Launching today
Orbit
Stop doomscrolling. Earn every app unlock.
277 followers
Stop doomscrolling. Earn every app unlock.
277 followers
Doomscrolling is free. Orbit makes it cost something. Pick a schedule and your apps lock themselves. Want back in early? Earn it: hold the orb, do squats, ask a friend, pay a little more each time, or win a shift at The Gate. Most times, you’ll stay out.
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I’m Alara, one of the builders and the head marketer of Orbit!
Last month, my Screen Time report said 10h 19m a day. More than 80% of it was doomscrolling. I was a full-on blue light zombie: in bed at 1 AM, saying “just one more video,” waking up tired. Finally I asked myself, what am I doing with my life??
I tried every digital detox trick. Deleting apps only to reinstall them in the next hour 😅. Grayscale mode. A “dopamine detox” weekend. Strict blockers I learned to bypass in two taps.
That last one showed us the real problem: getting back in was free. One tap and I was scrolling again. So we built Orbit around one idea: every unlock should cost you something.
🔒 Pick a schedule (No scroll till evening, Deep work mornings, Sleep) and your apps lock on their own
🏋️ Still want in? Earn it:
• Hold the orb and breathe
• Do squats in front of the camera, or play a head-movement game
• Ask a friend. Your accountability partner gets the request and says yes or no
• Pay: $0.99, then $1.99, up to $9.99 that week. Or send it to a nonprofit instead
• Work a night shift at The Gate Inc.: judge 8 residents’ requests to go online. Make 2 mistakes or fewer, and you earn your break. Only 3 shifts a day, so the game never becomes the new feed (My personal favorite)
👯 Together: lock a whole group’s phones at once, for dinner, a study night or a trip
A month later: 10h 19m → 6h 14m a day. My social media time? Cut in half. No phone in bed means no blue light before sleep, and I sleep noticeably better.
The research points the same way:
• 1 in 9 teens across 44 countries now show signs of social media addiction, up from 1 in 14 in 2018 (WHO/HBSC)
• In a 2025 randomized trial, blocking mobile internet for just 2 weeks improved attention, mental health and well-being; over 90% of participants improved on at least one (PNAS Nexus)
This math is making me scared: at 10 hours a day, the next decade would have cost me 4+ years of waking life.
I’d love to know: what would stop you faster: 20 squats, asking your mom, or $9.99? 😅
Feel free to use 20% discounts special for this launch:
20% OFF on annual plan PHA20
20% OFF on lifetime plan PHL20
Honest answer to your question: paying would stop me fastest. The tricky part for me is that half my scrolling is actually work, since I run Instagram for two brands. Does the "What for?" prompt let you save a reason like "replying to DMs," so work sessions don't eat into the limit?
@kaitlyn_bricker Ha, paying wins again 😅 And you've hit on something real: for people who run social for work, the feed is also the office, and for me too. Honest answer: not yet. "What for?" has fixed options today ("Reply to someone" opens just that one app for 2 minutes, "Check one thing" for 1), and 2 minutes is clearly not a work session. What works better for your case: Orbit runs on schedules, not a daily limit, so you can lock Instagram only outside your work blocks (evenings, mornings, bed) and leave work hours open. Some social media managers also keep Instagram locked and answer DMs from Meta Business Suite, a separate app you'd simply not add to the lock. A saved "work" reason is a really good idea though, and I'm taking it to the team.
@kaitlyn_bricker That’s a fair point, especially when Instagram is part of your job! Orbit doesn’t use a time allowance that work sessions eat into. During a blocking schedule, you still need to complete your chosen challenge, regardless of why you’re opening the app. You can create multiple schedules to work around your usual work hours.
Separating work sessions from casual scrolling in the reports is a great suggestion. We’d be cautious about letting a saved reason bypass the block entirely, though, since it could become an easy loophole, even with the best intentions 😅
Nice idea and much needed for us all nowadays.
Question: a lot of these apps are needed for tasks that are not doomscrolling (e.g. replying a to a friend's message) -> is there a way/thought on how you can account for that? e.g. something like detect on the app when the attention drifts from 'real tasks' to 'doom scrolling'?
