AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to touch grass
I wanted old school social media back. Actual connections with friends. Not pity likes and performances and highlight reels. All my friends have stopped posting. Everyone's a lurker now. I'm a lurker. The only time I see what anyone's doing is when it's a humblebrag. I have no idea what's actually going on in my friends' lives besides the ones I see every week or so. So I built touch grass. You post once a week: 3 easy questions, max 3 photos. Sunday 6pm mountain time (yeah its my time zone) everyone's posts unlock at the same time. You catch up on what your people have been doing, then…
Touch Grass is an iOS app designed to help users reduce screen time by blocking apps until they go outside and touch real grass. Using artificial intelligence, the app verifies that users have actually touched grass… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
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i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.
2025 · touchgrass.now · its alternatives →
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Touched Grass▲405I started giving away badges on X to people who touched grass just for fun and most of them loved it! So I decided to create a whole website about it. Process is simple: - Enter X username / url - Fetch Profile image and choose badge - Generates a badge page which can be shared with nice OG images The site is deployed on Vercel, with R2 and Browser rendering for OG images and data storage.
Dec 2025 · touched-grass.com · its alternatives →
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TouchGrass▲335Context-aware break reminders without invasive permissions
Jul 2026 · touchgrass.land · its alternatives →
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touch grass ▲13come for the memes, stay to effortlessly lower screentime
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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I am a software developer and in the last few months after recently becoming a father I was barely finding time for a proper workout. Recently I was reading about new research on Snack Exercises and how beneficial mini workouts of less than 2mins every so often, during the day are to our body. So, I decided to build an iOS App for me and others to help with this. The app generates a list of exercises that I need to tick to complete daily or loose my streak. The algorithm takes into account muscle groups and balancing the exercises to hit most main muscles. I also stayed going through all…
2025 · shortreps.com · its alternatives →
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Touch anywhere on screen and a dog will reach for it
2019 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
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my phone secretly robbed all my dreams and i didn’t even knew it got so bad. when i saw my screen time being about 11hrs with ~95 phone pickups per day, i realized how bad it got. my problem is that i could not avoid social media entirely as i post actively because i’m involved in marketing and branding. I tried the usual, app blockers & time limits, but i always find myself hitting “one more minute” like a junkie. i’m not looking for a complete social media absence or deleting everything as these radical solutions don’t fit my lifestyle and needs and i tend to come back needing even more.…
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 12WD
Hey there, First time posting on Hacker News in about 2 years! The reason I’m posting is that I thought I’d write about the product I’ve been building, in hopes it resonates with people. Why build yet another social app? Because I deleted almost all social media around 3/4 years ago as it was just net negative on my life. There was very little that was truly interesting, I didn’t care about looking good to other people and because of the ‘media’ and ads, the apps were all designed to make me spend too much time for what I was getting. I hated it and what it meant for people’s behaviour,…
2022 · oncircles.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! I'm Dris, I'm 17, and for the past few months, I've been solo-developing Parkt, an app that lets you quickly reserve or sell parking spots. Parking sucks - it's expensive, hard to find, and you usually overpay or get a ticket. With Parkt, you can reserve parking in 2 taps, or list your unused space in under 5 minutes. It's now free to download on iOS (with Android coming soon)! You can also check out a demo on the site if you're interested. If you know someone who might use Parkt, sharing the app would be super helpful! Feedback is also appreciated.
2024 · parkt.app · its alternatives →
- 14IS
i built a heart rate zone training app for runners. ios + apple watch. custom zones, real-time haptics, post-run graphs. all the “smart” stuff you’d expect. but i never talked to a single runner before building it. not even myself lol. started as a thesis → kept building → added features → added a paywall (€4/month!) → launched it → and yeah… no one cared. zero feedback. zero users. just code in the void. i recently made the whole thing free. not trying to “sell” anything now — just seeing if it’s actually useful, and listening this time. curious how others handle this. ever build…
2025 · basamasa.github.io · its alternatives →
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I kept trying to explain how important outdoor light is and how most people aren’t getting enough. Eventually I figured that showing is more effective than telling. So we built a free app that uses your Apple Watch or iPhone to automatically track your light exposure throughout the day. It tells you if you’re getting enough, shows you how consistent you are, and rewards habits that support hormone balance. It's in beta on TestFlight, let me know what you think!
