The Brick is certainly an eye-catching way to manage smartphone addiction, though most of how it works is really psychological rather than technological.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Creates a physical restraint on smartphone use | You’re not getting a lot of hardware for your money |
| Works across multiple devices and mobile operating systems | Doesn’t do a damned thing about computer access |
| No ongoing subscription fees | Expensive when you consider what the hardware component actually is |
Score: 3/5
In this review
Brick Design
Brick Performance
Brick: Alex’s Verdict
Ethical disclaimer: The Brick used in this review was sent to me by Brick for the purposes of review. That’s right, I didn’t buy a brick. Well, not this brick – I’ve had more than a few airline meals in my time, if you know what I mean, but I digress.
As always, whether a product was sent to me long-term, loaned to me or if I buy it myself, this makes no difference at all to my eventual evaluation, which remains proudly independent as always.
Though it is downright weird being asked if you want to review a brick.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
All the way through writing this review, this has been stuck in my head. Possibly yours now too.
I have no regrets.
At the design level, the Brick is… well, it’s very brick-y, in a somewhat LEGO-aping sense. It’s a small square device measuring roughly 50x50x15mm with the word “Brick” embossed on its plastic front rather boldly.
That’s because it’s a brick, and more specifically, it’s a device that sells itself on the idea of bricking your phone. Not in the totally terminal, never-work-again sense, but instead selectively blocking apps and notifications that might otherwise distract you, take up all your time or be damaging to your mental health.
That’s a noble aim, though as I’ll get into directly, there are some challenges to it. But first, back to the physical brick that you buy when you purchase the Brick.
It’s a very plain device, available in grey, and it’s also remarkably simple for a device that currently sells in Australia (at the time of writing) for $102. Not just simple in a design sense, but also in the sense of what you’re getting for your money.
The Brick device itself is just a big magnet with an embedded NFC chip in it.
Despite being a Brick, it will not attach to most bricks (unless they’re made of metal)
That’s all you’re getting that you can hold in your hand for your money, and while I’ve been mulling over the value proposition the entire time I’ve been reviewing it, I can’t escape the conclusion that this is an expensive bit of hardware.
While design and tooling does come with a cost, a simple magnet – it’s strong, but not super-strong – and an NFC chip does not cost anywhere near $102 to manufacture. There is a balancing aspect here in that Brick doesn’t charge any ongoing subscription fees for the use of the Brick, and it can be used across any number of iOS or Android devices.
Still, $102 is a lot to pay for a magnet and an NFC chip.
Performance
Brick isn’t just hardware, however. Tap your smartphone of any type on the Brick and all it’ll really do is read the embedded NFC chip within and likely do nothing, or maybe depending on your phone model show you the NFC chip’s Identifier code.
That’s because the other side of the Brick equation is its app, which acts as the interface between the Brick, your smartphone and the apps you’d like to control with it.
One big potential caveat here is that while Brick works with the existing control features within iOS and Android to manage blocking access to apps, it also needs quite a few permissions and controls in order to do so, especially on Android platforms. Brick says it doesn’t collect or transmit any information (at least for now) but quite how comfortable you’re likely to be with that level of control may vary.
Setup isn’t hard, but it does want a LOT of control of your phone. I get why it needs it, but this may concern some.
The core idea here is simple.
First you decide which apps you don’t want to be distracted by, whether that’s email notifications while you’re busy working on the next great Australian novel, games because you’re spending too much time on them or the always-addictive allure of doomscrolling your favourite social media feeds.
Select those within the Brick app, and then tap your phone’s NFC connection, typically found on the back of your phone – it’s the same connection technology used for things like smart payments at tills – to the Brick. It then blocks the use of those apps up until you open the app and tap the Brick again with your phone, which restores access.
There are further inbuilt filters in the app so you can set usage times, and even a strict mode that would keep the blocks in place even if you uninstalled the Brick app, which could have potential for parents wanting to control the app usage of their children.
All well and good, but honestly my first thought when the Brick was pitched to me was that this was all feasible already without the need for a $102 plastic Brick in my life, because both Android and iOS have inbuilt app blocking features built into the software as long as you’re using reasonably current devices.
They work for free, nothing to pay, and indeed while I don’t have full access to Brick’s source code, it’s more than likely that some of the ways that Brick works to block access do rely on their existence in the first place to do its own blocking. There’s no point in rebuilding that kind of architecture, or running head first into it if there’s a software conflict if it already exists, you know?
Brick’s contention is that while these digital wellness tools do exist, they’re easily bypassed by those totally addicted to using their phones all the time, because they’re usually just a tap or swipe away from being disabled, at which point you’re back at square one.
This points to where Brick can – in theory – work rather well, because the core play here is really neither software or hardware at all. It’s psychology.
You can set up the Brick and have it near you and simply tap on it any time you feel like an addictive fix, but if it’s attached to, say, your fridge, you have to walk there and make the conscious choice that this is what you’re doing.
It makes you aware that you’re making this choice, which potentially opens up your mind to the fact that you’re doing so. There’s more effort involved, and one of the ways that some apps – particularly social media – become so addictive and pervasive is that they can be so easy to access from your smartphone any time of day or night. Putting a little friction into the equation could be eye opening for some users.
However… that’s going to depend quite a lot on your own usage profile and what it is you’re trying to control with the Brick in the first place.
I can’t say that it’s made a huge difference in my own phone usage even with simple controls in place, but then I wouldn’t say I’m terribly addicted to my phone in the first place; in some ways I’m far from the ideal customer.
This… didn’t trouble me personally all that much. But for some, it could be profound.
Chatting coincidentally to another Australian tech journo who’s also reviewing it, she noted that she’d found it invaluable to simply lock out her social media from her thoughts, so (without meaning to cast any judgement her or anyone’s way) there’s clearly some scope for benefit here, even if it’s not been massively relevant to my own personal circumstances.
One rather obvious caveat here is that while Brick has apps for iOS and Android, having one is going to do precisely nothing to stop someone accessing social media platforms that work on PC or Mac platforms, and you may need to do some access control tweaking to stop simple web-based access on smartphones if you’re installing the Brick on behalf of somebody else.
Brick: Alex’s Verdict
Is the Brick worth it?
Maybe.
$102 is a lot to spend on such simple hardware, and you are rather reliant on Brick keeping its app up to date with the way that apps work on smartphone platforms, how their own wellness platforms manage that kind of blocking and ensuring that any workarounds don’t work for as long as you figure you might need to use it. Without the Brick app, the actual hardware doesn’t do anything beyond being a pricey fridge magnet.
At the same time, smartphone addiction, and especially social media smartphone addiction is a genuine problem and while I don’t entirely feel that the Brick is right for me, I won’t dismiss it on those grounds because while it’s pricey as a fridge magnet, the difference in attitudes and usage that it could impart onto somebody struggling to undergo the kinds of digital detoxes that we’re all encouraged to undertake.
The Brick might not be the silver bullet (or even, to stretch the metaphor, the start of building a healthier mental “house”) for everyone, and I’d certainly suggest you start first with the tools already built into your phone to see if those are enough to help you along your journey.
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Brick: Pricing and availability
The Brick retails in Australia for $102, although it appears that it rather frequently also offers discounts on the hardware. There is (at the time of writing) no additional subscription fee for the Brick app itself, which is free on iOS or Android.
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