The challenge
What needed to change.
Screen-time tools nag, block and remind, but they rarely change the habit. Putting the phone down gives people nothing back.
Nagging doesn't stick
Blockers and timers are easy to dismiss and rarely change behavior.
No reward for stopping
Time off the phone has no payoff people can see.
Easy to game
Any reward for screen-free time invites people to fake it.
The engineering decision
Making locked time hard to fake.
Paying people for time away from their phone only works if that time is real. A session starts when the screen goes off and ends when the phone is unlocked, and its length comes from the device's monotonic clock rather than the wall clock, so changing the time doesn't add minutes. Clock changes are flagged, each device gets one account, and earning rates are set so farming points costs more effort than it pays. The cost is a little friction: sessions under ten minutes earn nothing, which stops micro-session farming but means short breaks don't count.
What VTS delivered
From decision to delivery.
The engine, the economy and the apps.
Lock session engine
Tracks when the phone is locked and unlocked, with emergency calls and navigation allowed mid-session.
Points and streaks
Tiered earning with daily caps and streak bonuses.
Rewards marketplace
Gift cards, gear and donations.
Premium tier
A higher earning rate and longer sessions.
Fraud controls
One account per device, flagged clock changes and checks at redemption.
Native apps
Built for deep OS integration on each platform.
The product flow
- 01
Tap lock in the app.
- 02
Complete a qualifying locked session of at least ten minutes.
- 03
Unlock to end the session.
- 04
Redeem points in the marketplace.
Project facts
Project facts
The iOS app is in TestFlight.
