The loop
Earn your screen time. Minute by minute.
· Lucas Provenzano
Earning screen time means making an app open only in exchange for something you supply yourself — usually an equivalent stretch of focus. Kimro applies that idea at a fixed rate: one minute of focus, one minute of access.
How does the loop work?
You pick the apps you want out of reach, and Kimro keeps them blocked by default — not on a schedule you set once and forget, and not until you tap a button that lets you through. Getting one back takes a completed focus session.
- Pick the apps and categories that go behind the balance.
- Start a session and put the phone down. Each completed minute credits your card.
- Withdraw the minutes you want when you want an app back.
- The unlock window closes on its own, and the block returns.
There is no fifth step. The loop starts again at the second one.
What exactly is a credit?
A credit is one minute of unlock time, and nothing else. It has no cash value, it is not a point or a gem with a rate you have to look up, and your balance always reads as the number of minutes it is worth.
Credits are earned, never bought. No in-app purchase adds a single minute to your balance.
What stops you from cheating?
During a monitored session the phone watches for movement: pick it up and you take a strike. Credits are banked when a session completes, not while it runs, so an abandoned session pays nothing.
The stake is the whole point. A timer you can dismiss is just a timer.
What Kimro does not do
It runs on iPhone only, because it is built on Apple's Screen Time API. It does not replace parental controls, it never touches calls, messages or emergency numbers, and it cannot stop you from deleting it.
What it makes expensive is the ordinary gesture, not the deliberate decision.