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LookAway, a Mac break reminder that knows when not to interrupt

Details

External ID
48659483
Source
HN
Company
—
Product
LookAway, a Mac break reminder that knows when not to interrupt
Website domain
lookaway.com
Launched
June 24, 2026
Cohort
—
Upvotes
77
Upvotes percentile
0.894808743169399
Tags
—
Fetched at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Updated at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Description

Hello, I'm Kushagra and I am the indie developer behind LookAway (I've posted about it earlier but it has received quite a lot of updates since the last time so I am posting it again).LookAway is a native break reminder for macOS that doesn't interrupt. I built it because I work from home and I spend a lot of time in front of my screens. It's very easy for me to get lost in the flow and I can end up sitting for hours. Due to this, I started facing issues like eye strain and back pain by the end of the day.The solution to this was simply taking enough breaks throughout the day. But remembering to take breaks was difficult, especially when I was in the flow. I tried some reminder apps but the problem with those was that they always interrupted me at the worst moments. So I ended up not using them.LookAway is designed not to interrupt. It gives enough heads up before a break so that you're not caught off-guard. It's also context-aware and it automatically pauses when you go into a meeting, start watching a video, record screen, and much more. It even waits for you to finish typing or dictating when a break is due.One thing worth mentioning is the free iOS counterpart LookAway Mirror. When your Mac goes on a break, your iOS devices can also mirror the same break so you don't end up scrolling your phone screen during the Mac break.I've spent a lot of time in making LookAway the least annoying break reminder app and I would love to know your thoughts. It's a native Swift app so it doesn't take much resources (150MB RAM and <1% CPU when idle).It's available to download from the website (lookaway.com), Setapp, and the App Store. Thank you!

Enrichment

Theme
focus timers and task planners
Vertical
Horizontal
Function
—
Audience
B2C
AI stance
AI feature
Project type
Commercial product
Normalized one-liner
smart break reminder for mac
Manually corrected
False

Could you build this?

Yes It is a native macOS menu bar utility built in Swift that monitors user idle time, camera/calendar status, or active applications to trigger timed breaks.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: Time Out (macOS break reminder app), Setapp (subscription service), Clock app timer (macOS built-in), Keyboard Maestro (automation macro tool), Workrave (open source alternative)

Concerns raised: Breaks interrupt deep focus at worst possible times, Pricing model appears like subscription despite one-time purchase claim, App causes lag/resource-heavy performance in Firefox, Notification sound is too startling, Desktop takeover notifications are annoying even with configuration

Feature requests: More notification sound options, Detect deep focus patterns to avoid interrupting important work, Custom wellness reminders (drink water, other activities), Better focus context awareness to prevent untimely popups, Smoother break reminders that don't disrupt workflow

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one — 320 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #48 of 321 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 238 days after the earliest competitor.

Other launches for this product