Your Pixel device running Android 13 wants to make bedtime a whole lot easier for you. It wants to help you relax and make sure you can drift off to sleep in that wonderful land of sleep without interrupting notifications or bright screens.
It’s very convenient, especially if you leave your phone in a charging cradle on your bedside table that faces the phone screen.
If that’s your setup, you know just how much of a nuisance that screen can become throughout the night.
Fortunately, Android 13 has a very unique feature called Bedtime Mode, which is part of the Digital Wellbeing app.
This mode disables notifications, turns the screen black and white, and can even switch the user interface to grayscale at a specific time. This means your device won’t interrupt you or be a glaring presence when you’re trying to fall asleep.
Best of all, thanks to the grayscale feature, if you have to grab this phone in the middle of the night, it won’t hurt your eyes when looking at the screen.
Out of the box, however, Bedtime mode isn’t enabled. Fortunately, it is very simple to activate and configure.
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How to Set a Bedtime Schedule on Your Android Device
Let’s just do that.
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The only thing you’ll need for this is an Android phone that includes the Digital Wellbeing app. You will find this app in Android 12 and later. That’s it. Let’s set it up.
The first thing to do is open Digital Wellbeing, which you should be able to launch from the Android app drawer.
On the Digital Wellbeing page, scroll down until you see Bedtime mode.
Bedtime mode is accessible from the Digital Wellbeing app. Image: Jack Wallen
On the next page, press the ON/OFF slider until it is in the ON position.
Enabling Bedtime mode in Android 13 on a Pixel 7 pro. Image: Jack Wallen
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You should now see a Next button. Press this button, and then you can program the Bedtime mode based on a time or if the phone is placed on a charger.
To set a time, press the Begin time and change it to when you go to bed, then press the End time and set it for your alarm clock.
After that, tap on the days you want Bedtime mode to take effect. If a day is circled in blue, it means it is activated.
Bedtime mode can be activated either by time or by load. Image: Jack Wallen
When you’re done, press Do then press Allow (if prompted) to grant Digital Wellbeing access to app usage and sensor data. You can also enable or disable motion detection, light detection, and time zone history.
Motion and light detection will help Android understand what things are interrupting your sleep (like sound and light). This information will be collected and communicated only to you (so there is no need to fear that Google collects data on your sleep habits).
Further configuration of Bedtime mode on Android 13. Image: Jack Wallen
And that’s all there is to setting up your bedtime schedule in Android 13.
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One thing to keep in mind, however, is that Bedtime mode has no effect on the Pixel Watch. Unfortunately, you have to manually enable Bedtime mode on the watch. Hopefully at some point Google will sync these two things up so that when Bedtime mode on your phone kicks in, it will automatically launch on your watch.
Other than that, Bedtime mode is a handy feature that can help you get some sleep.