This $50 gadget bricked my iPhone and altered my relationship with it (for the higher)

nov / 2025

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As each side of our working and social life is digitized, display dependancy has change into much less an exception to our way of life and extra a broadly accepted attribute of it. I see this mostly once I ask my buddies, household, and coworkers what number of hours a day they spend on their telephones. The solutions differ from three to eight hours. 

I common round 4 hours of my day on my telephone, checking emails, responding to texts, scrolling social media, and checking the climate. That’s 4 hours I might be spending studying a e-book, writing an article, studying tips on how to predict the climate, calling a liked one, and doing something moreover checking the time suck and mind rot that’s social media websites and messaging apps. 

Also: I gave up my iPhone for a dumbphone with no apps. A month later, this is my take

Every October, as common daylight dwindles and my vitality ranges deplete, this sense of realized helplessness by the hands of expertise involves a head. I’ve no vitality to stand up from my mattress. It takes me some time to construct the braveness to transit to the health club. What do I do as a substitute? I sit on my mattress and I scroll. 

I scroll by monetary recommendation posts telling me that I must be investing far more available in the market than I already am, I scroll by engagements and weddings my former classmates are celebrating, I scroll by reactionary content material strangers publish on the web for clicks, and I scroll by among the most sinister information my eyes can see and my mind can fathom. All this content material is jumbled in, and I let it wash over me like I’m mendacity on the sands of a pathetic ocean. 

Once I attain this level, I delete my social media apps. I attempt to put my telephone in one other room whereas I work, eat, and do chores round the home. I create a stricter schedule and pressure myself to depart the home extra. Then, every week or two later, as soon as I’ve returned to my pure, steady, ripen, not rotten, mind, I redownload all these apps. Perhaps it is only a few weeks or months, however the cycle continues.

Also: 6 small steps I take to interrupt my telephone dependancy – and you’ll too 

I’ve tried the closing dates, the app blockers, and utilizing social media on a browser as a substitute of the app itself. So this October, I attempted one thing new. I had seen protection of the corporate Brick and its miracle-working device that successfully locks customers out of their high-demand apps. People had claimed the minimalistic, magnetic dice gave them their time again. I’ll be the choose of that, I assumed to myself. 

The of us at Brick despatched me a tool, which I instantly started testing upon reception and have been for the previous few weeks. TL:DR? This system has performed numbers on my relationship with my most addictive apps. Here’s how.

How it really works

Brick is a grey, magnetic sq. with a suitable app. Upon downloading the app, an individual selects the apps they wish to disable as soon as their telephone is bricked. Brick makes use of NFC expertise, which can also be present in contactless funds, digital wallets like Apple Pay, and safe entry controls, resembling digital keycards used to achieve entry into buildings, to allow and disable app use. Tapping the brick, or “bricking,” blocks using these apps till the telephone is tapped as soon as once more and “unbricked.”

Also: 6 small steps I took to interrupt my telephone dependancy – and you’ll too

You can arrange schedules to dam apps throughout particular occasions of the day and modes to dam sure sorts of apps. I started testing the product by making a mode that blocks my most-used apps, particularly Messages, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, and LinkedIn. 

Brick provides you 5 free “unbricks” you need to use in an emergency, if you aren’t close to the bodily Brick. 

My expertise ‘Bricking’ my iPhone

I have never arrange a schedule but, as a result of I’m glad bricking my system upon my very own volition and unbricking once I must test messages or posts from buddies. Bricking the system once I acknowledge my very own want for distance from my telephone felt like a straightforward first step at curbing my telephone dependancy. A schedule felt too stringent. I can see the scheduling characteristic changing into handier as soon as I’ve spent a number of weeks bricking my telephone and developed much less of a reliance on frequently checking it, of which I’m nonetheless engaged on. 

My telephone utilization is the worst (and makes me really feel the worst) whereas I’m at dwelling. Scrolling by social media between subway stops or checking messages often on the workplace is not my concern. It’s the hours I spend losing as soon as I get dwelling from a busy day of labor, or the time I spend losing away on the weekends that I might be dedicating to hobbies. 

