Sometimes, it’s hard to stop picking up your phone every few minutes to check on notifications and scroll endlessly through the slop of the day. [PushpendraC2] has been working on a solution to this problem that would ideally discourage such behavior — a nifty little smartphone stand!
The concept is straightforward enough—the smartphone stand uses a simple tactile button to determine if your smartphone is sitting on the little 3D printed shelf, or not. However, the smarts inside do a bit more than that, too. An ESP32-S3 is charged with monitoring whether the smartphone is sitting in place, and starts counting “focus time” while it’s there. If the phone is picked up, the OLED display on the shelf starts ticking down a 5-second timer to encourage you to put it back. If you don’t, the focus time is reset and you lose your streak.
It’s also possible to tap a touch sensor on the device which sets a reminder timer, prompting you to put your phone back after a set period of time, between 2 to 30 minutes. A buzzer will then start going off to prompt you to put the phone down. If you want to track the devices impact, you merely need to log in to the web server hosted by the ESP32, which shows your current focus session time, along with a heatmap of your daily productivity.
It’s a simple idea, but one that uses a few neat psychological hooks to encourage compliance and behavioral change. We’ve featured similar projects in this vein before, No surprise, as phone addiction is a problem experienced by many.
Where can I buy one fully made stand?
How would that work when you can still operate the smartphone while it’s on this stand? This contraption needs at least a “face-down” detector of some kind.
Fun little project.
In order to “cure” the truly addicted a more aggressive method (like applying electric shocks) might be more effective.
The phone just has to be out of sight, so put it in an opaque enclosure with a time lock. Known to work well with chocolate and cookies.
Not if I have a crowbar.
Ok ok. I only read the headline. But it occurred to me, that 30 years ago, we could have seen a project that prevents you from accessing your smokes. I guess such a device might have worked for 4 hours, before being smashed to pieces, I suspect the same would happen here….