What if I have a real emergency at night?
Emergency calls always work. That is an iOS-level guarantee, not something Firstlight controls. Beyond that, there is no override. If you pick up the phone and use it, the night fails.
Nights you can't take back.
A nightly screen time commitment for iPhone. Designed to be hard to ignore.
WHAT IT IS
Most screen time apps are easy to ignore. Firstlight isn't.
Set the hours your phone should be off-limits each night. Commit to a number of nights: 9, 16, 25, or 36. Each night you keep, a square on the grid lights up. Each night you don't, that square goes black, permanently. No undo. No reset.
The grid is the record. The record is the point.
Challenge lengths
Pick the length you're willing to be honest about.
HOW IT WORKS
Screen Time decides. Not you.
Firstlight uses Apple's Screen Time API to verify whether your phone stayed unused during the window you committed to.
If Screen Time can't confirm a clean night because you used the phone, disabled tracking, or the data isn't available, that night fails. The square goes black, and stays black.
There is no manual override. There is no "I was traveling" exception. The only way to keep a square lit is to actually have the night.
WHAT IT ISN'T
What Firstlight is not
- Not a habit tracker.
- Not a streak you can rebuild.
- Not a coach that checks in on you.
- Not a subscription.
- Not an account, a login, or a cloud.
- Not gentle.
THE DEAL
Pricing and privacy
$9.99. Once.
No subscription. No upsell. No premium tier. Buy it, own it, use it for as long as iPhones exist.
Nothing leaves your device.
No account to create. No data uploaded anywhere. Your challenges, your photos, your history: all stored locally. If you delete the app, it's all gone, and that's by design.
WHO IT'S FOR
Who Firstlight is for
Firstlight is for people who have already tried the gentle apps. Who have set up Screen Time limits and tapped past them. Who know, by now, that what they need isn't another nudge. It's a record they can't argue with.
If you're looking for encouragement, motivation, or a friendly streak counter, this isn't it. There are good apps for that, and this isn't one of them.
Firstlight is for the night you decide you're done negotiating with yourself.
QUESTIONS
Questions
Can I really not undo a black square?
No. That is the entire product. If you could undo it, it would be a habit tracker, and you already know how those end.
Why these four lengths: 9, 16, 25, 36?
They are the four square numbers that fit a clean grid. Short enough to start, long enough to mean something.
What happens when I finish a challenge?
You see the final grid: lit squares, black squares, all of it. You keep it as a record. Then you can start another, or not.
Does this require a subscription?
No. One-time purchase. Nothing else.