Focus Plant: Pomodoro Forest reviews
What users love and hate · 500 reviews analyzed · ★ 4
A gamified Pomodoro timer that grows cute plants for your focus time: students adore the concept, but ads and a broken strict mode keep wrecking the very sessions it's meant to protect.
What users love
Gamification makes studying feel rewarding and helps procrastinators and ADHD users
Growing cute plants for your focus time turns studying into a rewarding game: users report academic comebacks, less procrastination and genuine help with ADHD.
It almost feels like a game and I really love it because it makes focusing more interesting and fun. The rewards are so enticing. It makes you actually want to focus.
this game is really helping me focus (I have ADHD)
I have studied more today than I have in the past week alone. I never thought an app could help get my grades up.
Cute art and pleasant sound lower the anxiety of sitting down to study
Adorable plants, a clean interface and satisfying sounds make the app feel approachable: studying with it is less intimidating and genuinely pleasant.
This one is cute which makes it less intimidating to study and the rewards are good enough to keep you working hard.
the UI is very goodclean, well-designed, and visually appealing. The sound features are impressive too.
cute and user-friendly. it makes focusing a fun and awaited game for me
Whitelist, multiple timers and tag stats give flexibility without paying
You can add custom tags, adjust the timer, keep music via the whitelist and review focus stats by day and week — much of it free, unlike Forest.
Posee la característica de colocar tus propias etiquetas para cada área de tu vida.
you are allowed to add several tags and customize the time unlike the other apps that require a subscription to access these features.
Nice study tool. I'm a biochemistry major and it's nice to sort my classes so I can look at my stats at the end of the week.
Social features — groups, shared gardens and rivalry — boost discipline
Groups, friends and collaboratively growing plants in a "desert" trigger friendly rivalry: seeing others' progress pushes users off social media and into harder study.
You can join groups, have friends, and see how much time you've focused.
groups are also a neat feature, and being able to collaborate with group members to grow plants in a "desert" and level up.
study in the same "room" as others.
What users hate
Launch-time and mid-session ads turn a focus app into a distraction machine
Full-screen unskippable ads pop up on every launch and even mid-session, fling you into Google Play or Temu and blast loud music. Plenty of users uninstall over this alone.
The ads have become SO bad it is COMPLETELY unusable.
THE ADVERT IS NOT OPTIONAL AND POPS UP EVERY TIME ON LAUNCH. THE. ADVERTS. ARE. NOT. OPTIONAL. THERE. IS. NO. SETTING. TO. TURN. OFF. ADS. ON. LAUNCH.
The ads that fill the ENTIRE screen during a focus session, when you go to check your remaining time is distracting, requires you to actively stop and clear.
Strict mode fails sessions even when you never touched the phone
Sessions get marked FAILED after an hour of honest focus: just locking the screen or reopening the app to check the time is enough. An hour of work vanishes with no warning — the top reason people leave.
what do u mean I focused for an hour straight and when I visit the app it shows FAILED FOCUS SESSION
the strict function doesn't work. If i just turn off the phone it fails the focus session.
will tell me I've failed even when I haven't been on my phone, sometimes it doesn't even fail me when I do go off.
Crashes and freezes mid-session swallow all your progress
Since recent updates the app lags, freezes and crashes to an "oops" screen, logging two seconds instead of an hour. No reward is given and the session can't be recovered.
how many hour long or longer sessions lately that I've lost with just an "oops" screen that only logged 2 or 3 seconds of focus time.
It crashes after an hour of session and I get no rewards. THIS IS GOIN AS A SCAM.
It lags a lot and many times freezes.
Grinding plants distracts more than it helps you focus
Tending plants and collecting raindrops suck you in: people check the app instead of studying, and one plant needs hundreds of thousands of drops — an hour of labor. The game replaces the focus it promised.
for saying it gets you off your phone, it really sucks you into taking care of the plants on the app. It became something I was checking which is not what I needed.
I just want to study and enjoy my dumb plant game but I can't because I am stressed that I need 200000 raindrops to feed ONE.
the time I spent managing the rewards makes me harder to refocus again, so it failed its original purpose.
Paywall forces card details and a hidden subscription behind a "free" facade
The app looks free but it's a two-week trial leading into a pricey monthly subscription. It won't let you in without a card, there's no one-time buy, and the best features sit behind a recurring charge.
Is actually a subscription service. It's only a free trial for two weeks. Very misleading.
Won't even let me try the app out without handing over my payment info.
because there is no way to buy the app without having a recurring charge and the free version blocks the feedback loop that makes it the best app, 2 stars is the best I can give it.
No pause and blocked apps get in the way of actual studying
You can't pause the timer, and strict mode blocks even study-essential apps, PDFs, notes and the browser. Step away for a minute and the session is "quit" — leaving you feeling guilty.
You can't pause the timer.
I can't open another app (like notes and slides) while I study or else it'd pause
when I want to open pdf and study for my exam it's not allowing.
Overloaded UI with pushy pop-ups and phantom notifications overwhelms
Too many buttons, a long tutorial, endless "buy this" prompts and red notification badges that lead to nothing. For a focus app it's an overstimulating nightmare.
the ads for selling extra packs, pop ups and notifications all over the screen are way too overstimulating.
An overstimulating nightmare thay does the opposite of aid focus.
it constantly brings up multiple notification icons on different sections of the UI, so you click on the little red exclamation point and NOTHING'S THERE.
Breaks with no alarm and forced app re-opening break the Pomodoro rhythm
When a break ends there's no alarm, and to continue you must reopen the app — otherwise you lose track of time and the session falls apart. The Pomodoro loop breaks right at the seams.
it not alarm nor i could hear it when my 5 minutes break is over in my study session
Great but some features should be improved.. e.g while focusing it should block other apps or don't allow to leave the app... and pause should be also improved..
my break time starts and I use other apps but then I lose track of time because the app starts again and forgets basically and my focus session is ruined.