Earning screen time without a camera
MoveFirst turns movement into minutes for the apps you keep behind its calm block screen — and every one of those minutes can be earned without ever opening the lens. This is the full camera-free route: walks, daily Apple Health steps, and focus sessions.
Two routes to the same minutes
MoveFirst has two ways to turn effort into open apps. The first uses the camera: ten moves — push-ups, squats, sit-ups, jumping jacks, plank, jump squats, lunges, high knees, mountain climbers, and a one-foot balance — counted live on your phone, never recorded, never sent. The second never opens the lens at all: a walk, your daily Apple Health steps, or a focus session.
Neither route is the main one. Every minute in the app can be earned without the camera ever turning on, and the rates are just as real. If you exercise outdoors, share a desk with other people, or simply prefer to keep the lens closed, the camera-free route is a full way to use MoveFirst, not a fallback.
A walk, measured by the step counter
The quickest camera-free earner is a short walk. Start a walk session, put the phone in your pocket, and the step counter does the counting. At the default rate, a 3-minute walk earns 10 minutes in the apps you chose.
Credit is pro-rated and rounded up to the nearest 30 seconds, so a walk cut short at two minutes still keeps the time you moved for. Stopping early is a win, not a penalty. This route fits mornings, lunch breaks, and any moment when stepping outside sounds better than standing in front of a phone.
Daily steps, with no session at all
If you would rather not start sessions, you can opt in to Apple Health steps. Every 1,000 steps you take across the day become 5 minutes, up to 30 minutes a day, credited without opening MoveFirst or pressing anything.
This is the route for people whose movement already happens elsewhere — a commute, a dog, errands, a job that keeps you on your feet. The steps you were going to take anyway quietly keep your bank topped up.
Focus sessions for desk days
Some days there is no walking to be done. A focus session earns minutes by leaving the phone alone: everything is blocked while it runs, and at the default rate a 60-minute session earns 15 minutes.
Sessions have a 15-minute minimum — a scheduling floor set by the platform, not a judgment — and a session under a minute earns nothing, which is a statement about the session, never about you. For desk workers, students, and anyone in back-to-back meetings, a focus session turns time you were already going to spend concentrating into time in the apps you love.
One bank, no streaks
Whichever route you take, minutes land in the same bank. It holds 60 minutes by default — adjustable anywhere from 15 to 240 — so time gets spent rather than hoarded. When the minutes run out, the block screen simply returns on its own.
Momentum grows with any activity, whether that was a plank or a walk around the block, and it cools gently rather than resetting to zero. There are no streaks to lose, so a quiet week costs you nothing but the minutes you did not earn.
Yours to tune, private by design
Every rate above is a default, not a rule. A 3-minute walk for 10 minutes, 1,000 steps for 5, an hour of focus for 15 — all of it is editable, and you can see how the rates work in detail on the how it works page. Nothing here is fixed.
None of it leaves your phone, either. There is no account and no cloud; Apple's Screen Time hands MoveFirst a sealed token, so the app cannot even see which apps you placed behind the block. If you want to try the camera-free life, there is a 3-day free trial, then €29.99 a year, and you can cancel any time before it renews — the pricing section on the homepage has the details. And if a subscription ever lapses, blocking lifts; the app never holds your own apps hostage.
MoveFirst is finishing its final test round. It is not on the App Store yet.