First Look: Hank Green’s “Focus Friend” Is Beating Big Apps. Could It Help Parents Focus?
If you’ve seen the buzz about a little animated bean that knits while you work, you’re not imagining it. Hank Green’s new app, Focus Friend, shot to the top of the iOS charts this week and even leapfrogged the ChatGPT app. That is wild, but also kind of perfect for the rest of us who are tired, distracted, and still trying to knock out a to do list between school drop offs and snack refills.
I only found Focus Friend because my wife kept walking past me with a tiny bean knitting on her screen. Curiosity won, I downloaded it, and here we are.
So what is it? Focus Friend is a focus timer built on the Pomodoro idea. You set a session length, put your phone down, and your bean knits socks for you in the background. Finish the session and you earn socks you can trade for decor to spruce up your bean’s room. Open other apps and your bean gets sad, and your progress unravels. It’s silly in the right way, and that is probably why it is blowing up.
Quick specs parents actually care about
- Platforms: iPhone and Android.
- Price: Free to start. Pro is $1.99 per month, $14.99 per year, or $29.99 lifetime. Sensor Tower
- What it does: Timers up to 120 minutes, optional music, break timers, “Deep Focus” that can lock distracting apps using Screen Time, and a whole decorating system that gives your brain a small win after each session.
- Heads up: Some iOS users who also run other Screen Time based blockers have reported issues with the allow list. The team has a workaround and says they are working on it.
Why this might work for parents
- Body doubling without scheduling a call. The bean is your quiet buddy while you clean the kitchen or answer emails. That small sense of someone else “working” with you matters more than you’d think. Coverage from outlets like Wired and The Verge echoes that emotional pull.
- Gamified progress you can see. Socks become decor. Decor becomes a tiny room that gets nicer as your day gets calmer. That is a satisfying loop for a tired brain.
- Real guardrails. Deep Focus can wall off doomscrolling during a 25 minute block so you can load the dishwasher or finish a work email without the Instagram detour.
What I would test first
- A simple “two blocks before lunch” routine on school days.
- One block during kids’ homework time so we are all doing quiet work together.
- Weekend reset. Two blocks, then decorate the bean’s room with Harrison as a tiny reward.
The bottom line
If you are a parent who burns 30 minutes to social media before you realize it, Focus Friend is a low lift experiment with a fun payoff. It is not a full pro dashboard. It will not fix your calendar. It might buy you 25 minutes you would have lost, and that is a win.
