Why it matters
More people sit at desks than ever. It is getting worse.
The shift is structural.
64% of the U.S. workforce is now in sedentary or light-duty roles. Remote and hybrid work, now the norm for 80% of desk-capable workers, moved the commute, the coffee run, and the walk to the meeting room onto your screen too.
BLS, 2025 · Gallup, 2025
AI added screens, not freedom.
The tools got smarter. The workday didn't get shorter. People spend more time at their desks than a year ago, not less. The breaks that used to happen naturally between tasks are disappearing into faster context-switching.
ActivTrak, 2025 · Microsoft, 2025
Your body is keeping score.
81% of office workers now report musculoskeletal pain. Lower back, neck, shoulders, in that order. Low back pain alone affects 619 million people worldwide. It is the leading cause of disability on earth.
Scientific Reports, 2025 · The Lancet, 2023
A day with Pebl
Not just “take a break.” A whole companion.
9:42 AM
You’re on the morning stand-up. Pebl sees Zoom in the frontmost window and goes completely silent. No nudges, no notifications, nothing. When the call ends, it starts watching again for a natural pause.
Team standup
3 participants · 00:12:34
Shoulder roll?
You've been at this for 52 minutes.
1:18 PM
You’ve been heads-down for almost an hour. A small note slides into the corner. Look away for twenty seconds. You do, or you don’t. Either way, Pebl adjusts for next time.
Look away for 20 seconds.
Your eyes have been on screen for 40 minutes.
6:38 PM
You close your laptop. The orb dims to a cool indigo and leaves one line on the screen: see you tomorrow. No streak to protect. Just an end to the day.
See you tomorrow.
How it works
Three mechanisms. Fully local.
Mechanism 01
Detection
Pebl polls the frontmost application every three seconds. If it sees Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, Discord, Webex, or any of 8 other meeting apps, all nudges suppress automatically. Same for any fullscreen process. There is nothing to configure.
Mechanism 02
Adaptation
Every nudge you accept or dismiss is recorded in a local SQLite file. After roughly a week, Pebl down-ranks the suggestions you never take and surfaces the ones you do. None of it leaves your Mac.
Mechanism 03
Transparency
Every nudge carries a small “Why now?” link. Tap it and Pebl shows you the four numbers it used to decide: time at desk, your interval setting, meeting state, and a pause score. The same readout, every time.
macOS 12+ · Free · No account needed
Download free for Mac.
No account needed.
Prefer a direct download? GitHub releases ↗
Don’t like it? Drag to Trash. No account to cancel.
One more thing
Pebl is free, open source, and runs entirely on your Mac. No account, no cloud, no telemetry. If it helps you rest, keep it. If it doesn’t, drag it to the Trash.