The problem

It never felt like a decision.

Nobody chooses to lose two hours. You pick the phone up for one thing, and the evening is gone.

Otto at a cafe table with a friend, looking down at his phone instead — Sitting with a friend, somewhere else entirely.

Otto in the bathroom mirror at half past one in the morning, phone still in his hand — Half past one, still going.

Otto reaching for the phone on his bedside table before he is properly awake — Reaching for it before my eyes opened.

Otto walking past a wide view with his eyes on his screen — A view I walked straight past.

The turn

So I made the thing I needed.

I tried the willpower version first. Phone face-down on the table, phone in another room, phone charging in the hall. It worked right up until it didn't.

What actually worked was a rule I set once, while I was thinking clearly, that held later on when I wasn't. That is the whole idea behind Otto.

How it works

Two settings and a colour switch.

That's the whole app. There is no fourth screen you haven't found yet.

The daily budget screen in Otto's App Blocker for iPhone, a timer counting down the minutes left in the apps you chose

A daily budget

Pick the apps that eat your day and give them a number of minutes. Otto counts them down while you use them and shuts the door when they're gone. Tomorrow the number comes back.

Hard mode

Some things aren't a budget, they're a rule. Pick a start, an end and the days it runs. Nine to five, or eleven at night to seven in the morning.

Hands holding an iPhone whose screen has turned grey

Greyscale

Colour is the hook. Otto walks you through two Shortcuts so your screen drops to black and white when you open the apps you picked, and comes back when you leave.

What you get back

Not productivity. Just your evening.

The hours don't go anywhere impressive. They go back to the ordinary things you meant to do.

Otto cooking with friends in a kitchen — Dinner that took all evening.

Otto walking his dog on a track — The walk, without the podcast.

Otto sitting with a guitar across his lap — Still bad at it. Still doing it.

Otto reading a book in an armchair — Finished a book for the first time in a year.

Otto on an empty beach early on a Saturday — Saturday, before the day filled up.

A phone charging on a hall table, away from the living room — It charges in the hall now.

Not just me

People who wanted their time back.

A woman gardening in the morning light — Mornings in the garden instead of the feed.

A teenager skateboarding as the light goes — Out until the light goes.

A man fishing from a pier — Two hours on the pier, no notifications.

A family eating together with three phones in a basket on the bench — Three phones in a basket on the bench.

Who made it

“I'm not a wellness company. I'm one person who got sick of losing my evenings and wrote something to stop it.”

Otto, built on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Free, and staying free.

No paid tier. No trial that expires. No account to make and nothing about your usage leaving your phone. If Otto saves you an hour a week, there's a tip jar in the settings. That's the whole business model.

Two settings. One evening back.

Otto needs Screen Time permission to block anything, and nothing else. It asks once.

Download on the App Store