Get back 1 hour and 20 minutes of your time each day to work out, cook, read, & see people you love. Unpluq helps you to take control of your time with a physical gesture to control access to your phone. Improve your mood, sleep, and productivity.

Congratulations on the launch of a phenomenonal product that is exactly what most people need right now! It is easy to setup and to use! I was struggling with breaking the habit of compulsively looking at and staying on my phone and Unpluq is what helped me break the mental and physical habit. I feel like I'm starting to get back to a point in my life where I had a healthy and balanced relationship with my phone.

This is the perfect tool to reclaim your time and boost your productivity! Even if you don't spend hours scrolling on social media, it's a great way to break the habit of just picking up your phone for a quick look at Instagram etc. My ability to get into, and stay in, a deep work state has massively improved. Vamos!

One of the best ideas for becoming more present in your real life and the best execution in the market! I like the UI and the methods implemented to make you detach from your phone!

Thank you Olya for your support and contributions, appreciate the feedback.

One of the best ideas for becoming more present in your real life and the best execution in the market! I like the UI and the methods implemented to make you detach from your phone!

Thank you Olya for your support and contributions, appreciate the feedback.

Get back 1 hour and 20 minutes of your time each day to work out, cook, read or see people you love. Unpluq helps you to take control of your time with a physical gesture to control access to your phone. Improve your mood, sleep, and productivity.

🤩 Hello again Product Hunt fam! I’m Caroline Cadwell, the CEO and one of three co-founders of Unpluq. Today we share with you a physical-meets-digital solution that I use every day in my own life: the Unpluq Tag & iOS App (don’t worry, it’s on Android, too!). ❓Have you ever had a meal ruined because someone was looking at their 📱 phone? It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. (Check out the poll below and let us know about your approach to this problem!) Some people call Unpluq the Tile of time–your time goes, well, somewhere, into the ether, and we help you get it back. With Unpluq, we’re empowering people like you to take control of your time in an always connected world–one where billions of dollars have been poured into making sure we keep our eyes on our screens. It’s an extremely difficult task to simply stop picking up your phone to check, and that’s why we made Unpluq. We use a physical gesture in the real world to give you the opportunity to make better decisions for yourself. We’re giving ourselves and you the ability to make good on the intentions you have, to not stumble into a doom scroll, but to go in boldly instead–on your terms. We’re helping you change your habits around how you interact with your phone and the technology in your lives. And we need your feedback in order to reach our next milestone and continue on our venture seed round path. We’re growing 42% month over month right now in users and sales, but we know to reach a bigger audience, we need to iterate. I invite you try Unpluq today and tell us what could be better, and what’s working well for you. We’re just three people in the company, so thanks for being part of our extended team. Did you know feeling that you don’t have control of your time is a leading cause of burnout? So far customers have told us they started using Unpluq because they: - Felt their phone controlled their behavior - Had strained relationships because of phone usage over dinner, on dates, at family time - Were late to a work meeting because of scrolling on something unimportant to them - Feel bad when they spend more than 1-2 hours a day on their phone - Wanted to feel better about their self image, and felt avoiding social media was important - Were losing out on sleep because of watching videos in bed at night What we’re really excited about is that the majority of times Unpluq customers go to open a blocked app, they choose not to open it–it’s a real, sustainable change that allows you to be intentional. And, you’ll stick with this habit: 3 months later, more than 60% of the folks who try Unpluq are still using it every day. It’s not for everyone, but it works for a lot of people. With your feedback, we can help more folks. 🧑‍💻 How It Works With Unpluq, you choose which apps you want to block, and when. If you need to access a blocked app when your schedule has kept you from it, you can–with a layer of intentionality. Unpluq has free and premium versions, and you can use these barriers to unblock apps depending on the type you have: - The Unpluq Tag (physically get your keyfob and hold it to your phone to open apps) - Connect to a charger - Shake your phone for a period of time - Tap a random pattern of buttons - Scan a QR code - Scroll a screen of nothing - Walk to Unpluq (Android only) - Set it as random! 👪 My co-founders Tim Smits @smiiits (Product) & Jorn Rigter @jorn_rigter1 (Engineering/Dev) will cover how we built Unpluq and more in their comments here too. ➕Give Unpluq a try today, and take advantage of the 20% off for Product Hunt on our website when you purchase the Unpluq Tag which comes with a subscription to Unpluq Premium. 👇 Anonymously share how you manage your relationship with your phone below!