2025 · lumehealth.io · its alternatives →
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Hi everyone, I'm delighted to share my latest little venture just in the nick of time for the November Startup Sprint which I've really enjoyed. Been working away on the MVP for most of the last month, so it's awesome to be able to keep working on it having got the "launch" out of the way. I've been lucky to have some great friends trying it out for weeks now and helping me shape it, so this doesn't feel like a huge event, just another step in iterating to keep improving the product. Please check it out and let me know your feedback, you're always awesome - http://bufferapp.com
2010 · bufferapp.com · its alternatives →
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my phone secretly robbed all my dreams and i didn’t even knew it got so bad. when i saw my screen time being about 11hrs with ~95 phone pickups per day, i realized how bad it got. my problem is that i could not avoid social media entirely as i post actively because i’m involved in marketing and branding. I tried the usual, app blockers & time limits, but i always find myself hitting “one more minute” like a junkie. i’m not looking for a complete social media absence or deleting everything as these radical solutions don’t fit my lifestyle and needs and i tend to come back needing even more.…
2025 · hardestfocusapp.com · its alternatives →
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Hi Everyone, I created a mobile app called Accumoo, and I would appreciate it if y'all can have a look, download and give me a favorable review. Lots of blood, sweat, tears and love went into this app, and I hope you LOVE it as much as I do - it's the app I always needed and wanted. Anyhow, I've been a Rails developer and Software Engineer for a long time, and this is my first stab at a mobile app. It's a "habit tracker" app on steroids that's just fun to use - syncs across devices, local-first architecture - and an easter egg game for good measure. Help a disabled vet out and give it a go.…
Jan 2026 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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EvoCat▲17I’ve always struggled with mindless scrolling, even when I had important work to do. Timers and app blockers never stuck — they felt boring and were easy to bypass. I built EvoCat as a small side project to solve my own problem. It’s a simple iOS app that blocks distracting apps and websites, but adds a fun layer of gamification: • You earn XP for staying focused • You evolve a digital cat as your self-control grows • Each evolution makes the blocking stronger (harder to quit sessions) It’s still in early beta, but this approach has helped me stay more mindful with my phone use. Would love…
2025 · evocat.app · its alternatives →
- 22GO
I built an app where you LITERALLY have to do push-ups to use Reddit (or whatever app). My guy, this is the summer you get SWOLE! Build a massive chest instead of doomscrolling on Hackernews. Also, it's FREE. You can set it on a schedule. You can set it on a time limit. You can set it after X opens. Or even after you come home from work. The apps will remain blocked until you do your push-ups! The app is built natively on SwiftUI. I use Apple's native Vision API to detect body parts and joints. I use Apple's Screen Time API for app blocking. I don't know what else to say so go on now and get…
2025 · timm.so · its alternatives →
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Raising my hand as someone who's checked Settings > General > Software Update way too many times. I got tired of finding out about iOS updates from Twitter 6 hours after they dropped, so I built EarlyNotify. It's dead simple: the system watches Apple's firmware servers, and when a new iOS/iPadOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS update hits, you get an email within 15 minutes. That's it. No app to install. No account dashboard. Just an email saying "hey, iOS 26.1 just dropped." It's free, open-source, no upsells, just notifications. Would love any feedback! Happy to answer questions…
Nov 2025 · earlynotify.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I'm a solo developer from Nigeria. I built Quran Unlock - an app that blocks distracting apps (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) until you complete your daily Quran reading. The idea came from my own struggle with phone addiction. I wanted to read Quran daily but kept getting distracted. So I built this for myself, then shared it. Some stats after 2 months: - 123K+ users - 64.9% returning user rate - 31M events tracked Tech stack: - React Native - Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Analytics, Cloud Messaging) - RevenueCat for subscriptions - iOS Screen Time API + Android UsageStats App Store:…
Jan 2026 · quranunlock.app · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →