO Launcher

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12. My personal setup

• Launcher: Nova Launcher
  • Set transition animation to Revolving Door for home screen icons — much less ghosting than the default slide transition.
  • Set the Desktop search bar to Monochrome in Nova settings.
• Icon pack: Monoic SQ Black — clean monochrome square icons that suit e-ink.
  • Missing an icon for an app? Ask ChatGPT to generate one in the same style, drop it into a custom icon folder, and assign it via Nova.
• Clock widget: Magic Clock Widget, font set to Droid Sans Mono.

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💬 Community input wanted

If you've found:

• A fix for the AA graphical glitch on screen lock that isn't the screensaver workaround above
• Better APK versions for the Google/AA rollback
• A working default-Phone-app persistence fix
• Your own launcher / icon pack / widget setup

…drop it below and I'll pull it into the main post with credit.

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Last updated: BigMe OS 3.1.6. Will revise as new firmware drops.

https://preview.redd.it/hj9ci9ztaf0h1.png?width=348&format=png&auto=webp&s=f51e0b4a0cfdb4b59fd0511d09810f4a4aab9016

If you're using Brave on KDE Plasma 6 with Wayland and a custom GTK theme (like WhiteSur), you've probably noticed that enabling "Use GTK" in Brave's appearance settings results in grotesquely oversized window buttons.

The fix:

Launch Brave with --gtk-version=4 instead of relying on the GTK appearance setting. This gives you smaller, properly styled buttons (but very close to each other).

Then add this to ~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css to fix button spacing:

css

headerbar button {
  margin: 0 2px;
  min-height: 16px;
  min-width: 16px;
  padding: 2px;
}

Adjust the margin value to taste.

Also, if web page content ignores your system dark mode, add --force-dark-mode to your launch flags. GTK mode doesn't reliably pass the dark preference to web content on Wayland.