A new app brings Google’s Digital Wellbeing features — a set of helpful tools for telling which apps you are spending too much time in — and opens many of them up to all Android phones.
Called ActionDash, the app reveals a clear breakdown of which apps have been taking up your time today, how many times you have unlocked your phone, and how many notifications you have received. Swiping to different screens allows you to see breakdowns by day, by hour, and by app.
ActionDash looks and feels almost exactly like Digital Wellbeing, so much so you will have to frequently double check which app you are in. There are ways in which ActionDash is easier to navigate, with everything accessible with a swipe to the left or right.
There’s really only one major feature ActionDash has that Digital Wellbeing does not; it is available to everyone. Google has, for whatever reason, limited its Digital Wellbeing to Pixel phones and Android One devices, meaning that only a very small portion of Android users can get it.
The opportunity to bring Google’s latest features to devices that are unlikely to ever receive them from Google / OEMs / carriers should be appealing to customers. Moreover, ActionDash does have a couple of other added flares, like a dark mode and the ability to get a daily notification summing up your usage. Digital Wellbeing, on the other hand, requires you to open the app every time you want to see what you have been up to.
Other apps exist that provide similar usage-tracking features, but ActionDash does so in a way that is particularly simple and easy to get started with. Crucially, it also promises to protect your privacy by keeping the data only on your device, with no third-party having access to it.
ActionDash is available for free, with a paid upgrade that removes ads and offers a few bonus features, like dark mode.