Walk-to-Unlock: How I built a privacy-first app blocker that uses your phone's step counter

Walk-to-Unlock: How I built a privacy-first app blocker that uses your phone's step counter

I spent the last six months building StepShield Pro, a digital wellbeing app for Android with a twist: instead of forcing you to put your phone in a timed lock box, it locks your distracting apps behind your daily steps. Walk 2,000 steps, earn 30 minutes of Instagram.

It runs entirely on-device using the hardware step counter. No GPS. No cloud. No data leaves your phone.

Here's how I designed it, and the engineering tradeoffs I made along the way.

The problem with most app blockers