Digital Wellbeing prepares to shame you for using your phone too much with a “Mindful wallpaper” feature

Smartphones have become an indispensable tool in our lives, and some of us really like to use them a lot. Before your loved ones are forced to call for an intervention for your smartphone usage habits, it’s best to take cognizance of the problem and take control by yourself. Google Digital Wellbeing at Google I/O 2018 as a broad concept in helping users reduce their smartphone usage. The idea has gained improvements and features since the launch, becoming a vital tool towards digital detox, and also a means of keeping your personal life separate from work life. The latest feature that Google is working on for Digital Wellbeing aims to bring to light just how many times you unlock your phone.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

We spotted the following strings in Digital Wellbeing 1.0.331204241.beta:

<string name="mindful_unlocks_description">Each time you unlock your phone, a cloud appears on the home screen</string>
<string name="mindful_unlocks_title">Mindful wallpaper</string>

This upcoming feature builds upon the idea of the Unlock Clock experimental app. Unlock Clock essentially puts a large counter on your homescreen as a widget. Every time you unlock your phone, the counter increases by 1. So by the end of the day, you know just how many times you have unlocked your smartphone. Mindful Wallpaper seems to be mimicking the idea at least and based on the description, it’s resorting to a better visual cue than just a straight-up number. If you unlock your phone too many times in a day, your homescreen will be filled with clouds, spoiling any aesthetics you have at play. It sounds like a good idea, but we’ll have to wait to witness its execution.

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Digital Wellbeing (Free, Google Play) →

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