Sadie Creek

With sleep, the quality is just as important as the quantity. Right now, those of us who no longer commute and are staying close to home may be able to sleep in, but how well and how much we’re sleeping can still be a struggle. In fact, there’s been a rise in sleep-related searches like “insomnia” and “can’t sleep,” which reached all-time highs in April and May. At Google, we believe that technology should improve life, not distract from it–including your sleep. Today we’re sharing a few tips and new bedtime tools to help you get better and more restful sleep.

Turn on Bedtime mode to limit interruptions

A dark, quiet environment can help with falling and staying asleep. With Bedtime mode, formerly known as Wind Down in the Digital Wellbeing settings, your Android phone can stay dark and quiet while you sleep. While Bedtime mode is on, it uses Do Not Disturb to silence calls, texts and other notifications that might disturb your sleep. Grayscale fades the colors on your phone to black and white to reduce the draw from enticing colors that keep you up.

We’ve now made it easier to customize how and when you turn on Bedtime mode. Based on your bedtime schedule, you can choose to have it turn on automatically or after your phone is plugged in to charge. You can also add Bedtime mode to your phone’s Quick Settings panel to instantly turn it on or off with a single tap. And if you need a few more minutes, you can pause Bedtime mode without needing to adjust your schedule. Bedtime mode is available on all devices with Digital Wellbeing and parental controls settings.

Get more consistent sleep with Clock

A regular bedtime and wake-up schedule (including on your off days) helps your body establish a strong circadian rhythm and can improve the quality of your sleep. With the new Bedtime tab in the Clock app, you can set daily sleep and wake times to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.

While sticking to a schedule is something to strive for, real life often requires flexibility. It’s helpful to start with a wake-up time and work backwards when you set your bedtime schedule. In Clock, you’ll see a preview of tomorrow’s calendar and a tally of the total hours of sleep you’d get, and you can adjust your bedtime if needed.

To help you get to bed and fall asleep, you’ll receive a reminder before bedtime and an option to play calming sounds from Calm, Spotify, YouTube Music and more. For those with Digital Wellbeing installed, you can pair with Bedtime mode to limit interruptions while you sleep. And if you happen to stay on your phone later than planned, you can see how much time you’re spending and which apps you’ve used after your set bedtime.

Being woken up by an alarm can be jarring. To avoid interrupting deep sleep and wake up more gently, the Sunrise Alarm gives a visual cue that your wake up time is approaching, 15 minutes prior to your audio alarm. Make it an even more pleasant experience by adding your favorite song or sounds.

The new bedtime experience is rolling out to Pixel devices starting today and will be available in the Clock app on other Android devices later this summer.

Set a bedtime reminder in YouTube

We also made it easier to manage how much time you spend watching on YouTube on your phone after bedtime.You can now get a reminder that it’s time for bed in the YouTube app. You can choose to see the reminder at bedtime or after your video completes. And if you need a bit more time, you can snooze to continue watching and be reminded again in 10 minutes.

Keep devices locked at bedtime with Family Link

Family Link helps you set digital ground rules for your children, including managing their screen time activity, app downloads, in-app purchases and even bedtime for their device. You can create a daily bedtime schedule, adjusting it on certain days or weekends as needed. Once bedtime rolls around, your child’s device will lock, but will still allow calls in case your child needs to reach you.

We hope these bedtime tools can help you and your family unplug and get the consistent, restful sleep you need.

Over the past few months, we’ve made significant changes to help businesses reach more consumers and help people find the best products, prices and places to buy online. We made it free for retailers to list products on Google Shopping in the U.S., and we brought these free listings to Search as well.

Today, we’re taking another important step to make it easier for retailers to sell on Google. Soon, sellers who participate in our Buy on Google checkout experience will no longer have to pay us a commission fee. And, we’re giving retailers more choice by opening our platform to third-party providers—starting with PayPal and Shopify.

These changes are about providing all businesses—from small stores to national chains and online marketplaces—the best place to connect with customers, regardless of where a purchase eventually occurs. With more products and stores available for discovery and the option to buy directly on Google or on a retailer’s site, shoppers will have more choice across the board.

Here’s more on what’s new for retailers:

Zero commission fees when customers buy your products on Google

While retailers have several options for driving traffic to their website with free listings or with Shopping ads, many also use Buy on Google to give shoppers a convenient way to purchase something right when they discover it. By removing our commission fees, we’re lowering the cost of doing business and making it even easier for retailers of all sizes to sell directly on Google, starting with a pilot that we’ll expand to all eligible sellers in the U.S. over the coming months. Learn more about the requirements for the pilot and sign up to join the waitlist.

Bring your own third-party providers, starting with PayPal and Shopify

We’ve heard from retailers that they want the ability to choose their preferred services for things like payment processing, inventory, and order management. That’s why we’re opening our platform to more digital commerce providers, beginning with Shopify for inventory and order management and PayPal and Shopify for payment processing. So, if a retailer wants to sell directly on Google, they can get started even faster and continue using the tools and services that already work for their business. Or, if they’re new to selling online, they’ll be able to choose from multiple options when they sign up in our Merchant Center.

Import your inventory with just a few clicks

To simplify our tools and make them more compatible with merchants’ existing processes, we’re enabling commonly-used product feed formats. This means retailers can connect their inventory to sell directly on Google without having to reformat their data. We’re also adding a new option to let retailers add product information (like images or technical specs) by pulling from our existing database rather than having to upload it themselves.

More products, more sellers, more choice

As we’ve made it easier for a broader set of retailers to sell on Google this year, we’re also seeing a significant increase in demand to buy from and support small businesses. To help people discover these smaller merchants, we also plan to add a new small business filter on the Google Shopping tab and will continue adding features to help small businesses participate in online commerce.

Everything we’re announcing today will roll out first in the U.S., and we’re looking toward international launches later this year and in 2021. While we still have much work ahead of us, our goal is to make digital commerce more accessible for retailers of all sizes all around the world, giving consumers more choice and more ways to find the best products, stores, and prices.