This $59 gadget bricked my iPhone and altered my relationship with it (for the higher)

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Brick is a $59 gadget that blocks you from accessing your most-used apps
• It helped me develop a greater relationship to my cellphone
• Its optimistic reinforcements work higher than opponents or Screen Time limits.

nov / 2025

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As each facet of our working and social life is digitized, display habit has change into much less an exception to our way of life and extra a extensively accepted attribute of it. I see this mostly once I ask my mates, 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 cellphone, checking emails, responding to texts, scrolling social media, and checking the climate. That’s 4 hours I may very well be spending studying a e book, writing an article, studying methods to predict the climate, calling a cherished one, and doing something apart from 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 power ranges deplete, this sense of realized helplessness by the hands of expertise involves a head. I’ve no power to rise up from my mattress. It takes me some time to construct the braveness to transit to the health club. What do I do as an alternative? I sit on my mattress and I scroll. 

I scroll via monetary recommendation posts telling me that I ought to be investing far more available in the market than I already am, I scroll via engagements and weddings my former classmates are celebrating, I scroll via reactionary content material strangers put up on the web for clicks, and I scroll via a few of 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 cellphone 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, per week or two later, as soon as I’ve returned to my pure, secure, ripen, not rotten, mind, I redownload all these apps. Perhaps it is just some weeks or months, however the cycle continues.

Also: 6 small steps I take to interrupt my cellphone habit – and you may too 

I’ve tried the closing dates, the app blockers, and utilizing social media on a browser as an alternative 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 decide of that, I assumed to myself. 

The people at Brick despatched me a tool, which I instantly started testing upon reception and have been for the previous few weeks. TL:DR? This gadget has achieved 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 need to disable as soon as their cellphone is bricked. Brick makes use of NFC expertise, which can be present in contactless funds, digital wallets like Apple Pay, and safe entry controls, corresponding to digital keycards used to realize entry into buildings, to allow and disable app use. Tapping the brick, or “bricking,” blocks the usage of these apps till the cellphone is tapped as soon as once more and “unbricked.”

Also: 6 small steps I took to interrupt my cellphone habit – and you may 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 should use in an emergency, whenever 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 gadget upon my very own volition and unbricking once I have to test messages or posts from mates. Bricking the gadget once I acknowledge my very own want for distance from my cellphone felt like a simple first step at curbing my cellphone habit. 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 cellphone and developed much less of a reliance on often checking it, of which I’m nonetheless engaged on. 

My cellphone utilization is the worst (and makes me really feel the worst) whereas I’m at dwelling. Scrolling via social media between subway stops or checking messages often on the workplace is not my problem. 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 may very well be dedicating to hobbies. 

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

I really like bricking my cellphone 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 need to test an app or ship a textual content. 

Doing so would pressure me out of my mattress, down an extended hallway, and into the kitchen to unbrick my cellphone. It made me rethink my cellphone 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 cellphone. This provides me round an hour earlier than work, throughout which I can compensate for messages and the each day happenings. 

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Then, as soon as I start work, I brick my cellphone once more. After a minimum of 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 cellphone habit. 

Working with out the fixed pings or easy accessibility to social media jogs my memory of the productiveness I’d have whereas doing my homework on an airplane earlier than Wi-Fi grew to become obtainable — that undeterred, distraction-free form 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 need to earn via endurance, quite than one thing I can take without any consideration every time I’d like. It additionally jogs my memory that the variety of occasions I test my cellphone to see if somebody has reached out is disproportionate to the variety of notifications I obtain per hour. In quick, there is no such thing as 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 each day app restrict, Brick positively reinforces my time spent with out my apps. A widget pops up when you brick your gadget, displaying a timer displaying how lengthy you’ve got been offline since bricking. 

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

What I’d prefer to see improved

You need not brick your gadget to provoke a schedule, say at 9 a.m., as soon as you’ve got began work. But you’ll need your Brick available at 5 p.m., whenever you need to unbrick your gadget. This is irritating in case 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 need to unbrick your cellphone after the allotted brick time is over in your schedule, my good friend advisable 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 gadget.

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 advocate Brick in case you battle with often checking your cellphone or losing time on social media. During the primary full week I used it, my display time decreased by 7%. Its optimistic reinforcements, quite than admonishments whenever you’ve gone over your allotted display time, incrementally construct the case that you would be able to, certainly, go with out these apps. 

I’d advocate this most to individuals in search of a productiveness enhance — whether or not that is one you are in search of out on or off the job. After bricking my cellphone one night time, 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 spotted I may very well be studying my e book as an alternative. I’m undecided if I’d have made that selection with out Brick. 

I do know, $59 is a excessive value to pay for self-control. However, from my expertise with the gadget, it’s price it for the standard of life improve and the long-desired autonomy from my gadgets that I’ve regained.