ftns.ai vs Focus Friend: A Fitness Habit Game Where Rest Isn’t a Miss vs a Focus Timer With a Sad Bean

This Focus Friend app review looks at Hank Green’s cozy focus timer: whether it is worth it, and whether something like it exists for exercise. Quick verdict: for a cute companion that keeps you on task while you study or work, Focus Friend fits the bill, and the core app is free. For a private game about showing up for your workouts, meals and sleep, where rest isn’t a miss and a missed day never costs you XP, ftns.ai, a fitness habit game, is the tool for that. Plenty of people could run both.

Apps that ask you to care for a character in return for keeping a habit are a whole genre now. We have set ftns.ai beside Finch, a self-care app built around a little pet bird you look after, sorted the genre in our care-loop apps map, and reviewed another focus timer with a living mascot, Forest. Focus Friend launched in 2025, so it gets its own honest look.

What is the Focus Friend app?

Focus Friend is a cozy focus timer for iPhone, iPad and Android, made by Hank Green with Honey B Games: your Bean focuses alongside you, and finished sessions earn prizes for decorating its room.

In its own words: “When you Focus, your Bean Friend will Focus.” While you work, your Bean knits, and a finished session pays out in socks you trade for decorations. Break timers let you decorate between sessions.

Extras include Bean skins (even a Hank and John Bean), a lock-screen Live Activity, widgets and reminders. Deep Focus Mode locks the apps you choose during a session. It works like a virtual pet habit app, except the habit is focus, not fitness.

Its site says it was “created by Hank Green and Honey B Games”, and the App Store lists B-Tech Consulting Group LLC as the seller.

Where Focus Friend shines

• It is charming: independent artists made the art and music.
• You can use it free. Focus Friend says it chose a subscription so the app could stay “Ad-free” and artist-supported, and that it doesn’t collect or sell personal data.
• It runs on iPhone, iPad and Android, with Deep Focus Mode on both iOS and Android.
• It is well liked: an App Store Editors’ Choice, rated about 4.8 there and 4.9 on Google Play at the time of writing.

What happens if you stop the timer early?

Your Bean gets sad. Focus Friend’s listing puts it plainly: “If you interrupt your Bean by turning off the timer, they’ll be really really sad.” That nudge is the point of the design.

For many people a sad Bean is exactly the gentle push they want; for some, a little guilt comes along with it.

A sad Bean makes sense for one session you’ve decided to protect. Exercise is a different kind of habit: you keep it for years, rest days belong in it, and some weeks simply go sideways. A companion that is let down each time you stop is one engine; one that just waits for you to come back is another.

Is Focus Friend free, and what does Pro add?

Yes. Focus Friend is free to download and use, with an optional paid Pro subscription and optional Bean items you can buy. Check your store for current prices.

Pro comes monthly, yearly or as a one-time lifetime option. Its FAQ names one perk: “Earn scarves by being a Focus Friend Pro subscriber/member. You earn them every time you complete a focus session!” Bean skins and Bean packs are separate, optional purchases. Prices are shown in the App Store or Google Play before you buy and may vary by country.

Is Focus Friend worth it?

Yes, when a cozy companion keeps you on task at your desk, and you can find out for free before deciding on Pro. For sticking with exercise, though, that is not the job it was made for.

Focus Friend is a focus timer, not advice; questions about your health are for a qualified health professional, not an app.

How ftns.ai approaches a fitness habit

ftns.ai is a fitness habit game for iPhone. The character is you, and the habit is your training, food and sleep.

Your twin, a living 3D avatar of you, reacts when you log and rebuilds weekly from what you tracked. It is not a body scan; see what a digital twin is. One Life Score, 0 to 100, is built from six categories, including training, recovery and sleep, and it can drop as well as climb.

You log meals, workouts, water, sleep or steps, or let Apple Health fill some in. Your coach builds a workout plan when you ask, from your goal, pace, equipment and the exercises you’ve ruled out. Offered, never imposed, it sits in the coach inbox until you add it. Your coach is a game feature, not a health professional.

Here is the flip: in ftns.ai, nobody is let down when you take a day off. XP never decreases. Ever. Missed days slow your progress and soften your twin, and that is the whole penalty.

Rest isn’t a miss either. As our post on whether it is okay to miss a day of working out puts it, rest days are not misses; they are part of the week. ftns.ai has streaks, and streak freezes cover the days life gets in the way. You set your own goal frequency, so if your week is four workouts, hitting four is a perfect week.

And it stays yours: no social feed, no friends list, no leaderboards. Here is why there is no social side.

Focus Friend and ftns.ai side by side

Focus Friend details from its official website and its US App Store and Google Play listings, checked 3 November 2026. Prices vary by country; check your store.

Which should you pick, and can you use both?

Pick Focus Friend if staying on task is your problem. Pick ftns.ai if showing up for exercise is your problem. If it’s both, use both: Focus Friend for focus sessions, ftns.ai for your fitness habit.

• Pick Focus Friend if you want a companion while you study or work, you love decorating, you’re on Android or iPad, or you want something free.
• Pick ftns.ai if the habit you care about is exercise, you want rest to be part of the plan, not a miss, or you want food, sleep and recovery to count beside your workouts.
• Use both: run Focus Friend for the hour at your desk and ftns.ai for the routine you hope to keep for years. The two don’t connect to each other.

A Focus Friend alternative for exercise, not focus

If you want a Focus Friend alternative, or apps like Focus Friend, for exercise rather than focus, ftns.ai is a private fitness habit game where rest isn’t a miss and XP never goes down.

Curious? Try ftns.ai on iPhone. It is a paid iPhone membership, free for 7 days, then $14.99/mo or $167.99/yr, so you can see whether the habit sticks before you pay. For another companion app compared with ftns.ai, see ftns.ai vs Finch.

One app has a Bean who’s sad when you stop. The other is just glad you came back.