I spent $50/month on focus supplements to cure my brain fog. Turns out I just needed to fix my phone.

I'm Hemanth. I hold a Bachelor's in Biotechnology and a Master's in Computer Science, with published deep learning research in IEEE/ACM. I understand exactly how dopamine works — and how social media algorithms are engineered to hijack it.

Every short video. Every infinite scroll. Every pull-to-refresh. These are intentional dopamine extraction mechanisms. I was blasting my baseline into the ground. Supplements bought me a temporary patch. The moment the bottle was empty, the fog came back. Because doomscrolling was the actual root cause.

So I built the fix. I called it Swale.

🧠 PROGRESSIVE FRICTION

Swale intercepts the reflex tap — the unconscious muscle memory of opening Instagram before your brain even registers what you're doing.

Tap a distracting app and Swale shows a breathing timer (5–120 seconds, you set it). A slow, animated breathing circle. A forced pause between impulse and action.

It goes deeper. Each repeated open within 60 minutes adds 50% to your delay — up to 120 seconds. Doomscrolling gets more expensive every time you try.

⚡ FEATURES

🔴 BRAINROT Labeling
Apps auto-categorized: BRAINROT, ENTERTAIN, WORK, COMMS, INFO, FINANCE. Seeing "BRAINROT" next to Instagram changes how you feel about opening it.

⏱ Mindful Delay (5–120 sec, per-app)
Global or per-app. Choose breathing countdown or type-to-unlock — where you must type "I choose to open [app]" to proceed.

🎯 Focus Mode (25 min – 3 hours)
One tap locks out every BRAINROT app. Anti-tamper logic checks both wall time and boot time. You cannot game it.

🔒 Hard Blocks & Cooldowns
Per-app blocks from 12 hours to 30 days. Force-close mode shuts the app when your timer expires, then locks it for the cooldown you set.

📊 Screen Time Tracking
7-day chart with week-over-week trends. Per-app usage. Color-coded totals. Data pulled from Android's UsageStats API — never leaves your phone.

🌅 Mindful Schedules
Morning and evening friction windows for each day of the week. Cross-midnight supported.

⚫ System Grayscale
True Android system-level grayscale — not an in-app filter. Your entire phone loses its color reward signal.

🔥 Streaks
Tracks days since you last opened each BRAINROT app. That number on your home screen is more motivating than any notification.

📝 Distraction-Free Notes
Swipe from home to a private, on-device notepad. Auto-saves as you type. Zero cloud.

🔒 PRIVACY

Your screen time, app habits, blocks, and delays — none of it leaves your device. Ever. No accounts. No cloud sync. The only network calls are subscription verification (RevenueCat) and anonymous crash reporting (Firebase). Your habits are yours.

💰 FREE, WITH NO CATCH

Swale is free. No ads, no trial, no paywall, no upsells. I built it to fix my own phone habits and decided to share it. If it helps you too, that's the whole point.

A personal project. No company, no VC, no dark patterns. Just one developer who got tired of losing hours to his phone and built the fix.
— Hemanth

Privacy: https://swale.hackthru.com/privacy
Terms: https://swale.hackthru.com/terms