13 September 2026 · 8 minute read. Prices are US$ (one sec's listed in euros) as seen on each maker's site on this date and change often; check the link before you buy.
Brick, Opal, one sec and Unpluq are all built to answer the same question: how do I stop opening this app. They're good at that question, and worth naming honestly rather than knocking for the sake of a sales page. What none of them answer is a slightly different question: how do we, the two of us, stop opening it. That's a different design problem, and it's worth being clear-eyed about where each one sits before getting to why.
| App | What it does | Platforms | Price today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brick | A physical NFC puck. Tap your phone to it to lock a list of apps until you tap it again. | iPhone (iOS 17+), Android (12+) | US$59 one-off, per puck. getbrick.com |
| Opal | App blocking, timers and a free "Opal Score" habit tracker, plus a stricter "Hard Mode" that can't be turned off mid-session. | iOS, Android, Mac | Free tier with one rule. Pro US$19.99/mo, US$99.99/yr, or US$399 lifetime. opalapp.com/pricing |
| one sec | A breathing pause before an app opens, rather than a hard block; the idea is friction, not a wall. | iOS, Android, browser extension | Free for one app. Pro roughly €3.99/mo, €14.99/yr, or €99.99 lifetime; converts to about US$16/yr or US$108 lifetime, and varies by region. one-sec.app/faq |
| Unpluq | An NFC tag plus an app; tapping the tag unlocks a chosen list of apps for a set time. | iPhone (iOS 16+), Android with NFC | Tag alone US$26.50, but needs a subscription to fully work: from about US$30 for three months. unpluq.com |
Brick's one-off price is the closest in spirit to what a lot of people actually want: pay once, own it, no monthly reminder that you're renting your own self-control. Opal and Unpluq both lean on subscriptions, which is a completely reasonable business model for daily habit software with ongoing updates, but it does mean the yearly cost adds up fast if you're paying for the top tier for years. one sec's lifetime option is the most direct comparison to a one-off price, and its friction-based approach (a pause, not a hard wall) is genuinely a different philosophy worth knowing about, not just a lighter version of blocking.
All four of the apps above are built around one person and one phone. That's not a flaw; it's the job they were designed to do, and they do it well. But it means a few things quietly don't work once there are two of you trying to use the same idea at the same time.
Who holds the key. On a single-person blocker, you set your own rules and you can always turn them off, because there's nobody else it needs to answer to. That's exactly right for one person's focus. For two people trying to actually keep an evening free of screens together, the interesting part is that the key isn't yours alone any more. Getting out early means asking someone, not just toggling a setting back off in your own settings screen.
Whose evening it protects. A Brick or an Unpluq tag locks the phone it's tapped to. If only one of you owns one, only one of you is locked, and you're back to the asymmetry problem: one person off their phone, staring at the other person still on theirs. Buying two of any of the above helps, but then you have two separate, unconnected locks that don't know about each other, rather than one shared evening.
The record. A personal streak or an "Opal Score" is motivating on your own. Between two people, the thing that actually gets talked about and looked back on is a shared record: not "I did well today" but "we kept it last night, both of us". None of the four tools above are built to show that, because none of them are built around two accounts sharing one outcome.
The price for two. Buy Brick, Opal Pro or an Unpluq subscription for two people and you're paying twice, sometimes twice a subscription. A tool designed for two from the start can charge once for the pair instead.
Third Wheel starts from the two-person version of the same idea, rather than bolting a partner feature onto a single-person blocker afterwards. One of you taps a heart, both phones lock the apps you each chose, at the same time. Getting out early means asking the other person; a code appears on their screen, not yours. There's one shared calendar of the nights you both kept it, and one price for the pair: free for three nights, then US$4.99 once, for both phones, no subscription. Neither of you can see what the other locked or how they're spending the evening; the only thing that's shared is whether the lock is on.
Third Wheel
Two phones, one heart. Tap it and you both lock the apps you chose, together. Free for three nights. Then US$4.99, once. No subscription.
It's me or it.
None of this makes Brick, Opal, one sec or Unpluq wrong choices. If the problem is your own scrolling, on your own phone, on your own schedule, they're built exactly for that and worth using. If the problem only shows up when the two of you are in the same room, the fix has to involve both of you, at the same time, on purpose. That's the gap this is built to close.