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So that is the place I primarily use the Brick. My roommates, nevertheless, have used the Brick earlier than studying on the park, they usually reported that it helped them focus longer. One Monday evening, I bricked my telephone after which journal for 90 minutes, utterly and completely undisturbed. 

I really like bricking my telephone earlier than bedtime, which, within the phrases of my roommate, seems like “shutting the home computer down at the end of the night.” Every so usually, I’ll be mendacity in mattress and remembering I wish to test an app or ship a textual content. 

Doing so would pressure me out of my mattress, down a protracted hallway, and into the kitchen to unbrick my telephone. It made me rethink my telephone utilization choices. 

In the morning, after waking, I’ll go to my kitchen, the place my Brick is caught on the fridge, and unbrick my telephone. This provides me round an hour earlier than work, throughout which I can make amends for messages and the day by day happenings. 

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Then, as soon as I start work, I brick my telephone once more. After no less than an hour of zero distractions, I’ll reward myself with a fast unbrick. I test my messages or scroll for a couple of minutes and rebrick. It’s just like the Pomodoro impact, however for telephone dependancy. 

Working with out the fixed pings or quick access to social media jogs my memory of the productiveness I’d have whereas doing my homework on an airplane earlier than Wi-Fi turned accessible — that undeterred, distraction-free sort of productiveness and clearheadedness that comes with disconnection from the skin world.  

Why it really works for me

Brick makes entry to my most-used apps a privilege I really feel like I have to earn by persistence, relatively than one thing I can take without any consideration each time I’d like. It additionally jogs my memory that the variety of occasions I test my telephone to see if somebody has reached out is disproportionate to the variety of notifications I obtain per hour. In brief, there isn’t a want for me to be checking it as usually as I’m. 

Unlike a display time notification or restrict, which is enabled as soon as somebody reaches their day by day app restrict, Brick positively reinforces my time spent with out my apps. A widget pops up when you brick your system, displaying a timer displaying how lengthy you have been offline since bricking. 

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It instantly contrasts the destructive reinforcement that’s the “You’ve reached your daily Instagram limit” notifications I obtain by Screen Time. In the app, you may also see how a lot time you have spent bricking every day. All these options and touches assist me construct the case for myself that I can truly go with out these apps for extended intervals. 

What I’d wish to see improved

You need not brick your system to provoke a schedule, say at 9 a.m., as soon as you have began work. But you will have your Brick readily available at 5 p.m., if you wish to unbrick your system. This is irritating in the event you’re not in the identical location as your Brick as soon as the clock strikes 5 p.m., however there is a workaround, which a good friend let me in on. 

If you wish to unbrick your telephone after the allotted brick time is over in your schedule, my good friend really helpful creating one other schedule instantly after your first schedule ends, after which unbricking a random app. This permits the scheduling characteristic and unbricks the specified apps with out requiring the bodily system.

My good friend additionally talked about how Brick did not register his change in time zones when he was touring, one thing he’d like Brick to enhance. 

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation

I extremely suggest Brick in the event you wrestle with frequently checking your telephone or losing time on social media. During the primary full week I used it, my display time decreased by 7%. Its optimistic reinforcements, relatively than admonishments if you’ve gone over your allotted display time, incrementally construct the case you can, certainly, go with out these apps. 

I’d suggest this most to folks searching for a productiveness increase — whether or not that is one you are searching for out on or off the job. After bricking my telephone one evening, I made a decision to go on a not-so-addictive however still-distracting app earlier than mattress. I watched one YouTube video for round two minutes, till I noticed I might be studying my e-book as a substitute. I’m undecided if I’d have made that selection with out Brick. 

I do know, $55 is a excessive worth to pay for self-control. However, from my expertise with the system, it’s price it for the standard of life improve and the long-desired autonomy from my units that I’ve regained.