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 numerous devices designed to reinforce focus, your telephone is usually a productiveness hub, too. Still, let’s be trustworthy, with social media corporations designing each facet 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 common consumer anticipate to keep up 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 identify) claims it is the answer to your telephone habit. Much like your iPhone’s Apple Screen Time function or Android’s Digital Wellbeing, the Brick app will lock you out of the apps of your selecting or limit the time you may spend on them earlier than they lock you out. The essential differentiating issue is that you just can’t 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 aimed toward protecting your smartphone from getting in the best way of your productiveness. Brick is actually a novel product, but it surely’s removed from the one one on this area of interest. To determine whether or not it is a silver bullet or snake oil, we combed by means of product documentation, consumer opinions, and took a take a look at different digital detox instruments you may strive.

There are many methods out there to those that want to scale back smartphone use, however Brick takes the chilly turkey strategy. After telling the app which different apps you want to dam your entry to, you merely faucet your telephone to the Brick, they usually turn out to be inaccessible. Unlike your telephone’s built-in app restrictions, you can not ignore the block or add further time to the meter. Only when you once more faucet the Brick together with your telephone will they turn out 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 whenever you lose your Brick. Brick provides you with 5 free “emergency unbricks” for whenever 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 in an effort to obtain any extra. The system is nice for many who can depart the Brick at residence, 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 when you do business from home to power a bodily motion between you and Instagram, but it surely will not be a complete shut-out.

Brick will allow you to create as much as ten customized modes, so you may select which issues are being blocked and restricted relying on the state of affairs  — blocking social media apps throughout work hours, work apps at residence, and so forth. You can even create schedules to activate specific profiles at set occasions.

Brick is much from the one instrument 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, no less than amongst gadget fanatics. Minimalist telephones 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 strategy. 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 awesome 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 may set up proper now with out spending a dime? Minimalist Phone Launcher works on each iOS and Android, changing your property display screen with a black-and-white record of the fundamentals and offering the anticipated timers and app restrictions. Or, when you merely need to put your telephone away altogether, strive Focus Friend (iOS/Android), whereby an animated kidney bean will knit socks in your display screen, shedding its progress whenever you give in to the temptation of scrolling. Forest (iOS/Android) is comparable, however with rising crops. Many individuals will discover themselves merely disabling or ignoring these options, however they might be price a strive earlier than dropping money on a second telephone or a Brick.