What’s new in Niagara Launcher?

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The Update is scheduled for Dec 19, 4 PM CET / 7 AM PTD / 10 AM EST / 20:30 IST. First, we’ll distribute the update publicly on our community channels, and we'll roll it out on Google Play throughout the next weeks.

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You can find our press kit that includes additional screenshots, images, and videos here. Feel free to use them!

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Our Update Video premiers once the update goes live

Our Update Video premiers once the update goes live

The Winter Update is here, and this time we’re introducing a new feature, major company updates, and a special bonus feature that has been due for a very long time.

Usage Breaker: Building Awareness for Your Screen Time 🕒

Apps are designed to capture your attention and keep you engaged. A quick check on your phone can easily turn into hours of scrolling or binge-watching sessions on YouTube that make you feel like you have wasted so much time.

Looking for a solution, I tried Android’s built-in app timer, which allows me to limit my daily YouTube usage. But that didn’t work.

Why App Timers Often Fall Short

While YouTube offers many opportunities for wasting time, there are also many helpful and entertaining videos I don’t regret watching. So, after watching a long work-related tutorial and using up today’s time for YouTube, I can’t relax with some entertaining videos in the evening. Also, sometimes you really just want to finish that one video, but the app timer just cuts you off.

In those situations, you can cheat the timer by adding more and more time for today, but that’s a slippery slope. You start forming a habit of cheating the timer, and you get really good at working around the time limit.

And I’m not alone with this. Many participants of our Digital Wellbeing Initiative reported that they are unsatisfied with app timers for reducing unwanted phone usage. That’s why we wanted to try something else that performed better in our tests: the Usage Breaker.

Here’s How It Works

The Usage Breaker is a new experimental feature of Niagara Pro that makes you more conscious about the time spent in your apps and aims to reduce unwanted screen time.