@smiiits @jorn_rigter1 @killclick Congratulations to you and your team

@smiiits @jorn_rigter1 @killclick All the best for launch day! 🚀

@smiiits @jorn_rigter1 @killclick Wow, this is absolutely amazing! First of all, congratulations on reaching the top spot of the day without even needing the "AI" keywords in your tagline. That's some next-level achievement, and it's clear that you're breaking boundaries! Secondly, it's truly incredible to see how the three of you have accomplished so much. This is what startup life is all about—pushing boundaries, taking risks, and achieving greatness. Hats off to your success! Thirdly, your tool is not just good, it's downright helpful. Personally, I've enabled push notifications from social media and blocked my calendars to stay focused on work and get quality sleep. The addition of obstacles to challenge people and keep them focused is a stroke of genius in product design. I absolutely love it! Thanks for keeping things simple and sweet, following the KISS principle. It's refreshing to see a tool that doesn't overwhelm but still delivers powerful results. And let's not forget about the intro video you guys made—it's fantastic! Low cost and yet it covers all the necessary content to introduce the team, showcase the product demo, and share personal stories. You're demonstrating so much potential, and I'm excited to connect with you offline as well. I'd be more than happy to make introductions to investors and support you in any way I can. Keep up the amazing work, and here's to a future filled with even greater achievements! Cheers! 🎉

@kenlian Thank you Ken! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment, and you've summed up really well what and why we're doing this. It's not often we get feedback about how we're operating as a team, and that's kind of you to say. I've reached out via LinkedIn and hope to connect to take you up on your offer!

@killclick looking forward to connecting!

Hey Product Hunt 👋, I’m so excited to be launching Unpluq and the Unpluq Tag on Product Hunt. We’re the world's only physical barrier to distraction that works with an app on your phone. And we’re already helping thousands of people use their phones more intentionally. One of the reasons that I started Unpluq is that on the one hand, I love tech and smartphones, but on the other hand they got me distracted constantly. I was not focused during studying and didn’t sleep enough. With the original Unpluq Key (launched in 2020 on Producthunt) we pioneered a new way to interact with your phone. A physical gesture that gives you access to your distracting apps. With this action, you make accessing distracting apps a conscious choice instead of a mindless habit. Because we wanted to increase the impact we could have on the world, we also decided to create several software barriers (intentional actions that take time), like shaking your phone, scanning a QR code, or tapping buttons to access your digital distractions. At Unpluq we’re still most excited about our physical product, the Unpluq Tag. Which works as the best barrier to distraction. We now let you choose, do you want a little bit of friction or do you need a bit more and use the Tag. 🤓Let's get into the science behind the Tag: It’s based on the rational override theory (link). Basically, it says that if you create a big enough barrier to interrupt your automatic behaviour, your brain goes, "Wait, Do I really want to open this app right now?" It's like your brain does a double-take and forces you to make a conscious choice. Pretty cool, huh? 😎 Unpluqqers are getting creative with their Unpluq Tags—they stash them in all sorts of places! Some keep it in their car, others leave it in another room, and a few even give it to their significant other. 😄 It's like a secret key to block your digital distractions! We're absolutely stoked to hear what you all think of Unpluq! Your feedback and questions are more than welcome—bring 'em on! We can't wait to chat with you. 😊💬

@smiiits Congratulations to you and your team

Hi everyone! Being the CTO at Unpluq, I’d love to dive a little deeper into the Screen Time API we used for iPhones, which was released with iOS 16. But first, I’d like to tell you about my personal connection to the problem Unpluq solves. At Unpluq, we’re on a mission to give you control over technology, so that it doesn’t control you. I love technology and the benefits it brings, but started noticing the negative effects my smartphone had on my productivity during my studies. I would pick up my phone to check the weather (yes, I’m from the Netherlands 🌧️), and 20 minutes later I would realize I’d been mindlessly scrolling on Facebook again. Solutions like Screen Time didn’t work because they were dismissed with one click. There had to be a decent solution to this problem! That’s when Unpluq was born 👶 In the meantime, our baby startup has grown, and I’m very proud and excited to announce the release of Unpluq for both iOS and Android today! For our iOS app we’re making use of Apple’s Screen Time API (the same stuff the Screen Time app is using), already available for parental control apps from iOS 15 and released for personal use in iOS 16. This new technology makes the experience of using Unpluq a breeze; previously, apps had to use a local VPN to block other distracting apps (an insanely bad experience, because you could still open Instagram, it would just mention you were not connected to the internet. And, notifications would still come through!). We’ll be here all day, so feel free to drop a comment with your feedback and questions. I personally can’t wait to hear what y’all think about Unpluq!

Caroline Cadwell

Unpluq

Maker

📌

I've never tried to change how I use my phone

19%

I've digital detoxed or deleted apps for periods of time

31%

I switched to a flip phone

I use a screen-time app

13%

I use the screen time limits built into my phone