ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Brick is a $59 machine that blocks you from accessing your most-used apps
- It is on sale for $47 proper now
- It helped me develop a greater relationship to my telephone
- Its optimistic reinforcements work higher than rivals or Display screen Cut-off dates.
nov / 2025
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As each side of our working and social life is digitized, display habit has turn into much less an exception to our way of life and extra a broadly accepted attribute of it. I see this mostly after I ask my associates, 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 is 4 hours I may very well be spending studying a e-book, writing an article, studying the way to predict the climate, calling a cherished one, and doing something moreover checking the time suck and mind rot that’s social media websites and messaging apps.
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Each 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 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 by means of monetary recommendation posts telling me that I must be investing far more out there than I already am, I scroll by means of engagements and weddings my former classmates are celebrating, I scroll by means of reactionary content material strangers put up on the web for clicks, and I scroll by means of among the most sinister information my eyes can see and my mind can fathom. All this content material is mixed in, and I let it wash over me like I am mendacity on the sands of a pathetic ocean.
As soon as 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, secure, ripen, not rotten, mind, I redownload all these apps. Maybe it is just some weeks or months, however the cycle continues.
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I’ve tried the cut-off 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 machine that successfully locks customers out of their high-demand apps. Folks had claimed the minimalistic, magnetic dice gave them their time again. I will be the choose of that, I assumed to myself.
The parents at Brick despatched me a tool, which I instantly started testing upon reception and have been for the previous few weeks. TL:DR? This machine has achieved numbers on my relationship with my most addictive apps. Here is how.
The way it 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 telephone is bricked. Brick makes use of NFC expertise, which can 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.”
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You’ll be able to 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, Fb, Threads, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Brick offers you 5 free “unbricks” you should utilize 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 am happy bricking my machine upon my very own volition and unbricking after I must test messages or posts from associates. Bricking the machine after I acknowledge my very own want for distance from my telephone felt like a straightforward first step at curbing my telephone 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 telephone and developed much less of a reliance on frequently checking it, of which I am nonetheless engaged on.
My telephone utilization is the worst (and makes me really feel the worst) whereas I am at house. Scrolling by means of social media between subway stops or checking messages often on the workplace is not my situation. It is the hours I spend losing as soon as I get house 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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In order that’s the place I primarily use the Brick. My roommates, nonetheless, 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, fully and completely undisturbed.
I like bricking my telephone earlier than bedtime, which, within the phrases of my roommate, appears like “shutting the house pc down on the finish of the evening.” From time to time, I will 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 a protracted hallway, and into the kitchen to unbrick my telephone. It made me rethink my telephone utilization selections.
Within the morning, after waking, I will go to my kitchen, the place my Brick is caught on the fridge, and unbrick my telephone. This offers me round an hour earlier than work, throughout which I can atone for messages and the every day happenings.
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Then, as soon as I start work, I brick my telephone once more. After a minimum of an hour of zero distractions, I will reward myself with a fast unbrick. I test my messages or scroll for a couple of minutes and rebrick. It is just like the Pomodoro impact, however for telephone habit.
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 obtainable — that undeterred, distraction-free type of productiveness and clearheadedness that comes with disconnection from the surface 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 means of endurance, relatively than one thing I can take without any consideration at any time when I would 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. Briefly, there isn’t any want for me to be checking it as usually as I’m.
Not like a display time notification or restrict, which is enabled as soon as somebody reaches their every day app restrict, Brick positively reinforces my time spent with out my apps. A widget pops up when you brick your machine, displaying a timer exhibiting how lengthy you’ve got been offline since bricking.
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It instantly contrasts the adverse reinforcement that’s the “You’ve got reached your every day Instagram restrict” notifications I obtain by means of Display screen Time. Within the app, you too can 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 durations.
What I would prefer to see improved
You needn’t brick your machine to provoke a schedule, say at 9 a.m., as soon as you’ve got began work. However you will want your Brick available at 5 p.m., whenever you need to unbrick your machine. That is irritating should 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 machine.
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 should you battle with frequently checking your telephone or losing time on social media. In the course of the first full week I used it, my display time decreased by 7%. Its optimistic reinforcements, relatively than admonishments whenever you’ve gone over your allotted display time, incrementally construct the case which you could, certainly, go with out these apps.
I would suggest this most to individuals in search of 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 spotted I may very well be studying my e-book as an alternative. I am undecided if I’d have made that selection with out Brick.
I do know, $59 is a excessive value to pay for self-control. Nevertheless, from my expertise with the machine, it’s value it for the standard of life improve and the long-desired autonomy from my gadgets that I’ve regained. Plus, should you purchase it throughout Brick’s Black Friday sale, you will get a $12 low cost that cuts the value by 20%.
When will this deal expire?
We do not know precisely when this deal will finish, however provided that it is dwell across the Black Friday offers occasion, we anticipate that it will likely be obtainable till Cyber Monday (if it would not promote out forward of time).
Offers are topic to promote out or expire anytime, although ZDNET stays dedicated to discovering, sharing, and updating the very best product offers so that you can rating the very best financial savings. Our staff of specialists frequently checks in on the offers we share to make sure they’re nonetheless dwell and obtainable. We’re sorry should you’ve missed out on this deal, however do not fret — we’re continually discovering new probabilities to save lots of and sharing them with you at ZDNET.com.
