Remember those Digital Wellbeing experiments that Google launched last year to help you to use your phone less? Fast-forward a few months and Google has introduced a few more experiments that are just as, erm, unique as the original group.
Perhaps the most interesting of Google's new Digital Wellbeing experiments is called Envelope. Google says it's inspired by the trend of people buying second, simple phones for the weekend to help them be less distracted by still stay connected.
Envelope is a paper envelope that you print out and stick your phone into, turning it into a much more basic device. One envelope only lets you make and receive calls, and the buttons will subtly light up to help you dial a phone number.
The other envelope is for using your phone as a camera. There are buttons for taking a photo and recording a video, but you can't see your screen while you're capturing the photo or video, which is meant to help you better focus on what's in front of you.
Envelope is currently only supported on the Pixel 3a. If you've got that phone and want to try Envelope out, you can find a PDF to print out here and you can download the app from Google Play right here.
The second app is Screen Stopwatch. With it, your phone's wallpaper will be turned into a stopwatch that'll start counting each time you unlock your phone. This means you can easily see exactly how long you spend staring at your phone each day. It's available from Google Play here.
Finally, there's Activity Bubbles. Like Screen Stopwatch, the Activity Bubbles experiment is meant to show you exactly how much you use your phone throughout the day. This app can be downloaded here.
Each time that you unlock your phone, a bubble will be added to your wallpaper. The longer that you use your phone after each unlock, the bigger the bubble will grow.
Are you going to try any of these Digital Wellbeing experiments?
