RotBotA screen time blocker for iPhone.
You set a daily limit on the apps, categories and websites that eat your day. Under that limit, everything opens like normal. Past it, every open starts with a timer you set on purpose. At your hard limit, that app is done until tomorrow.
By Covelo Tech · makers of Hari, SplashCenter and Stop the Timer.
Two limits, not one.
Most blockers give you one wall and a snooze button. RotBot splits the day into three parts, and the wall is the last one.
Under your soft limit
Everything opens like normal. No block screen, no nagging, nothing to tap through. RotBot is just counting.
Between soft and hard
Every open starts with a timer you set. It is free, it takes one tap, and those minutes come out of the same day.
At your hard limit
That app is done until your daily reset. You can allow a $0.99 unlock for a real emergency, or switch that door off completely.
Set the two numbers the same and there is no timer zone at all. Set the soft limit to zero and every single open goes through a timer. It is your call, per limit.
Three decisions, then it runs itself.
Pick what to limit
Individual apps, whole categories, or websites. Each pick gets its own limit, and you can combine a few into one shared limit.
Set two numbers
A soft limit and a hard limit. RotBot suggests 60 and 120 minutes to start. Change either one whenever you want.
Get on with your day
Apple's Screen Time frameworks do the enforcing, on the device. Nothing about your usage is sent anywhere.
The rest of the app.
Quiet hours
Pick hours where every open has to go through a timer first. Free, no payment involved.
Two warnings per timer
One at the halfway mark, one about two minutes before the end. Turn either off and it is gone from every timer.
Clean-day streaks
A day where you never paid to unlock is a clean day. That is the number the app is proud of.
Home screen widget
Where your limits stand right now, without opening the app.
A Lock Screen card
While a timer runs, the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island show that it is running. No ticking number, because we cannot keep one honest.
Your own numbers
Charts of where the time actually went, drawn on your phone from Apple's Screen Time data.
Not another wellness app with an opt-out.
The goal is a limit that still means something at 11pm, without charging you a subscription for the privilege.
No subscription. No paywall.
Free to download and free to use. One optional $0.99 unlock exists for the moment you hit a hard limit and genuinely need 15 more minutes. Nothing else in the app costs money.
Loosening waits until tomorrow
Tightening a limit happens right now. Raising one lands at your next daily reset. The version of you that set the limit gets a say in the version that wants past it.
The hard limit can be truly hard
Switch the paid unlock off and there is no door at all until your reset. That setting is one tap, and turning it back on waits until tomorrow like every other loosening.
Your usage stays on your phone
Minutes, the apps you picked, and the names you give your limits stay on the device. No analytics SDK, nothing to sell, nothing for us to lose.
Coming soon to the App Store
No date yet. Free to download, no account needed to start. Email us for a heads up.
Common Questions
Everything a skeptic would want to know before RotBot launches.
Yes. Free to download, free to use, no subscription, no trial that quietly starts billing, and no account needed. There is one optional $0.99 unlock, and it only ever appears if you hit your hard limit and want 15 more minutes of that one app. You can switch that door off in settings so it never appears at all. The assumption behind the whole design is that almost nobody pays.
There are two points, not one. At your soft limit, RotBot starts asking for a timer before each open. You pick the length, it's free, and those minutes come out of the same day. At your hard limit, that app is done until your reset. Under the soft limit nothing interrupts you at all.
Yes, and so can you with every blocker on the App Store. That escape is built into iOS and we're not going to pretend otherwise. RotBot is friction, not a prison. What it does do is make loosening a limit slow on purpose: tightening one takes effect right away, raising one lands at your next daily reset.
No. RotBot enforces limits with Apple's on-device Screen Time frameworks. Your usage minutes, the apps you picked, and the names you give your limits never leave the device, and there is no analytics SDK in the app. If you sign in to use friends, the only things that reach a server are your username, your streak, and the outcome events you chose to share. Never minutes, never which apps.
No. The whole app works signed out. Sign in with Apple is the only way in, and it only exists if you want the friends part. No passwords, no email address, no password reset. You can delete the account and everything attached to it from inside the app.
Only outcomes, and only the ones you leave switched on: how many clean days you're on, when a streak breaks, when someone paid to unlock. They never see your usage minutes or which apps you limit, because those never leave your phone in the first place. You can block or report anyone, and turn any of it off.
No. RotBot manages your own screen time on your own iPhone. It can't limit someone else's device and it isn't built for managing a kid's phone. It's rated 17+ and it asks for Screen Time access for you, the person holding the phone.
It's in active development for iOS and there's no date yet. It'll be free to download with no account needed to start. Email us at contact@covelotech.com if you want a heads up when it lands.