Terrarium - Grow Your Focus
A gamified productivity app that turns focus time into a digital garden.
Technologies Used
Challenge
Standard focus timers are boring, and pure app blockers are too restrictive. The technical challenge was to build a cross-platform app (Flutter) that could interact with low-level OS APIs to detect and block distracting apps (Instagram, etc.) in real-time without draining the battery.
Solution
I created a hybrid architecture. The UI/Game layer is built with Flutter for a beautiful cross-platform experience. For the blocking engine, I wrote native modules: a `Foreground Service` + `OverlayWindow` in Kotlin for Android. When the user starts a session, the app monitors running processes via `MethodChannels` and overlays a "Access Denied" screen on distractions. Successful focus sessions unlock vector-based plant assets (SVG) to grow a personal terrarium.
Key Features
- Native App Blocker
- Gamified Focus Timer
- Detailed Analytics
Project Process
Phase 1: Concept & UI
Designing the gamification loop and implementing SVG plant rendering in Flutter.
Phase 2: Native Bridge
Writing Kotlin (Android) code to handle process detection and blocking overlays.
Phase 3: Logic Core
Implementing the "Allowed Apps" whitelist logic and local database for session tracking.
Phase 4: Optimization
Optimizing the background service to reduce battery consumption and handling Android 14 permissions.
Results
Screenshots
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