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

I've been using it as part of my Setapp subscription, and it's a love-hate relationship. On the one side I appreciate the posture hint and the app nudging me to take a break. But ever so often I am in deep focus and get really annoyed when the "long break starting in 1 minute" notification pops up. Most of the time I am in the middle of writing when the break starts, and I click it away fast to not loose my thoughts. A feature recognizing active writing to push the break a minute would be helpful I guess.

I've found the posture and blink reminders have been really helpful. I do find myself having to postpone the breaks because they like to pop up when I'm in deep focus. Thing is, I never really mark when I'm in deep focus because I honestly don't realize it when it happens, so it's hard to provide a constructive solution for this app around that.

I haven't seen it in the settings but some "drink water" reminders or just customizing those would be great.

Few alts for other platforms

https://workrave.org/ (not mac)

https://github.com/hovancik/stretchly (everywhere)

Both are open source.

Then there’s this https://www.dejal.com/timeout/ (only mac) - used this one as well.

The license scheme makes me sad. It reads like a subscription pretending to be a one-time purchase.

Two things regarding the website:

- scrolling is so extremely laggy that the website is almost unusable on Firefox on macOS on an idle MacBook Pro (even if it seems smooth at first, scrolling up and down a few times slows it down significantly)

- I assume the code editor screenshot should actually be some sort of animation, it doesn't seem to work (although right clicking shows options like Pause, Loop...).

Curious to hear from anyone with long term success: do these kinds of apps actually work or do they more just make you feel like you’re doing something about it?

Looks nice, but hate that pricing.

> knows when not to interrupt

I wish all forms of pop-up notifications knew this.

If I log into a security camera interface after an event triggered, that's not the time to tell me about a software update.

If I log into a news website because of a local crime, that's not the time to tell me about your fancy newsletter.

If I log into a brokerage during trading hours, that's not the time to tell me about your new interface.

I click all of these things away reflexively because they appear at the wrong time.