---
title: "This e-paper clock blocks no apps: it tries to make your phone unnecessary in bed"
locale: "en"
url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/habity-bedside-clock-phone-free-sleep-en"
markdown_url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/habity-bedside-clock-phone-free-sleep-en.md"
category: "ideas"
tags: ["e-paper", "sleep", "smartphone", "design", "habits"]
published_at: "2026-08-19T12:45:00.000Z"
author: "Léa Perrin"
translation: "https://irz.fr/fr/articles/habity-bedside-clock-phone-free-sleep-fr.md"
---

# This e-paper clock blocks no apps: it tries to make your phone unnecessary in bed

Habity does not block Instagram. Its bedside clock instead replaces the alarm, sleep sounds and a few nightstand functions so there is less practical reason to keep a phone within reach.

The smartphone has a peculiar talent: it can make indispensable the same object that contains exactly the distractions we would like to avoid.

We keep it beside the bed because it is an alarm clock. Since it is already there, it can also play rain sounds, check the time, set tomorrow's alarm, reveal a late message and open something that had absolutely nothing to do with sleep. Fifteen minutes later, a stranger in a vertical video is explaining how a toaster changed his life.

**Habity** attacks that problem with almost embarrassing simplicity.

Its bedside clock blocks no apps, measures no screen time and offers no little green flame for resisting TikTok. Instead, it tries to take back the practical functions that justify keeping a phone beside the pillow.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)

Alarm, ambient sounds, a wind-down reminder, nightlight and weekly schedules provide enough for a nightstand without providing enough to become another platform.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)

That is less dramatic than a digital-detox app and a more interesting design proposition: **change the environment instead of asking the user to win the same contest of willpower every night**.

> Illustration: Habity bedside clock near a bed in warm light. The clock combines alarms, ambient sounds, a wind-down reminder and a nightlight. Its behavioural value comes mainly from what is missing: feeds, messages, browsers and social apps. Credit: [Habity](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock).

## Remove the excuse

The smartphone is obviously not in the bedroom only because it has an alarm, but that function provides a strong practical justification for keeping it within reach. Once the decision has been made, the access cost for everything else on the phone falls almost to zero because an arm is all that separates the user from it, and Habity tries to break the chain at that first link.

The product has a 3.7-inch e-paper display with frontlight, speaker, nightlight and programmable alarms. Sleep sounds run locally without a subscription, while the core functions require neither an app nor Wi-Fi.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)

Wi-Fi remains optional for automatic time syncing, firmware updates and integrations with certain smart lights.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)[2](https://support.habity.design/)

That nuance matters because Habity is a small connected computer rather than an analogue wooden block with two hands, yet it has chosen not to turn connectivity into a daily destination. Minimalism here comes from a **restriction of functional surface area**, not from an absence of technology.

## Not the e-paper

It would be tempting to tell this story as e-paper defeating the bright smartphone screen, which would be far too easy.

Habity's display has its own warm frontlight that activates during interaction.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock) More importantly, the company does not publish evidence showing that its display technology alone improves sleep.

The interesting difference lies elsewhere: after checking the time or setting a function, there is almost nothing left to do on the clock.

A 2021 randomized study of Apple's iPhone Night Shift makes the distinction useful. Researchers compared one hour of phone use before bed with Night Shift enabled, phone use without Night Shift, and no phone use. Across the full sample, Night Shift produced no differences in sleep outcomes; among participants who usually slept more than 6.8 hours, the **no-phone condition** produced the best sleep outcomes.[5](https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(21)00060-7/abstract)

The study never tested Habity; it simply reminds us that changing the colour temperature of a display removes neither its content, its prompts nor the ability to keep using it. Sometimes the most effective night mode is no longer holding the device.

## A real restriction

A small randomized trial published in *PLOS One* in 2020 makes that distinction clearer.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)

Thirty-eight participants were assigned either to a control group or to a group instructed not to use their phones for thirty minutes before their usual bedtime. After four weeks, the restriction group showed shorter sleep latency, longer sleep duration, better reported sleep quality and lower pre-sleep arousal, among other changes.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)

The gains were modest, with sleep latency reduced by about twelve minutes and sleep duration increased by roughly eighteen minutes.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756) The trial was also small, only nineteen people in each group, and some outcomes relied on sleep diaries, so its authors explicitly called for larger studies with more objective measures.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)

The intervention was also far more forceful than placing a handsome clock on a nightstand.

On some phones the researchers used screen-time controls protected by a password; other participants had to switch their devices off, with reminders and checks.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)

Habity uses no such enforcement: the phone remains unlocked, while the clock merely tries to make keeping it nearby less necessary.

