Google is working on a ‘Your screen time’ Digital Wellbeing widget
Google gave thewidgets of almost all its appsa Material You makeover with the release ofAndroid 12. Now, the company is working on a Digital Wellbeing widget that will show your screen time for the day alongside your most-used apps. Currently, Pixel devices do not offer any such widget, and users need to head into the Settings menu to get an overview of their phone usage for the day. This upcoming widget from Google will solve this problem to a large extent and let you keep track of your smartphone addiction right from the homescreen.
9to5Googlediscovered the new ‘Your screen time’ widget in a teardown of the latest Digital Wellbeing beta (v1.0416751293). The widget’s default layout is 2x2, and while that can be expanded further, it does not lead to an increase in information density — it always shows the top three used apps of the day. There’s also a 2x1 layout that only shows the screen time for the day. The widget has been designed adhering to the Material You guidelines and supports Dynamic Color theming, so it will change colors depending on the wallpaper you are using.
Samsung already offers a similar Digital Wellbeing widget on its phones. They show the screen time for the day along with a breakdown of the top used apps. There’s an App timer widget, too, that displays the amount of time remaining before you hit your limit for the day. Google’s Digital Wellbeing widget seems to be based on the same idea.
Since the widget is already a part of the latest Digital Wellbeing beta, it should not be long before Google makes it available to Pixels and hopefully non-Pixel phones, too.
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