Fella vs Brick
Tap in, tap out.
Fella skips the object.
Brick locks and unlocks your apps with a tap against a $59 physical device you have to carry, place, and remember. Fella does it in software, with one 5-minute unlock a day and nothing to buy or lose.
Brick's idea is genuinely clever: a small NFC puck you tap your phone against to lock your selected apps, and tap again to unlock them. Its real strength is physical separation, put the Brick in a drawer or your car, and the friction of retrieving it becomes your barrier. It's a one-time $59 purchase with no subscription, which is a fair trade for a lot of people.
The tradeoff is that the barrier is exactly as strong as your willingness to keep the object away from yourself. Tapping back in takes the same one second as tapping out, and the device has to be charged, findable, and physically with you or wherever you left it, to matter at all. Fella's block lives entirely in software, on the phone itself, with one 5-minute emergency unlock a day instead of a tap you can do anytime you're near the puck.
| At a glance | Fella | Brick |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware required | None | $59 physical NFC device |
| Unlock method | One 5-minute daily window | Tap phone to device, anytime |
| Setup | Pick apps in the app | Buy, ship, pair a physical object |
Why people switch to Fella
Nothing to buy, ship, charge, or lose. Brick's device is well-built, but it's still one more object to keep track of, and losing it or leaving it behind means losing your blocking method too.
Unlocking isn't a tap away, wherever you happen to be. Brick's tap-to-unlock is exactly as available as the device is, which for most people is closer than a drawer across the room. Fella's one 5-minute unlock is the only exception, on a fixed daily schedule, not on demand.
No subscription either way, but no hardware dependency. Brick's one-time cost is appealing, but the product only works as long as the device does. Fella is software you already have access to the moment you set it up.