Beam

Beam is an Android utility from montafra that keeps battery information visible in the status bar rather than behind a settings screen. Instead of pulling down the notification shade and tapping through to a system page, the user sees live battery metrics as a persistent indicator while using other apps.

The intended audience is anyone who watches power behaviour closely: people testing how a particular app or radio affects drain, users on ageing hardware, or those who simply want a running readout during charging. Because the display sits in the status bar, it is glanceable during normal phone use and does not require the app to be in the foreground.

Beam is Android-only and depends on the platform's battery reporting, so the detail available reflects what the device itself exposes. The project is published under the MIT licence, one of the more permissive options, allowing modification and redistribution with minimal conditions.