Brick - Ditch Distractions

It’s great and definitely cutting down my screen time. However there is a major issue where you can’t see all of your apps, so some of the main apps which cause distractions, like dating apps, are not showing up as blockable. The developers are aware of the issue and currently say to delete your excess apps as it can work with less apps on your phone. I deleted 50 apps but the issue still remained. Would be a pain to have to delete and reinstall many more so I’ve stopped there and hoping the issue gets fixed!

I love my brick and it loves me back by blocking the output from apps which take more than they give back.( time, attention, etc.) Here’s the bug I ran into. It’s not a tech bug it’s an analog “bug”: parking garages (payment apps) are like every other app are bricked initially. Requires an unbrick to access. I burned an emergency unbrick because Brick makes no exceptions for new apps no matter how important. I was in Philadelphia, a city where parking isn’t abundant or universally safe (safety varies street to street.) As things are I have an analog solution in mind : taking my brick wherever I expect I’ll need to unbrick. The margin for error (for leaving the brick home when I need it for serious reasons (parking apps from companies I’ve never expected to need app service from) just shrank to “4 emergency unbricks”. Can Brick in the future make an exception list for apps which share important functions with apps which I have allowed? Or am I screwed over as it gets when my emergency unbricks run out?

I like the idea, but I can barely set up my Brick because the app doesn’t work. i’ll get halfway through setting up my Brick and then when I click on another item to block it completely loses everything I’ve done and just go to a white screen. I’m gonna give it another chance over the next couple days, but if they don’t fix it during the next release, I’m just gonna return the product. They need to do some QA & UAT testing before pushing out these builds. The app doesn’t work for the happy path so I can’t imagine what happens if you try to do something out of the norm.

So, if there has been a way to try out this app first, I never would have spent $50 on it, which I have to imagine why there is no demo. I have two gripes with it, the first is that you are limited in the number of apps you can leave unblocked to 50. That sounds like a lot, but if you are trying to set up your phone so that all apps that aren’t time wasters and might be needed, you can’t do it. I wanted to make a very customized allow list so that I could brick my phone when I was out, have access to anything I might need, except for the apps that it’s easy to endlessly scroll on. An easy fix for this would be to allow you to chose 50 apps to block instead of having to choose 50 to allow. While the first issue is annoying, it’s the second that makes it ultimately a failure, and that is there are a good number of apps that this simply won’t block at all. I get that iOS is probably what’s responsible for the ones that can’t be blocked, but I paid $50 to find that out. It feels like the developers should have mentioned that, and therefore I feel pretty scammed. Save your money.

Not to be dramatic, but this is life changing. No longer stuck staring at a screen, this is the tool to take back your time, and bring the focus back on what really matters. A brilliant invention, and just what I needed.

I needed this for the same reasons the founders did. I shocked myself by tallying how much time I spend doing trivial things on my phone during the week (it’s terrifying when I did the math) so to reclaim my focus, attention, my ability to be present and because of a strong desire NOT to be a mindless zombie, I tried the brick tool. It’s amazing. I can keep certain apps that are not time wasters (banking, maps, weather, etc) and eliminate the time wasters. What’s equally spectacular and pathetic is how often you reach for your phone for a distraction… evidenced by the angst you feel when the app doesn’t allow it. So telling about the depth of digital addiction and so necessary to break away. Thank you awesome developers. 100% worth my money. Now if you could block safari without a bunch of hoops and automations that’s be great but I’m still hugely fond of this and tell everyone I know that they too need a brick.

As a phone addict, I’ve tried many other methods, all which attempt to turn off my screen time when I’m in the middle of watching something, and far too easy to override. With the Brick, I’m turning off only YouTube, Facebook, and Happy Color at night before going to bed. I turn them on again after supper dishes are done in the evening. Already making a huge difference in - freeing up much more time for doing other things - revealing to me how incredibly often I automatically, without consciously thinking about it, try to access these three apps throughout the day. - the physical “barrier” keeps me from overriding and is not a nuisance interruption because I control the time window. - I can still carry my phone around with me for calls and texts, looking up facts on my browser as needed, using my camera, accessing photos, etc. Fantastic tool. Highly recommend for phone addicts. Worth the one-time cost , especially because no subscription or extra electronics are needed! Would likely be a great tool when raising teenagers.

I love the idea of this app. Setup initially was fine and I could already see my screen time plummeting. However, there are a couple additional apps I realized I wanted to block. And that’s where this app failed. Every time I try to edit (add or remove) any apps from my blocked app list, the entire Brick app freezes on a white screen and crashes. I see other one-star reviews that the developers have responded to saying the issue is with Apple and that they are working to fix it, but imo it’s borderline criminal to continue to charge people $50 for a piece of plastic without disclosing that you *know* the app that makes the plastic functional…is NOT functional. Again, I think this is a stellar concept, but if you’re charging me $50, then the app needs to work. Period.

I’ve been looking at the brick for a long time and finally decided to go for it. I got my brick today and went to set it up, but the app freezes / goes to a white screen every time I try to set up my apps. I went to the FAQ - nothing. I tried looking for solutions or giving feedback through the in-app forum, however even though I signed up and repeatedly tried to sign in with the credentials I just created, I couldn’t sign in to post, upvote, etc. I saw several users who had posted that they are having the same issue, but all of their posts are still in review and have not been addressed. Long story short, it looks like I paid $50 for a literal plastic brick. What a scam. It’s a real shame because I think it is a fantastic idea and I haven’t seen anyone else doing it.

I can’t even set up the device. I bought two bricks and when selecting the apps it keeps freezing it allowing me to select the apps needed to work. Waste of money. Can’t even get it working because of the poor app setup. Such a waste.