High Engagement Activities

Learn how to set up high engagement activities so LookAway knows when you're in the zone.

LookAway intelligently detects when you're engaged in certain activities and postpones break reminders to prevent interruptions. This ensures that breaks appear at the right time—without disrupting important tasks.

Work mode settings in LookAway Settings

Meetings & Calls

LookAway can detect active meetings and postpone breaks until your call is over.

  • Uses camera or microphone activity to detect meetings.
  • Supports customization for specific devices (e.g., external webcams, microphones).
  • Works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and other video conferencing apps.

Customizing Meeting Detection

Meeting Detection options in LookAway Settings
  1. Click Options next to "Meetings or calls" in High Engagement Activities settings.
  2. Choose whether to detect meetings based on Camera usage or Microphone activity.
  3. Select the specific devices (e.g., external webcam, iPhone as a webcam, USB microphones).

Video Playback

LookAway can detect when you're watching a video and pause breaks until playback stops.

  • Works with apps like YouTube, VLC, QuickTime, Netflix, etc.
  • You can choose to pause breaks only when the video player is in the foreground or even when it's in the background.

Customizing Video Playback Detection

  1. Select "Video playback" under High Engagement Activities.
  2. Choose one of the following options:
    • Only when frontmost – Pauses breaks only if the video player is active and visible.
    • Even in background – Pauses breaks even if you're just listening to a video in the background.

Deep Focus Apps

Some apps require uninterrupted focus, so LookAway lets you add custom apps where breaks should be postponed.

  • Useful for presentation tools (e.g., Keynote, PowerPoint), coding environments, or creative software.
  • Supports foreground-only or fullscreen mode detection.

Adding Deep Focus Apps

Deep Focus Apps options in LookAway Settings
  1. Click Choose Apps... next to "Deep Focus Apps" in settings.
  2. Click Add an App and select the app you want to exclude from break reminders.
  3. Choose one of the following modes:
    • When in Foreground & Fullscreen – Pauses breaks if the app is in fullscreen mode.
    • When in Foreground – Pauses breaks only if the app is currently active.
    • When Open – Pauses breaks when the app is open regardless of whether its active or not.

Fullscreen Gaming

LookAway can detect when a game is running in fullscreen mode and automatically pause breaks.

  • Prevents interruptions during gaming sessions.
  • No manual configuration needed—detection happens automatically.

Screen Recording & Sharing (Beta)

If you're sharing your screen or recording, LookAway can pause breaks to prevent pop-ups from appearing.

  • Helps avoid distractions while presenting or recording a tutorial.
  • Automatically detects screen recording apps like OBS Studio, QuickTime, Zoom screen sharing, etc.

Break Delay After Activity Ends

If a break is due but you just finished a high-engagement activity, LookAway can delay the break by a set amount of time.

Customizing Break Delay

  1. Scroll to "Break delay after activity ends" in settings.
  2. Set the delay time (e.g., 1, 2, or 5 minutes).

Summary

LookAway’s High Engagement Activities feature ensures that breaks only happen at the right time. You can:

  1. Automatically pause breaks during meetings, video playback, gaming, and screen sharing.
  2. Customize detection based on camera/microphone usage, app foreground status, or fullscreen mode.
  3. Set a break delay so breaks don’t trigger immediately after an important task.