If you use an Android smartphone with 2degrees (prepaid or paymonthly), you might be interested in how to make a shortcut from your homescreen so that with 1-press you can get your account balance info.

There are widgets on the market that use hacks to get your balance, but they are hacks and require giving an app your 2degrees login info.

You can do all this without downloading a dodgy app and without using data on your phone. In this simple method we make a shortcut to dial the USSD code *100*1# for us.

An example:


This can be achieved on all versions of Android. Here's how to do it:

1. In your contacts create a new contact called "Balance". The name will be what appears as the text on your homescreen -- There isn't much room for text below the shortcut on the homescreen, so "2Degrees Balance" will likely be truncated to appear as "2Degrees Ba..". Keep it short.
2. Create a new phone number entry for your new contact. Set the number to *100*1# (prepaid or paymonthly customers) 
3. Save the contact
4. On Android 2.3 or older: (some phones are slightly different, so adapt to suit)
1. Long press on an empty space on your homescreen.
2. From the menu select Shortcuts then DirectDial
3. Select the contact with the number you just created
4. Long-press the new icon on your homescreen to move it to a different position or to remove it.
5. On Android 4.0 ICS:
1. Open your apps.
2. Choose Widgets or page right until you get to the widgets screen
3. Page around until you locate the Direct Dial widget.
4. Long press the Direct Dial widget and place it onto your homescreen in the position you want then lift your finger off the screen.
5. The Contacts app opens.
6. Locate the contact with the number you just created and select it.
6. Pressing on your shortcut will now open the USSD screen that displays your balance! Your balance is now just one press away!

Extra tips:

• On ICS if you give the contact a picture the picture will appear on your homescreen. Try doing a Google Images search for "2degrees logo". This may work on some older Android versions or may not.
• If you change the name of the contact you will need to remove the shortcut and add a new one again for the name to change on the shortcut.
• To remove the shortcut long press and drag it to the section on your screen that changes to trash/remove
• You can have multiple shortcuts on more than one screen. Just repeat.

I find this method works well as it uses only built-in features of android and doesn't expose you to problems that badly written apps can cause like polling reducing battery life, using data, potentially stealing your 2degrees website login info, etc.