With millions of free apps in the reach of your fingertips, you can find an app for just about everything, including apps to help you quit smoking. We tried three free apps and now we want to share with you what we discovered!
1) Smoke Free
Our first pick of the apps to help you quit will greet you with a simple and clean design. The dashboard will show you the amount of time you have been a non-smoker for, money saved (which can be automatically linked with money saving app called Chip), your health improvement, progress and achievements. You have an option to share all of these on social media.
The diary feature lets you keep track of your cravings and money spent on NRT/e-cigs. You can also comment on each of the entries. Your cravings can be tracked by a graph in the cravings tab, which also includes quit tips. On the bottom of the page you can find recommendations for counselling therapists, prescription treatment or even games you can download on our phone to distract you from a craving.
You can mark your completed “missions” on another tab. 8 of these missions are free, but you can get over 30 if you upgrade to Pro version. There is also a tab that contains badges which you get for each day you stay Smokefree. The Smoke Free app is available for both Android and Apple iOS.
2) QuitNow!
The QuitNow! App will greet you with a funky colourful design full of funny illustrations. At first, it will ask you to fill up how many cigarettes you used to smoke a day, what is the price of a cigarette pack and the time you quit. You can also back up all this data on Facebook. The home page is split into sections. On the top of the page, you will see how much time you have been Smokefree, how many cigarettes you avoided and how much money you have saved. Another interesting stat will tell you how much time you “won back” by not smoking.
Underneath that, you can see your achievements. There are many achievements like saving up for a weekend trip or being a non-smoker for two weeks. Each of the achievements is accompanied with a funny illustration that unlocks once you have complete your “mission”.
The community is probably what makes this app unique from the other two apps to help you quit. Once you have created your own profile, you will be able to access a chat. There you can talk with other people that are in the same situation as you. The community seems to be active, so it is very possible that you will find people that can help you out.
The health page will show you all the good physical effects that quitting smoking had on your body with simple bars that fill up over time. This app is free, although it will nag you to buy a pro version and unlock more features. You can download it on Android or Apple iOS.
3) Kwit
Last one from apps to help you quit that we are reviewing has a clean and rather minimalistic design. On the top of the first page, you can see round icon with your achieved level (starting as a Novice). If you click at the tiny icon on the left from it, it will give you a quick quit tip. Underneath you will see bars with health, wellbeing, time, money and cigarettes not smoked.
Your dashboard will show you the time you have been a “kwitter”, cigarettes not smoked and money saved. All this information can be shared on social media. Achievements are split into Health, Wellbeing, Time, Money and Cigarettes. These have levels and unlock automatically with time. There is another tag called Willpower, but this one is only for Pro users.
It doesn’t seem to keep track of cravings and there doesn’t seem to be anything keeping track of e-cigarettes or cigarettes smoked while you tried to quit, so it seems that it will be most useful for those quitting cold turkey and wanting just a bit more motivation. This App is for Android and Apple iOS.
Which of these apps to help you quit will work best?
There are many more apps to help you quit that you can find. It is completely up to you which one will fit you the best. These three seem to have the best, cleanest and most intuitive design. They also have many free features, although you may choose to pay a little bit of money and get a pro version (Smoke Free offers Premium Version for free for 7 days!) This seems to be much better than some other free apps that will annoy you with pop up adverts every time you click on something.
But which one to choose then? We would recommend Smoke Free for those that love statistics and graphs. Smoke Free is also the only one that lets you make diary entries which allows you to make notes and map your progress in your own words. It is also the only one that allows you to keep track of money spent on NRT or e-cigarettes and helps you to keep track of cravings. The only downside is that it doesn’t let you engage with the community such as the QuitNow! app which can be a disadvantage. Some people might also find QuitNow! more uplifting because of the funny illustrations it offers.
All of these apps to help you quit are for free, so you can just get them for your phone and decide for yourself which one works the best (it may not even be one of those three!). And if you do find some of the apps helpful, feel free to share your success with us on our Instagram or Facebook!
[…] when I really could have given in, so just a puff or two and that was it. I also downloaded an app on my Smartphone called “Cessation Nation”. It gives you statistics on how much money you have saved, how long […]