Nearly everyone on team NBC Selected thinks they would benefit from less screen time.There are plenty of productivity apps and screen time features that aim to help you focus and reduce distractions, but most of them are easy to override.
Perhaps that’s why The Brick caught our attention.It’s both a physical puck and a digital app that “Bricks” your phone, removing access to some (or all) of your apps until you disable it.But does it really work? And is it better than just using your phone’s screentime features to limit app use? Five NBC Selected staffers put The Brick to the test for two weeks.
Read their thoughts below.RelatedselectedselectedExpert-recommended productivity and focus appsWant more from NBC Selected? Sign up for our newsletter, The Selection, and shop smarter.What is the Brick?The Brick$50.15$59.00BrickNow 15% offThe Brick is an app and physical puck that blocks apps on your phone.The differentiator is that you can only unBrick your phone by tapping it to the physical Brick.
If you brick your phone, then leave the house without the puck, you cannot unBrick remotely.This is much stricter than most apps, which you can typically turn off from inside the app.(You do have five emergency unBricks you can use through the app, but they are meant for emergencies — you have to email Brick customer support to refresh them once they’re gone.)You can use one Brick with multiple phones, so a whole household can share the same physical Brick.
One Brick costs $59, and there are no subscription fees.How does the Brick work?You can set the Brick to block all apps, block specific apps or select apps to allow (and block everything else).Afterward, a timer starts to show how long your device has been Bricked.
You can set up to 10 modes or schedules to help automate the process — these will Brick your phone automatically at certain times of day (or certain days).When you set up a mode, you can again select which apps to block or keep available.Mili ...