If your thumb reaches for Instagram before your brain has finished a thought, you’re not unusual — you’re predictable. Brick, a palm-sized magnetic puck that’s been showing up on feeds and kitchen fridges, attacks that predictability by turning a reflex into a deliberate action.
What Brick actually does (and why it feels different)
Brick pairs with a free app and uses NFC: tap the puck to your phone and the apps you’ve chosen are temporarily blocked. Tap again to unblock. That tiny physical step — often a walk across the room — is the whole point. Software timers live on the same device they try to police; Brick forces a pause, an intentional motion that breaks the autopilot.
Users from journalists to lifestyle writers report the same pattern: awkward first days, phantom-thumb syndrome, then a quiet reset. Some people leave Brick on the fridge, others in a car for work hours, and a few keep it upstairs for sleep. The product offers scheduled modes (deep work, sleep, family time) and a strict option that makes disabling the permissions harder. For many, the friction is enough to replace scrolling with a book, a walk, or simply thinking.
It’s not magic, but it’s surprisingly effective
Experts quoted in recent tests say this isn’t about willpower. Behavioral science likes environmental boundaries: move the cue and you change the habit loop. Users in multiple reviews reported faster deep-work sessions, better sleep (when social apps are blocked but music is allowed), and less anxious, more present evenings.
That said, Brick isn’t a cure-all. If your job legitimately requires instant access to social apps, you’ll have to plan around it. And some people will still manually un-Brick — but the extra step weeds out most impulsive overrides.
Price and sharing: who pays and who can use it?
At around $59 (sales sometimes drop the price a bit), Brick isn’t free, but it’s not extravagant if you spread the cost. The device needs to be physically accessible to unlock or lock a phone, and multiple people can pair their accounts to one Brick — so roommates, partners, or family members can share a single puck, provided everyone keeps their own app account. Sharing cuts the per-person cost and makes the kitchen-fridge trick feel like a household pact.
One practical note: agree on a home for the Brick. Nobody wants to discover it moved when they need to break a session — or to be surprised by an Emergency Unbrick.
How people customize it (and keep emergencies in mind)
People create multiple modes for different parts of the day: an all-but-Spotify sleep mode, a daytime deep-work block, social-time windows. Some testers report forgetting to un-Brick after work — a feature if you’re trying to build distance, a bug if you need to reply to something urgent. Make sure you don’t lock out essential tools (like calls or an alarm) or at least plan an exception for emergencies.
If you want to go further down the anti-distraction rabbit hole, some writers pair Brick with other tweaks: grayscale mode, removing social apps from the home screen, or demoting the phone into a “dumb” tool for navigation and calls only. Those moves are low-cost complements to Brick’s physical friction.
Who benefits most?
Brick tends to work best for people who need predictable windows of focus (writers, students, parents), anyone trying to protect sleep, and teenagers whose reward systems are particularly sensitive to digital cues. It’s less suited to someone who needs constant app access for unpredictable work demands.
If you’re trying to reduce the noise on your device in other ways, there are useful software steps too — for example, cleaning up your OS, muting non-essential notifications, or reorganizing your home screen. Practical how-tos on quieting a cluttered desktop environment can pair nicely with a device like Brick; for Windows users, a recent guide on decluttering Windows 11 gives step-by-step tips that echo the same principle of removing temptation (declutter Windows 11).
Small things that make Brick more useful
- Put it somewhere inconvenient enough to force a decision, but not so far you’ll skip essentials.
- Use scheduled modes to create digital rhythms (mornings for email, afternoons for deep work, evenings for family). Experts say routines help the brain settle.
- When productivity needs evolve, pair Brick with a secondary gadget for hands-free input — emerging tools aimed at making voice and gesture control more natural are worth watching (Stream Ring for voice-driven notes and commands).
Brick isn’t a moral judgment — it’s an engineered nudge that reintroduces tiny amounts of friction into a device engineered for ease. If you’ve tried timers and apps and keep finding yourself tapping “ignore,” a magnetic puck that sits on a shelf might be what finally makes scrolling feel like a choice again.
If you’re leaning into doing more work away from constant phone pulls, a better laptop can help you keep the useful stuff on a bigger screen; many people upgrading their work setup pair that shift with quieter phone habits — consider a MacBook Air if you want a lightweight, distraction-friendly workstation.
This is less about exile from the internet and more about carving a little space where your attention can breathe. The trick is simple: make the easy thing a little harder — and suddenly you get your minutes back.