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Screen time, minus the shame

You didn't decide to open it.Your thumb did.

Champ catches the reach. Open an app you're trying to use less and you get thirty seconds — one breath, one line, one look at what you're actually working toward — before you decide. Every reset you take grows your garden.

Get Champ — freeSee what your screen time costs

Free on iPhone · 5.0 ★ from 15 App Store ratings · Your usage data never leaves your phone

The problem isn't willpower. It's that the decision never happens.

Nobody chooses to lose an evening. The phone is in your hand before the thought arrives — and by the time you notice, you're four screens deep in something you weren't looking for.

Just having it nearby measurably reduced available cognitive capacity — even when people did not pick the phone up. Two experiments found that participants with their phone face-down on the desk performed worse on attention tasks than participants whose phone was in another room — and the effect was strongest in the people most attached to their phones.

Ward, Duke, Gneezy & Bos, “Brain Drain”, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 2(2) (2017)

Two experiments, n = 548 and n = 275 undergraduates.

Which is why a weekly screen-time report doesn't fix it. It arrives on Sunday, about a week you can no longer change, and the best score it can give you is zero. The intervention has to happen at the reach.

Catch the reach. Take thirty seconds. Watch it grow.

Champ isn't a lock — every shield has a way through, and it tells you so during setup. What changes is that opening the app becomes a decision you made.

  1. Champ catches the reach

    Pick the apps you want to use less. When you open one, iOS hands control to Champ and you get a shield instead of the feed.

    Built on Apple’s Screen Time framework — the same system-level mechanism as Apple’s own Downtime. Three apps free.

    How the shield works →

  2. You take a 30-second reset

    One paced breath cycle, one affirmation, one short meditation, or one look at your vision board. Thirty seconds, then you decide whether to continue.

    Short on purpose. If the alternative costs more than opening the app, nobody picks it.

    What a reset is →

  3. Your garden grows

    Every reset you complete waters a tree. Twenty-one consistent days grows it fully and plants it in your garden for good.

    It counts what you chose, not what you failed to avoid — so the number only ever goes up.

    About the garden →

5.0 on the App Store

From 15 ratings. That is a small number, and we're not going to dress it up — check it yourself.

Your usage data never leaves your phone

Apple’s Screen Time framework hands apps opaque tokens, not readable app identities, and keeps it all on-device. There is no screen-time dashboard on our servers because there is no screen-time data on our servers.

Made in Singapore, by one person

Champ is built and maintained by its founder, not a growth team. That is the reason for the small rating count — and the reason support emails get answered by the person who wrote the code.

Want the reasoning rather than the pitch? Read the digital wellbeing guide — it works whether or not you ever install the app.

Questions people actually ask

How does Champ reduce screen time?

Champ shields the apps you choose and interrupts the moment you open one, offering a 30-second reset before you continue. It works on the reach rather than the weekly total, because the decision to scroll is made in about two seconds and a Sunday report arrives far too late to affect it.

Is Champ free?

Yes, the core loop is free: shielding up to three apps, the 30-second reset, and the wake/sleep dial. Champ Pro adds more shielded apps, custom routines and per-app rules.

Can I get past the block if I really need the app?

Always. Champ is designed as a gap, not a cage — you take a 30-second reset and then decide. Blockers that cannot be bypassed get deleted within a week; ones that add a few seconds of friction get kept.

Does Champ see which apps I use?

No. Apple’s Screen Time framework gives apps opaque tokens rather than readable app identities, and that data never leaves your device. Champ has no screen-time dashboard on its servers because it has no screen-time data on its servers.

How is this different from iPhone Screen Time limits?

Apple’s limits are a scheduled cap that ends in a dismissible “Ignore Limit” button. Champ intercepts every open of a shielded app and offers something to do with the interruption — a breath, an affirmation, a short meditation or your vision board — then rewards taking it.

What devices does Champ work on?

iPhone and iPad running iOS 17 or later. There is no Android version yet; you can join the waitlist and we will email you when there is.

How long does a mindful reset take?

About thirty seconds. That is the design constraint, not a marketing round number — an intervention longer than the impulse it interrupts does not get used.

Will Champ make me feel bad about my screen time?

That is specifically what it avoids. There is no shaming weekly report and no counter of minutes lost — progress is measured by the resets you completed, so the number only ever goes up.

Try it on the next thing you reach for

Set it up in about a minute. Three apps shielded, thirty-second resets, free.

Download free on the App Store

iPhone and iPad, iOS 17 or later.

On Android?

Champ is iPhone-only right now — the app depends on Apple's Screen Time framework, which has no direct Android equivalent. Leave your email and we'll write once, if that changes.

We'll email you a confirmation link. Unsubscribe any time — no third-party sharing.