@vyas_raina Thank you! And yes, that's exactly the problem we kept running into: the same app is a tool one minute and a feed the next. Detecting the drift automatically isn't possible on iPhone, and honestly we're glad: Apple's Screen Time framework never lets an app like Orbit see what you do inside another app, so nothing reads your screen or your messages. So we flipped it around: instead of detecting the drift, Orbit asks before it starts. Tap a locked app and the bouncer asks "What for?" Pick "Reply to someone" and only that one app opens for 2 minutes, then it locks again by itself. "Check one thing" gets 1 minute.
Alara, I’ve tried Opal and Focus to reduce my screen time. Opal helped initially, but once I learned how to interrupt its sessions, the restrictions lost their meaning for me. I also wanted my iPhone to switch to grayscale automatically throughout the day, but never got the automation working, so I never implemented it.
How are you thinking about people eventually learning to work around Orbit’s restrictions? I wonder how you help that pause become a habit of actually considering why you’re opening an app, before tapping through it becomes the habit instead. Have you seen that shift happen with people using Orbit?
Hi everyone
I’m Orhan, one of the builders of Orbit.
The part I’m most proud of is something you barely notice: the moment you tap a locked app. Instead of a dead end, Orbit asks “What for?“. Need to reply to someone? You get 2 minutes, and only for that one app. Just want to scroll? That’s when you have to earn it.
A few design choices we made along the way:
The Gate (our mini game) only allows 3 shifts a day, so the game can’t become the new feed
Pay to unlock caps at $9.99 and resets every Monday, so it motivates instead of punishing
Your friend never sees which apps you use, only the minutes and your reason
Happy to answer anything about how Orbit works or why we built it this way. Which unlock would actually stop you?
@oistenhickorkmaz
Interesting , how does it track success , thats still an manual effort?
@nitinvinay Good question, and no, it's all automatic. Orbit keeps track of its own schedules for you: which lock windows ran to the end without a break, your day streak and best streak, and how many breaks you took (and on which days). Every week you get a short report. I hope I answered your question properly 🤓
@nitinvinay Good question! Orbit tracks this automatically and gives you a weekly report showing how often you tried to open a locked app and how often you chose not to continue. You can view your progress and share the report if you’d like.
The group lock for dinner is a fun idea. Can everyone choose which apps to block, or does the whole group use the same settings?
@marianna_tymchuk A bit of both! Everyone keeps their own apps: each phone locks every app from its owner's own Orbit schedules, even ones that aren't running right now. So you lock your Instagram and your dad locks his news app, and before you join you see exactly what will lock on your phone. The host sets what's shared: what it's for (say "family dinner"), how long it lasts, and the one challenge anyone has to do for a 3-minute pause (a hold or the head game), same for everyone, host included. Nobody sees anyone else's apps. At the end everyone just sees "4 of 4, to the end," plus who took a pause. Who would be the first to ask for a pause at your table? 😄
I am sad to admit that I do need this product to help me overcome my scrolling habit. I think the way the app works is quite unique and intuitive. When you say that I have to pay to do something, I would rather stick to what I am supposed to do. I think this is a great way to make me more serious about leaving this habit behind. However, sometimes I just go with the flow, so even if I agree to text someone and close the app, my muscle memory might still lead me to start scrolling. How would this be detected, and how would such a situation be handled?
@deokumar_manwar Nothing sad about it, honestly. My own Screen Time said 10h 19m a day before we built this, so you're in good company. 🙂 And the science backs your instinct. Infinite feeds remove the natural stopping cues, which is why your thumb keeps going on autopilot. It's not a willpower problem. So Orbit doesn't try to catch the drift in the moment; it decides for you ahead of time. "Reply to someone" opens only that one app for 2 minutes, then it locks again by itself, whether you're mid-reply or three reels deep. That's a pre-commitment, and it's one of the best-supported tools out there: in a 12-week study, people underestimated how much they'd scroll, and putting money on the line cut social media use by 39%, with the habit change lasting after the money stopped. That's why it works so well on you. 😄 Want back in after the 2 minutes? You go through the bouncer and earn it again, and with "Harder each attempt" every unlock that week costs a little more.