Google Digital Wellbeing Now Available in Beta

Those lucky enough to be running Android 9 Pie already—basically Pixel and Essential owners—now have access to the beta version of Google’s Digital Wellbeing.

“Digital Wellbeing is now available in Beta Preview for devices running Android 9.0,” the app’s listing on the Google Play Store notes. “See a complete picture of your digital habits and disconnect when you want to.”

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According to the list, Digital Wellbeing will be available from Settings and provide the following:

Get a daily view of your digital habits:
– How frequently you use different apps
– How many notifications you receive
– How often you check your phone

Disconnect when you want to:
– Daily app timers let you set limits for how much you use apps.
– Wind Down reminds you to switch off at night, setting a schedule to fade your screen to Grayscale while Do Not Disturb silences notifications for a good night’s sleep.

If you’re running Android 9 Pie on a compatible phone, you can download Digital Wellbeing now from the Google Play Store.

Note that you will need to wait about 24 hours after doing so for the app to actually work: When it does, you will see a Digital Wellbeing entry appear in Settings. I will be writing up this solution once I’ve had time to test it.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Mehedi’s post, Digital Health is Too Important to Trust Apple and Google. As he notes, digital health features are incredibly important, but we are all ultimately responsible for our own behavior.

 

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Conversation 3 comments

  • nicholas_kathrein

    09 August, 2018 - 10:13 am

    <p>Just so everyone knows. This is in beta so you can't just download it. You have to go to the following Google site and request an invite.</p><p><br></p><p>https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/digital-wellbeing-beta/</p><p><br></p><p>Hope this helps</p>

  • Yaggs

    09 August, 2018 - 11:46 am

    <p>It's sad that we have come to this… I'll stick to the "if my phone needs to be charged before the end of the day I am using it too much" principle. It also helps to look at Twitter every once it in a while… that makes me want to put my phone down right away.</p>

  • philesk

    10 August, 2018 - 10:43 am

    <p>I did get registered as a tester, but it is'nt available for Essential PH-1. Tried to get it from Playstore but got error message "Not available for your device". </p>

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