Get bricked and take back your time! That’s the message from .. Brick.
What is Brick? The Physical App Blocker
I could regurgitate the blurb from the website, but that is not my style.
What Brick does, is to turn your smart phone into … a brick. Not a failed firmware upgrade kind, but a deliberate, with friction, habit forming step to take back control from distraction.
Physically it is a 5×5 centimetre hunk of plastic, 1.5 centimetre thick. Magnetised on the back surface so you can stick it to your fridge, or anything metallic.
There may be something funky inside, but realistically it is just a fancy housing over a NFC tag. Programmatically, something has been done so the app recognises just the Brick devices and not just any NFC tags.
Setting Up the Brick: Compatibility and App Modes
You need to download the Brick app from your respective app store. It is compatible with iPhones running iOS 17.0 or later, and Android 12.0 or later. Given that the current version of iOS and Android are 26 and 16 respectively, that’s a fair bit of support for older phones.
The sign up process requires an email address, but that is all the information they required.
However due to the nature of the application, the app does require quite a bit of access to your phone:
- accessibility – to see what apps and websites are open so the correct restrictions can be applied
- notifications – to hide notifications from restricted apps
- alarms and reminders for scheduling – to set scheduled blocking sessions
Refreshingly, there is no on-going subscription. A once off purchase and you are good to go.
The app will take you through setting up your first “mode”, for your first rodeo there is a list to select from:
- Spend time with family
- Be present
- Focus at work
- Wind down before bed
- Stay on track with workouts
Next you choose the apps you want to Brick – restricted from launching when you need to focus.
On Android, you can block any app or website except Phone and Launcher.
On iOS, all apps are fair game except Phone, as per Apple policy, and selected Safari sites from Apple’s approved list.
The app allows you to create up to ten custom modes, to match whatever scenario you need – work focus, gym, sleep, family time, and anything else that works for you.
To set up the app restrictions, you can opt for either block selected or allow only selected.
What’s the difference?
If you only want to allow only a small number of apps to be available when your device is bricked, the “allow only selected” is a more efficient way of going about it.
Personally I went with “block selected”, because I only wanted to block a small number of apps.
To paint the picture in simpler terms. On my phone I have 125 apps installed, not a huge amount because I aggressively keep unnecessary apps down. But if I only want to allow 5 apps during my Brick time, then with “block selected” mode, I have to go and tick the box next to 110 apps.
Conversely, if I go with “allow only selected” mode, I only have to tick five boxes.
Hands-On: Using Friction to Break Habits
Let’s be honest here, the Brick works on an honour system.
There are a few ways to enable the function:
- schedule
- physical tap on for ad-hoc mode
- tap and hold the virtual Brick in the app for two seconds (does not require the physical brick)
It all comes down to requiring you, as the user, to form a habit and maintain it.
Because realistically, you can tap out of the restriction as long as you have the Brick handy. Or if you don’t, you can have five emergency unlocks without the physical unit.
The whole idea is to introduce friction to the process – it requires a physical tap off for you to access something. Perhaps you put the Brick somewhere inconvenient, and you have to parkour through poison ivy and deadly drop bear infested yards to get to. But the point is, you can opt out and unbrick any time.
The perks of having a neurospicy brain, is that I am generally pretty good at focusing when I have a task at hand. And the not so good perks of that, is the occasional “thing” would distract me and time slips away.
For it to work for me, I don’t need to block every app possible on my phone. Just the apps that I can lose time in – that means all my social media and games apps are on the naughty list. And when I tap on, it’s game over and time to work.
Like I said earlier, Brick works on an honour system. It is a tool to help you start building habits. For example you may have it stuck to your mailbox, and you tap on as you come home so you can focus on family. Then after the kids have gone to bed, you go and tap off for a bit until bed time.
One thing I do like is the Blocked Notification. When you end your session with Brick, you can check on what notifications has been blocked in a summary. Yes, ginger hammered my Whatsapp when we tested this feature out.
Emergency Unlocks and Strict Mode
I mentioned the five emergency unlocks before. Yes if you lose your Brick, or find yourself far from it and needing to unlock your phone, you can hit the emergency unbrick button in app.
The catch is that you only have five dibs at this. And if you are really nice and submit a form on their website, they will give you another five “within forty-eight hours” – more accurately, two business days.
Can you trick the app by deleting your app and reinstalling? No, but you have to toggle the “Strict mode” setting on to block it.
The Catch: Room for Improvement
The concept of Brick is good, but I feel the app controls are far too simplistic and rigid.
For example, ideally I would want to activate my Brick session for a fix duration. Like Pomodoro technique – 25 minutes interval. I want to tap on, and the session ends in 25 minutes automatically.
With the app in it’s current state, this is not an option. I can set a scheduled start time, with either a scheduled end time, or a tap off to end it.
Or say in the example above, the Brick is at my letterbox, I tap on as I get home. I want it to end in two hours, after spending time with family, dinner, etc. Instead of walking back out to tap off, just let the timer run out. Who knows, I might not touch the phone for another two hours after that, but it enforced the time I wanted.
Another gripe I have is that I have to run the app first, then either physically tap the Brick or press on the virtual Brick for two seconds to get it going. I get that it is friction – I want that for tapping off, not tapping on.
Ideally I want to just tap on the Brick from my home screen and be done with it. Or in the worst case, tap a widget and then tap on.
Which brings me to my next thing. At least on Android, there is no widget support.
Final Verdict: Is the Brick Worth $92?
The Brick does what it says it will, but it is just a tool for the human to use.
My issue though, is the feature set is rudimentary. I talked in depth about the limitations of the scheduler. Beyond that, it offers a history of the duration you used it per day and that’s it. There is no habit tracking, or capturing the start and end times of your sessions, just a daily summary.
I would like to see some value add – like a summary of how many times I tried to launch a restricted app when I am meant to be focusing on something else. Seeing that on top of the daily duration would offer users a sense of accomplishment as that number decreases.
I get that some developers avoid gamifying their app, but in this situation, some encouragement would not go astray.
On the good side, the app is super simple to use with little to no learning curve required. Also you can use the one Brick for unlimited devices. So if you are like me, family of five with far more than that in devices, you only need the one Brick to rule them all.
I feel that the Brick is best pitched for less technically savvy people due to the ease of use. More technical users are likely to get frustrated with the same limitations I have pointed out.
The Brick is available for A$92 for one, or $165.60 for two – if you need one at work and at home for example. My referral code will get you 10% off as well.
DRN would like to thank Brick for providing the review unit.
