NekoLock - A cat blocks your doomscroll — literally
by•
Open a distracting app, and a cat appears. NekoLock is a gentle app blocker that adds a small pause before mindless scrolling — instead of relying on willpower alone, it helps you stop and decide if you really want to continue.
Pet the cat to unlock: 5/10/15 min free, or customize 1–60 min with a cooldown on Plus. Meet different cats, build affinity, and review your habits in a usage report.
No account required.
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Hey Product Hunt 👋
I'm Daisuke, solo indie dev. NekoLock started from one specific moment: I caught myself opening Instagram for the fifth time in an hour with no memory of deciding to. Every screen-time blocker I'd tried before felt like being scolded by a spreadsheet, and none of them stuck longer than a day.
What actually works on me, it turns out, is my own cat climbing onto my keyboard while I'm working. I never mind that interruption — I kind of look forward to it. So I built the phone version of that: instead of a system "Ignore Limit" sheet, opening a blocked app summons a cat. You swipe to pet it, its gauge fills, then you get your 5/10/15 minutes.
Some things I'd love feedback on:
- Does the pet-to-unlock friction feel like just enough, or too much / too little?
- Which of the 12 cat breeds is everyone's favorite (this one's purely for my own curiosity)
- Anything that feels punitive rather than playful — that's the one failure mode I'm most trying to avoid
Free with 1 app locked, Plus removes the limit. Happy to answer anything about the Screen Time API side too — it was a genuinely gnarly technical build (4 app-extension targets coordinating over App Group storage).
Thanks for checking it out 🐈