What to do when you like the idea of a dumb phone but don’t love the idea of buying yet another device? Or sometimes you could use a hand in maintaining the discipline needed to avoid constantly checking your phone’s social media apps, but you don’t want to give up that capability permanently. Just during the work day, or perhaps on vacation.
The Unpluq Tag lets you keep your current smartphone and choose which apps you want to block, when you want to block them. The most common culprits include social media apps, video games, and internet, but you can pick whichever apps you want to block through the Unpluq app.
keep your phone, and your attention
After you determine which apps you want to block, the Unpluq app keeps you from accessing them until you hold the physical Unpluq Tag up to the phone to unlock them. Because it’s on a key ring, you can take it with you if you know you’ll need your phone’s full capabilities later in the day.
Or you can leave the Unpluq Tag at home, making sure that you can slip up and use it to unblock your apps until you get home.
“We’ve tried all native solutions ourselves—and lots of other ones, too—but we found that Apple Screen Time and Android’s Digital Wellbeing are too easy to circumvent,” says Unpluq.
What they seem to mean is that while iOS and Android come with app management functions, it’s too easy to change them on a whim. Unpluq requires a $35-per-year subscription to Unpluq+, but you get a year’s subscription included in the $79 price of the Unpluq Tag.
There are some drawbacks to the Unpluq Tag, based on which device you’re using with your Unpluq. Androids let you block as many apps as you want, but iOS limits you to 49. You can set up to seven digital barriers, whereby if you pass into a certain area that you specify, your blocked apps will unlock automatically.
Make sure your smartphone has NFC capabilities so that you can use the Unpluq. Most smartphones these days have that, though, since it long ago became a very basic, standard function.
The post Need a Digital Detox? Enter the Unpluq Tag. appeared first on VICE.
