Brick Alternatives: Hard Commitment Without the Hardware
Brick works because it makes quitting hard on purpose. You tap a physical NFC tag to start a session; you tap it again to stop. The tag lives somewhere inconvenient — a drawer, your car, a friend’s jacket — and that friction is the whole product. It’s a good idea.
The problem: some people won’t carry the tag. It gets lost. It feels gimmicky. And if you travel, it becomes airport theatre.
These are the brick alternatives worth knowing — four approaches that replicate the “I genuinely cannot easily undo this” quality without shipping you a small plastic rectangle.
Opal Deep Focus: The Software Version of a Physical Lock
Opal’s standard mode lets you block apps with a 5-minute delay — weak enough that most people override it. Deep Focus mode removes the delay entirely and blocks the in-app override. You set it, and it runs until the timer expires. No tap to pause, no “just five minutes” button.
The enforcement mechanism is Screen Time under the hood, but Opal layers its own lock on top so you can’t just go to Settings and toggle it off. You’d need to fully remove the Opal app — and if you’ve turned on uninstall protection, that requires Apple support, which takes time.
It’s not identical to Brick. A sufficiently motivated person can still break it. But the friction is real, not performative.
Price: Check current pricing on the App Store — Opal has changed tiers before. The trial covers Deep Focus.
iOS only.
Freedom’s Locked Mode: Set It and Forget It (Literally)
Freedom has a desktop-first reputation, but its iOS app has a feature that gets underused: you can schedule sessions in advance and enable a locked mode that prevents stopping them early — at all, for the session duration.
The key is the scheduling. Start a session right now and locked mode still applies. But the mental trick is scheduling them the night before, when you have willpower, for the hours tomorrow when you know you won’t. Past-you locks present-you out.
Freedom blocks at the network level on Mac and PC, which is harder to bypass than Screen Time. On iPhone it uses Screen Time like everyone else, but the schedule-in-advance workflow is legitimately different from every competitor.
Price: Check Freedom’s site for current pricing — they run promotions and have changed plans.
Cross-platform — iOS, Mac, Windows, Android, Chrome.
See how it stacks up in Freedom App Alternatives: 6 Blockers by What You Need Covered if you want the wider comparison.
The Screen Time Passcode-With-a-Partner Trick
This is free, requires zero apps, and is probably the most underrated option here.
Go to Settings → Screen Time → Use Screen Time Passcode. Set a 4-digit code. Then immediately text it to someone who isn’t you — a friend, a partner, your brother — and ask them to change it to something you don’t know.
Now you have no passcode. You can’t adjust your own limits. You’re locked out of the lock settings. The only escape hatch is Apple’s account recovery flow, which takes time by design.
The obvious limitation: you need someone willing to do this, and someone you trust not to hand it back the second you ask. It also doesn’t set per-app limits automatically — you’d need to configure those first.
For zero dollars, this is the hardest hard-lock available on iPhone.
The Replace-Don’t-Block Lane: Lummi
Full disclosure: Lummi is made by the same team that runs this site.
Lummi takes a different philosophy than the other three. Rather than locking you out of apps, it replaces your home screen with something calmer: a reading interface, a daily question, a clean widget layout. The idea is that the reflex to open Instagram is often just boredom or habit, not genuine intent. Give the finger somewhere less harmful to land and the reflex fizzles.
This won’t satisfy someone who needs hard enforcement. If you know you’ll muscle past a pretty screen, use one of the options above. But if your issue is more ambient — phone always in hand, hours unaccounted for — replacement is worth trying before going nuclear.
Price: Subscription, iOS only, no free trial. Current pricing on the App Store listing.
Which One Is Actually Like Brick
None of them, fully. Brick’s genius is that the tag externalizes willpower into an object. You’re not fighting your own settings — you’re fighting physics.
The closest software equivalent is the Screen Time passcode trick, because another human being holds the key. Opal Deep Focus is the best app alternative: deep enough to cause real friction, polished enough to use daily.
Freedom makes most sense if you’re also working on a Mac and want one system across devices — a different job than replacing Brick, but a real one.
The full ranked list of iPhone app blockers has more context if you’re still deciding between approaches.