Comment by flanbiscuit

I wanted to develop an alternative to App Timer on Android. I need something more like "App Timeouts". App Timers are per 24 hours, so as soon I hit X amount of minutes, I'm blocked from using it until midnight and then it resets.

What do I mean about App Timeout?

I want to say "Once I reach 20min on this app, block me from using it for 2 hours". Then it resets after 2 hours from that point. Both of those times being configurable of course.

The problem with the built-in Android App Timers now is I end up setting it to something large, like 1 hour or more because I'm thinking about how much time I want for a full day, but then I just sit there in 1 sitting swiping for that whole amount of time. And this usually happens after midnight so I know that I'm going to be blocked for my next day until after midnight again and the cycle continues.

I'd rather something force me to use it in shorter bits of time. So at midnight I can allow myself to get into an Instagram hole for 10 or 20min, but at least I know when I wake up it's been reset. I think doing this will train me to use the app for shorter amounts of time in general (or at least I think so and I want to test that theory).

I don't even know if this is possible in Android. How can one app block another. Maybe by allowing it to overlay over other apps or something?