StarJar

Started as Chore Lock, an Android TV app that ran on the actual televisions in my actual house: chores gated the screen, with per-app time limits and a phone remote to lock or unlock any TV in one tap. That app is still in here, unchanged, but it's not the whole picture anymore — it needed a better brain, so I built one.

A kid taps their face on the tablet and sees today's chores as big picture cards. They finish one and send proof — a photo, a video, a voice note, or just a tap if it doesn't need proof. You approve it from your phone, or send it back with a note in your own voice, and the stars land in their jar.

Stars buy things you decide on: twenty minutes of TV, ice cream, the trampoline park, a dollar. There are also challenges — a book report, a mile run, scripture study — worth stars or actual money, and you can build the form or quiz they answer to prove it.

The chores can come from wherever you already keep them: Skylight, Google Tasks, any calendar feed, a pasted list, or StarJar itself. It publishes a calendar feed back out, so the chores show up on the wall calendar too.

The TV is now gated on whether the chores actually got done, with a reward that can unlock it automatically — the same lock, now with proof behind it.

Teach the thing I actually care about — responsibilities first, then screens — without me being the one who has to enforce it every single evening.

Then grow past chores into habits, skills and the kind of challenges that are worth doing at 8 and still worth doing at 16.