This Pocket-Sized Gadget Is Designed To Lock You Out Of Addictive Apps

In a world the place each app competes for our consideration, it is no marvel telephone habit is a rising criticism. While there are a lot of gadgets designed to enhance focus, your telephone is usually a productiveness hub, too. Still, let’s be trustworthy, with social media firms designing each side of their apps to maintain customers hooked, a continuing barrage of more and more regarding information alerts, and all the opposite digital distractions we have grown accustomed to, how can the typical person anticipate to take care of focus with out getting sucked right into a black gap of doomscrolling?

That’s the place Brick purports to enter the image. It is a small, plastic sq., in regards to the thickness of a giant smartphone, which incorporates an NFC key. When paired with the companion app, the corporate (of the identical title) claims it is the answer to your telephone habit. Much like your iPhone’s Apple Screen Time characteristic or Android’s Digital Wellbeing, the Brick app will lock you out of the apps of your selecting or prohibit the time you’ll be able to spend on them earlier than they lock you out. The essential differentiating issue is that you just can not unlock restricted apps with out tapping your telephone to the Brick machine itself.

But is Brick actually the fast repair it claims to be? We are awash, of late, in devices that declare to curb your digital dopamine habit. There are minimalist telephones and dumb telephones, time-locking telephone safes, and innumerable apps geared toward retaining your smartphone from getting in the best way of your productiveness. Brick is definitely a novel product, however it’s removed from the one one on this area of interest. To work out whether or not it is a silver bullet or snake oil, we combed by means of product documentation, person evaluations, and took a take a look at various digital detox instruments you’ll be able to strive.

Read extra: 7 Handy Ways To Use A Multimeter Around The Home And Garage

Brick breaks your telephone on function to maintain you centered

There are many methods out there to those that want to cut back smartphone use, however Brick takes the chilly turkey method. After telling the app which different apps you would like to dam your entry to, you merely faucet your telephone to the Brick, they usually grow to be inaccessible. Unlike your telephone’s built-in app restrictions, you can not ignore the block or add additional time to the meter. Only when you once more faucet the Brick together with your telephone will they grow to be accessible as soon as extra. There is even a Strict Mode, upon the activation of which you can not uninstall the Brick app or fiddle with blocked apps to regain entry. This requires machine admin entry on Android.

The apparent query is what occurs if you lose your Brick. Brick provides you with 5 free “emergency unbricks” for if you misplace your Brick however urgently must get again into an app. Allowing solely 5 such makes use of is clearly designed to make sure that you will not cheat, however after they’re used up, you will must file a petition with Brick to be able to obtain any extra. The system is nice for many who can depart the Brick at house, however reviewers for The Independent and Consumer Reports report giving in to temptation and unlocking it. Sure, you would stick the Brick in one other room whilst you work at home to drive a bodily motion between you and Instagram, however it will not be a complete shut-out.

Brick will allow you to create as much as ten customized modes, so you’ll be able to select which issues are being blocked and restricted relying on the scenario — blocking social media apps throughout work hours, work apps at house, and so forth. You can even create schedules to activate explicit profiles at set occasions.

Brick is competing with secondary telephones and little guys who reside in your display

Brick is much from the one software aiming to set you free from doomscrolling. Gadgets and apps have tried to fill that area of interest for a very long time, to various levels of success. Last yr noticed a marked uptick in such merchandise breaking by means of, at the least amongst gadget fanatics. Minimalist phones hit a stride in 2025. There was the Light Phone III, a bespoke smartphone with a black-and-white working system that may make calls and texts, pull up instructions, play music and podcasts, and never a lot else. The bluntly named Minimal Phone was comparable in its method. More not too long ago, the Clicks Communicator introduced again BlackBerry nostalgia with a telephone designed to be nice at messaging. Although it guarantees to be an ideal all-around Android telephone when it ships later in 2026, the Communicator’s type issue is ill-suited to distracting apps that waste your time.

But these options require you to embrace a completely new telephone. So, what about apps you’ll be able to set up proper now with out spending a dime? Minimalist Phone Launcher works on each iOS and Android, changing your property display with a black-and-white record of the fundamentals and offering the anticipated timers and app restrictions. Or, in the event you merely wish to put your telephone away altogether, strive Focus Friend (iOS/Android), whereby an animated kidney bean will knit socks in your display, shedding its progress if you give in to the temptation of scrolling. Forest (iOS/Android) is comparable, however with rising crops. Many folks will discover themselves merely disabling or ignoring these options, however they could be value a strive earlier than dropping money on a second telephone or a Brick.

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Read the original article on SlashGear.