Questions parents ask about TaskBlue

TaskBlue is an iPhone app for parents that makes distracting apps on your child's iPhone invisible: during focus they're gone from the home screen entirely, not just blocked as with Screen Time, and afterwards they're back. You decide once when and where focus runs, for example at school, during homework or in the evening. Focus only ends early with the BlueTag, which stays with you, a 6-digit parent PIN, or, if no PIN is set, one of three emergency exits. And every focus hour takes about 50 g of plastic out of the sea together with WWF.

With TaskBlue you don't just block them, you make them invisible. You choose once, right on your child's iPhone, which apps disappear during focus, for example games, TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. During focus they're gone from the home screen, not just greyed out. Instead of single apps you can also choose whole categories and websites, which then show Apple's Screen Time notice.

Yes, both. With a schedule, focus starts on chosen weekdays at set times, for homework or in the evening for example. With a place, it starts as soon as your child arrives somewhere you marked, such as school, and ends when they leave. There's also the BlueTag alarm, which keeps the apps away from the wake-up time until the BlueTag is scanned, and you can start focus by hand.

You mark the school once on the map in TaskBlue, with a radius of 100 to 500 metres. When your child arrives there, the distracting apps disappear, and when they leave school, the apps come back on their own. Nobody has to switch anything on in the morning, and the phone itself stays with your child.

Yes. Only the apps you choose disappear. Calls, messages, maps, music and everything else stay usable unless you choose them. Your child stays reachable, on the way to school too.

No. TaskBlue runs only on your child's iPhone and is set up right there. Whether you have an iPhone, an Android phone or no smartphone at all makes no difference.

Not in the usual sense, because TaskBlue doesn't monitor. You don't see your child's location, messages or browsing history. TaskBlue only makes the distracting apps disappear at the times and places you agree on, and every focus hour removes plastic from the sea. The idea behind it: a positive reason instead of a ban, so that over time your child learns to focus on their own.

Not easily. Focus only ends early with the BlueTag, which stays with you, or with your 6-digit parent PIN if you set one up. Without a PIN, your child has three emergency exits in total for real emergencies. It cannot be ruled out completely: removing TaskBlue's Screen Time access in the iPhone settings ends focus, and TaskBlue then shows why it ended. A deleted app no longer hides anything either. In TaskBlue's strict mode no app can be deleted from the iPhone, TaskBlue included; with a parent PIN set, only the PIN switches it off again. It works best when you set TaskBlue up together with your child.

Because they know what it is for. An ordinary block just shuts a child out and feels like punishment. With TaskBlue every focus hour counts for something real: up to 5 kg less plastic in the sea every month, visible live in the app. On top of that there's Blue, the little sea turtle in the app, whose sea gets clearer with every focus hour. That turns a rule into a task a child can be proud of. Our goal: over time your child focuses on their own, not just because you set it up.

Blue is a little sea turtle in TaskBlue. Blue hatches from an egg, and the longer your child focuses, the clearer Blue's sea gets. With the plastic their focus pulls out of the sea, your child gets Blue costumes, hats, colours, new worlds and sea creatures. These items come only from focus time, never from money. As a widget, Blue also lives on the home screen, and during focus he counts the time on the lock screen.

Yes, right where it matters. Instead of counting minutes, you decide when and where the distracting apps are gone: at school, during homework, in the evening. During that time they are gone from the home screen, and every focus hour also removes plastic from the sea.

With TaskBlue, usually not. The phone stays with your child, only the distracting apps disappear at the agreed times. Your child stays reachable, and there are fewer arguments about the phone because the rule applies automatically.

Yes, very well. The agreement sets out when it's time to study, to play and to sleep. TaskBlue makes those times apply on the iPhone automatically, without anyone having to nag.

Four: focus by place (at school, for example), on a schedule (on chosen weekdays), in the morning with the BlueTag alarm, and by hand with a three-second press on the focus circle, optionally with a set end time (Lock Up). In all four, the chosen apps disappear from the home screen.

You mark places like school, tutoring or the sports club on the map, each with a radius of 100 to 500 metres, up to 20 places. When your child arrives, focus starts on its own, and when they leave, the apps are back. TaskBlue needs the "Always" location permission for this; the location stays on the iPhone.

Press and hold the focus circle in the app for three seconds. Focus starts right away and the chosen apps disappear from the home screen. It only ends with the BlueTag, the parent PIN or one of the emergency exits. With Lock Up you set a time beforehand, and focus ends on its own at that time.

The alarm rings at the time you set and only stops once the BlueTag is scanned. Press stop and it rings again seconds later, and until the scan the distracting apps are gone. You set the volume once; if someone turns it down, it jumps right back. If you like, the apps stay away for another 30 minutes to two hours afterwards (morning focus). Without the BlueTag, the parent PIN or an emergency exit switches it off. The alarm needs iOS 26 or later.

Yes. A schedule runs on the weekdays you choose, with a fixed start and end time. Ideal for regular homework, study and bedtime routines.

The BlueTag is a small key ring that comes with TaskBlue and stays with the parents. It is round and blue, 35 mm across, and shows Blue, the sea turtle from the app. A scan with the BlueTag brings the apps back early. It needs no battery, there's one model, and it always comes with TaskBlue.

Yes. TaskBlue only works with the BlueTag. That's on purpose: the key lives outside the iPhone, so focus holds. It's shipped to you once and is yours to keep.

