Kenneth,
Iām actually a huge fan of this approach. Iāve heavily researched neurodivergence &, in particular ADHD (I also suffer from it). I know that for a sizable segment of the population, motivation to NOT do something comes more from a fear of the penalty/toll incurred than from the positive aspirational notions of who they can be/what they can achieve if they adhere to something. Iām not saying these positive aspirational ideas donāt exist nor factor into decision-making & observed behavior, but rather, at the end of the day, itās the fear of penalty that drives them to take action (or inaction in terms of not breaking a rule). I think paying an extra fee would be the most draconian of these measures and I absolutely support it existing, but perhaps we can reserve it for a tier of behavior/specific time-slot that is most important to the individual user, i.e. the user intentionally sets up that penalty to go into effect should he/she fail.
I also support there being secondary or smaller penalties. I think feeling the pain of a cost or something that matters being lost adds more real-life implication to the user and advances some of the gamification that research shows tends to motivate users.
For comparisonās sake, some of my favorite & most effective other productivity tools operate around this concept of real-world penalty should you renege on your commitments. They also have a hack-proof independent means of verifying that you did indeed stick to your pledge/tasks. These tools include Beeminder, Forfeit & Stickk. I think thereās a reason why these tools have attracted sizable user-bases and I can see Opal succeeding in its mission by engineering reward/penalty systems like these.
I love the app but I want to block/disable settings app aswell
Iām actually using screentime add/remove app content restriction which restrict me from removing this app
Is their any way I can block setting too?
Iāve noticed that if I go to my screen time in settings I can just turn off access to Opal and it resets all my limits. Maybe if there was a way to make it harder to turn that off that would be great!
Is there a parental control feature? Iād like to be able to restrict my child to have a set focus period each day without him being able to edit the apps/schedule. It should be impossible for him to tamper the schedule.
ā¦except itās not for my child, itās for me (I donāt even have children).
Bonus points if these parental controls carry over to my other devices. Appleās screen time is similar, but doesnāt target specific apps, or allow multiple schedules
Hi @kenneth,
Iām currently using ScreenTime with a passcode set by someone else. This way I canāt bypass the limits I have set when I feel pressured to do so.
I would love to use Opal for two reasons:
mainly to be able to set different time windows to block different apps
to be able to change the rules ahead of time, but not on the spot, in order to truly auto-regulate my screen usage (for now I ask the person to unlock ScreenTime for me to change settings when I need to. It works fine enough but itās just not optimal).
For the same reason as stated by @Opal_User_28343 , I canāt use Opal in this state of things, so I prefer to use ScreenTime for now.
For me the best solution would be to use the ScreenTime passcode to enforce Opal, the same way itās already used to lock ScreenTime settings.
In fact Iām finding mind boggling the fact to make a ScreenTime API allowing to block apps, without this feature. Why even bother?
Thanks for your work, and please convince Apple to do so!
@here we now have a solution for this (it came from an idea on this community forum!)
To enhance the security of your Opal sessions and prevent the disabling of Opalās Screen Time during a session, follow these steps. This process should take less than 5 minutes to set up.
You are totally right. We rewrote the guide from scratch with a lot more detail + included a step by step video! Thank you for reporting / asking for this. Opal FAQ | How To Lock Opal's Screen Time Access
Please note: Apple changed a lot of the UI of the Shortcuts app with iOS17 so things may look slightly different, but the guide should work regardless.
PS if anyone is interested in making a video tutorial happy to pay for it! (Lifetime sub?).
Thank you for finally solving for this issue it has been an real stick in the mud for me. Iāve been following this thread for sometime and it makes me so happy to see a solution has been found.
I would be certainly interested in creating the video for this, if youāll have me. I donāt have professional experience doing so but Iām confident in my abilities to produce a step by step tutorial and attach it below: let me know. A lifetime subscription would be incredible for me.
Turning off Opal access in screentime disables deep focus session and gives access to applications. This led to relapse. Please make opal to continue deep focus even if its turned off in apple screentime. Opal is doing a great job otherwise when compared to many app in the market. Thank you for your efforts in bringing up this app!
! Thank you. Just updated the FAQ to make it clearer: 
