BrainDock
A Different Productivity App
BrainDock is officially live on Product Hunt, and I have made a lot of updates and features to the website and the app as well. Feel free to check it out, and would appreciate any feedback.
Free to use on macOS and Windows.
thebraindock.com
https://www.producthunt.com/products/braindock
Hey IndieHackers!
I'm Morayya, pursuing Computer Science in Melbourne. I built BrainDock because I kept catching myself reaching for my phone during study sessions and would constantly get distracted.
BrainDock uses your webcam + AI to detect when devices pull your attention away, then gently nudges you back. It also tracks when you switch to distracting apps/websites. What makes it different is that it's not a website blocker. It monitors your actual behaviour and coaches you in real time.
Key features: AI distraction detection (phones, tablets, stepping away), screen awareness for app/website distractions, timed focus sessions with nudges and PDF performance reports
Privacy-first: no facial recognition, no screenshots stored, no data leaves your machine (except temporary AI processing frames).
Free for macOS and Windows. Would love your honest feedback!
thebraindock.com
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It is a constant battle for students to stay focused when the very devices needed for research are also the primary sources of distraction.
The real innovation here is moving beyond the "wall" of a website blocker and focusing on behavior because once a person builds the habit of checking their phone it becomes an unconscious reflex that software blocks alone cannot fix.
Since you are running this locally for privacy reasons how are you managing the CPU usage of the continuous webcam monitoring to ensure it does not slow down the machine during intensive coding or design tasks?
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Hey, even though it is continuously monitoring, it only takes a picture around every 3-4 seconds to check whether the current frame shows the user is distracted or not, compared to constantly recording a video, which significantly reduces the performance cost. After thorough testing and optimisations, the app does not actually consume the CPU that much.
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Sampling the webcam every few seconds instead of running a live video stream is a smart optimization that preserves the machine's battery life and performance for heavy workloads.
This "nudge" approach is much more sustainable for long-term focus than a hard block because it trains the user to be aware of their own habits rather than just fighting against a restricted browser.
I apply this same focus on efficiency and behavior in high-tier PR and media placement where we highlight technical performance to build brand authority on major news outlets.
Since the AI is analyzing snapshots periodically, does the system differentiate between a quick glance at a notification and a prolonged phone session to avoid "false alarm" nudges for minor movements?
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Yes, I agree with your thoughts there, and talking about the differentiation between nudging versus an actual distraction, the AI process does have a confidence score, which is embedded into the app. If it ever goes above a certain threshold, which is tuned and learned on a lot of parameters and testing, then it triggers it as a distraction. We are constantly trying to increase the precision and recall of the algorithm.
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That confidence score approach is solid—precision is everything for a tool that lives in the background.
The reason I see so much potential here from a PR perspective is that 'AI for Wellness/Productivity' is a trending narrative on major news outlets right now. If you can prove that your algorithm reduces 'screen-time' by a specific percentage without being invasive, that’s a powerful story for a brand feature.
Have you considered tracking 'Focus Improvements' over time in your PDF reports? That data would be gold for building external authority.
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Yes, those are some good points. The focus improvements over time feature is also about to be rolled out, and I am currently working on it to include it in the PDFs as well. It also includes a session timeline, which shows how much of your focus was distributed throughout your work session.
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A session timeline combined with focus improvement trends over time is actually the missing piece that turns BrainDock from a utility into a coaching tool — users will start competing with their own past scores which dramatically improves retention.
From an authority standpoint, once you have even 2-3 weeks of aggregated anonymized data showing average focus improvement across users, that single stat becomes the headline of a story. 'Students using BrainDock improved focus sessions by X percent' is exactly the kind of human-interest data point that education and productivity writers actively look for.
Since you're already building the tracking infrastructure, are you planning to collect any anonymized aggregate stats across your user base or keep everything strictly local per user?
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Which aggregate stats are you referring to?
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That’s exactly where the 'Data' becomes your biggest asset.
When we take a story to high-tier outlets like AP News, MSN, or Yahoo Finance, they aren't just looking for a cool app—they want a 'Market Trend.' If we can point to anonymized stats showing a rise in AI-assisted focus, it positions BrainDock as a leader in the AI Wellness space.
Securing a brand mention or a full feature on these platforms does three massive things for you:
AI & LLM Visibility: When AI models (like Gemini or ChatGPT) browse the web to answer "What is the best AI tool for focus?", they prioritize information from high-authority news sites. This puts BrainDock in their top recommendations.
SEO & Authority: A link or even a plain-text mention from Yahoo Finance acts as a massive 'Trust Signal' to Google, which can significantly boost your organic ranking.
Investor & User Trust: Having "As seen on MSN/AP News" on your landing page instantly converts more visitors into users.
I have a few case studies of how similar technical products were positioned to get this kind of coverage. If you’re open to it, I’d love to show you how we can translate BrainDock's technical performance into a narrative that these big editors can't ignore.
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Try it out and let me know how your productivity changes!
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