No. The BlueTag is passive and never needs charging. With NFC, the tag itself needs no power.

Every BlueTag is 3D-printed in Berlin from plant-based plastic (PLA), assembled by hand and packed by us.

Nobody gets stuck in focus: the parent PIN ends focus without the BlueTag. Without a PIN, the emergency exit brings the apps back, three times in total. Once the emergency exits are used up, your child sends a request to our team right from the app, or you write to [email protected].

For every focus hour, a fixed amount goes to projects against ocean plastic that we support together with the WWF. These projects recover lost fishing nets, for example, or stop plastic from reaching the sea. From the cost per kilogram, we calculate how much plastic your focus hours make possible. That comes to up to 5 kg a month per family. The 5 kg is a calculated figure. Your contribution goes to the projects as a whole and, converted at their costs, equals this amount.

About 50 g per focus hour, up to 5 kg a month. That is 100 focus hours a month, for example five hours on every school day. You see the exact value live in the app.

With the WWF (WWF partnership) and GhostNetZero. GhostNetZero finds lost ghost nets with sonar and AI, divers check the spots, and then the nets are recovered. According to WWF, nearly 2 percent of all fishing gear is lost in the sea every year.

Yes. At milestones like the first kilo, the app celebrates with a screen of its own, and your child can share it with one tap, in the family chat for example.

Because it works twice: your child is focused, and the sea gets cleaner with every hour. Otherwise, locked apps often feel like punishment to kids. With TaskBlue, time without distractions has a purpose you can see.

€49.99 a year or €9.99 a month, and the BlueTag is always included. Yearly you pay once a year, around €4.17 a month. Both are subscriptions you can cancel anytime. Both fund the recovery of up to 5 kg of ocean plastic a month.

The BlueTag and the ocean impact are the same. Yearly you pay €49.99 a year, monthly €9.99 a month. You can cancel the monthly subscription any month, and the yearly one at the end of its first year or with one month's notice after that. For a whole school year, yearly is clearly cheaper.

Yes, the yearly subscription renews after 12 months for €49.99 for another year, without a new BlueTag, so your child keeps pulling plastic out of the sea. If you don't want that, cancel beforehand in one click at taskblue.app/en/cancel. From the second year on you can cancel anytime with one month's notice, and you get back what you paid for the time after that.

Yes. Yearly and monthly are subscriptions that renew until you cancel. Cancelling takes one click without logging in at taskblue.app/en/cancel: monthly at the end of the paid month, yearly at the end of its first year or with one month's notice after that.

We print your BlueTag ourselves and ship it within 3 business days. In Germany it usually arrives within about a week, abroad within about two weeks. Shipping within Germany is free; outside Germany there's a one-time €4.99 fee. The BlueTag ships once, and a renewal doesn't ship anything.

Yes, within 14 days of receiving the BlueTag. Write to [email protected] and send the BlueTag back, and we'll refund your payment. If the app has already been used, the time used is deducted pro rata. The details are in the terms.

iOS Screen Time counts minutes and sets limits and downtime. TaskBlue makes the distracting apps disappear at set places like school and at set times, the parents' BlueTag ends focus early, and no parent iPhone is needed. On top of that every focus hour removes plastic from the sea. More in the comparison with Screen Time. How to set up Screen Time itself is in the guide set up Screen Time on your child's iPhone.

Parental control apps usually monitor: location, history, reports, through a parent app of their own. TaskBlue doesn't monitor and runs only on the child's iPhone. During focus the distracting apps are gone, the parents' BlueTag ends focus early, and every focus hour removes plastic from the sea. How TaskBlue compares with Family Link, Qustodio and others is in the overview of all comparisons.

Opal, one sec and Brick are mainly built for people who want to change their own phone habits. With a PIN, a strict mode or the parents' Screen Time passcode they can also be used on a child's iPhone. TaskBlue is built for parents: focus starts at a place, the BlueTag stays with you, and every focus hour funds the recovery of ocean plastic. The details are in the comparisons with Opal, one sec and Brick.

No. TaskBlue is made for families, but it works the same on every iPhone: teenagers, students or parents themselves can use it for study time, work or quiet evenings; at the start the app also offers a setup for yourself. There too, every focus hour removes plastic from the sea.

For iPhone with iOS 16 or later, in German and English. There's no Android version yet.

It's free on the App Store at apps.apple.com/de/app/id6754511784, or just search for TaskBlue there. For TaskBlue to work, you need the BlueTag, paid yearly or monthly.

Your child's iPhone with iOS 16 or later, the free app from the App Store and the BlueTag, paid yearly or monthly. The BlueTag arrives in the mail. Parents don't need an iPhone of their own.

Yes. A running focus appears as a Live Activity on the lock screen, and there are widgets for the home screen and lock screen showing focus and ocean impact.

For the account and syncing, TaskBlue stores the email address, the focus history (date, duration, type and title), schedules, wake alarms, the places you set up, profiles, settings and Blue's items. The current position, messages and the apps your child uses never leave the phone, and there are no third-party analytics tools. All details are in the privacy policy at taskblue.app/en/privacy-policy.

Alarms stay on the iPhone only. Which items your child picked for Blue and how much plastic is left for them is stored with the account, so Blue looks the same on a new iPhone.

In Berlin, Germany. The provider is taskblue GbR, Kollwitzstraße 76, 10435 Berlin. Data protection under the GDPR, contact: [email protected].