## Environment wins

That is where the object becomes a useful example of behavioural design.

A software limiter works inside the same device as the temptation. It announces that time is up on the screen that also contains the button for requesting another fifteen minutes. It is a security guard hired by the casino and stationed beside the cashier.

A dedicated object changes the physical scene because, if the alarm, rain noise and nightlight exist elsewhere, the phone can charge three metres away, in the hall or in another room. The desired behaviour never becomes automatic, but its relative cost changes: scrolling now requires getting up, or at least deliberately keeping the phone near the bed despite having an alternative.

> Same intention
> **Two ways to limit**
> - The phone stays in the hand and adds a barrier to its own applications.: Software
> - Useful functions move elsewhere so the phone can physically leave the bedside.: Dedicated object
> - The user resists the same object, often only centimetres from the bed.: Willpower
> - The unwanted action requires an extra step because the object is no longer needed there.: Environment
> Habity forces no behaviour. It only changes the practical architecture surrounding that behaviour.

The same approach is mundane elsewhere. A reusable bottle keeps water visible on a desk, keys acquire a permanent bowl, and biscuits can be moved out of sight rather than inspiring a nightly ceremony of heroic resistance to chocolate.

Behavioural design often begins with something equally unglamorous: **where is the object at the moment of the decision?**

## Enough functions

The obvious failure mode would be gradually rebuilding the smartphone inside the clock.

Habity is already slightly more connected than a “no Wi-Fi” slogan might suggest. Optional Wi-Fi supports updates, time synchronization and integrations with Philips Hue, Home Assistant and Homey.[1](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)[2](https://support.habity.design/)

Firmware version 1.1 added or improved settings navigation, light controls, Homey integration, alarm-saving reliability and e-paper ghosting.[3](https://habity.design/blogs/blog/your-bedside-clock-just-got-better)

Normal software-product evolution begins here, and so does the point where the original promise can become fragile.

Every new feature may make the clock more useful while moving its interface closer to the general-purpose computer it was meant to replace. Weather, notifications, calendars, messages or an assistant would all look conveniently reasonable on a roadmap.

Each would also weaken the idea, so the correct amount of functionality is not “as little as possible” but **the minimum that lets the phone leave the room without creating ten new frustrations**.

## A real product

Habity has moved beyond a Kickstarter proposition: the company says its first batch shipped in June 2026, and its firmware notes describe issues reported by those first units, including alarm saving, some performance problems and e-paper ghosting.[3](https://habity.design/blogs/blog/your-bedside-clock-just-got-better)

That detail is almost more reassuring than a perfect marketing page.

A clock that proposes replacing a critical phone function first has to be a reliable clock. An alarm that occasionally forgets its schedule can produce excellent digital detox, mostly because its owner will be busy explaining why they are late.

The firmware fixes expose a basic difficulty of minimalist hardware: once most features have been removed, **the remaining features become non-negotiable**.

The time must be correct, the alarm must sound, settings must remain legible and the button must work while its owner is half-awake in the dark; a smartphone can bury a minor bug under a thousand other uses, whereas a dedicated alarm clock has nowhere to hide.

## No miracle

Nothing guarantees that buying Habity will remove a phone from the bedroom because both objects can sit side by side while a person keeps watching videos until 2:14 a.m., then admires the e-paper while carefully setting tomorrow's alarm. The clock has no coercive power.

Nor do studies on phone restriction constitute clinical validation of this product.[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)[5](https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(21)00060-7/abstract)

Its proposition is more modest.

Ask why the smartphone is still present at the exact moment when we would prefer to use it less, then reconstruct a few of its useful functions inside an intentionally less interesting object.

The logic extends well beyond sleep.

A dedicated camera removes notifications from taking a photograph, a music player can separate listening from the social feed, and a paper notebook prevents a quick note from unexpectedly becoming an email check. Progress does not always mean adding another function to the universal device; sometimes it means **building an object competent enough that the universal device can finally stay somewhere else**.

## References

1. [Habity, Bedside clock](https://habity.design/products/bedside-clock)
2. [Habity, Bedside clock user manual & support](https://support.habity.design/)
3. [Habity, firmware update v1.1, 2026](https://habity.design/blogs/blog/your-bedside-clock-just-got-better)
4. [He et al., Effect of restricting bedtime mobile phone use on sleep, PLOS One, 2020](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228756)
5. [Duraccio et al., Does iPhone Night Shift mitigate negative effects of smartphone use on sleep outcomes?, Sleep Health, 2021](https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(21)00060-7/abstract)