At Google I/O this year, Google announced their 'digital wellbeing' initiative which purportedly helped users curb their smartphone addiction. It was expected to be released alongside Android Pie and was exclusive to the Google Pixel smartphones initially. It was expected to make its way to other devices, and since the feature takes advantage of native Android Pie APIs, it was fairly easy to bring it to any device running Android Pie such as the OnePlus 6 and Nokia 7.1. Recently, we learned that it would come to Android One devices. Today, HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer of Nokia products, Juho Sarvikas, announced that Digital Wellbeing is available for the Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 6 Plus.
Digital Wellbeing is now available in Beta Preview for #AndroidOne devices on #Android 9.0! Get it now on your #Nokia7Plus or #Nokia6Plus and chill out a bit more this weekend!
Ps. We will serve more 🍰 soonhttps://t.co/ak5IVmulsK pic.twitter.com/es5kcxmNmt
— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) October 20, 2018
Digital Wellbeing apparently helps curb your smartphone addiction through the use of greyscale to wind down your smartphone usage at night, do not disturb mode scheduling, app usage dashboards and timers, and more. It aims to help you get to sleep on time while also identifying when you might use your smartphone too much. The initiative might look good on paper, but in reality, it'll take a lot more than a greyed out display to deter users from putting their phone down.
HMD Global’s commitment to updating their devices is praiseworthy. While they haven’t been the most developer friendly when it comes to bootloader unlocking, their commitment to timely software updates makes them truly stand out. Two of their devices are already on Android Pie, which is more than several companies at the moment. Juho Sarvikas also says that Android Pie will be released to more devices soon, even the cheap ones. It is unclear how many of said devices will get Digital Wellbeing at this point. You can download the Digital Wellbeing application from the Google Play Store on your Nokia 7 Plus or Nokia 6 Plus, and it should start working right off the bat.
News Source: XDA developers
About the author: Anil has been a lifelong tech enthusiast and has worked a variety of jobs before joining the Wccftech team in 2018. His primary responsibilities include reporting on all things in the Android and mobile gaming sphere. He is also passionate about PC hardware, obscure music and internet culture. He also has a thing for addressing himself in third person as an exercise in self-awareness.
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