FamilyTime Premium - Review 2022

Parental control software exists for adept reason. Kids might accidentally or deliberately visit inappropriate websites. They might stay on their devices for too long or at the wrong time. Maybe your child is texting sketchy individuals. Tokyo-based FamilyTime recognizes the perils that mod smartphones pose to your kids. Its dedicated parental command app for Android and iOS offers ways to prevent and monitor about of these behaviors, just its high cost and inconsistent features hold it dorsum. Notation, too, that information technology's a mobile-merely solution: If your kids use Macs or PCs, you need to find a separate solution for those systems.

Pricing

FamilyTime pricing plans are based on the number of devices covered. I license goes for $27 per twelvemonth, while $35 per year is good for ii licenses. Or you could become all out and spend $69 per year for five. Yous tin can apply your licenses to any combination of Android and iOS devices, just there'southward no install limit on the parental app. Note that the complimentary trial but lasts three days.

Compared with some of its competitors, FamilyTime is a bit pricey. Qustodio Parental Command has a like five-license limit, simply its yearly subscription is just $44.95. A $49.99 subscription to Norton Family doesn't impose whatever limits on child profiles or the number of devices. Kaspersky Safe Kids merely costs $14.99 per twelvemonth and besides doesn't impose license limits. All 3 of those services also feature at least desktop monitoring components, which FamilyTime does not. The argument could be made that Usa kids these days mostly use smartphones (and that'south even more than true in Nippon, where this software is made) but it's all the same a significant pigsty in FamilyTime'southward offering. Note, too, that FamilyTime assumes each kid has exactly one device. About of the competing products permit yous define a child profile and associate it with multiple devices or user accounts.

Getting Started With FamilyTime

There are ii FamilyTime Apps on the Google Play Store, one for parents and one for children. For this review, we installed FamilyTime on a Google Pixel (parent) and Nexus 5X (child) both running Android 8.0. We also prepare up monitoring on an iPhone 8 running iOS eleven. Other services, such equally Boomerang and Qustodio only have 1 app, and you switch between child and parent profiles. We prefer the more streamlined arroyo of these services. Unless otherwise noted, this review focuses on our experience with FamilyTime on Android, but there's a section afterward on that details our feel with the iPhone app.

The setup process varies for the child and parent app. It'due south simple to configure the parent app; just log in to your FamilyTime business relationship. To set up a kid device, y'all need to enter basic information such as name, engagement of birth, and relation (son or daughter). Next, click the Activate Device push and enable the various permissions. On an iPhone, the process is mostly the same, but yous need to install a mobile device management, or MDM, contour for monitoring to work correctly. If the child disables any of these permissions, the product won't be fully functional, simply that's par for the course.

More than concerning, yet, is that a child can easily uninstall the software at volition. We advise parents to talk over the importance of using their phone or tablet safely, so your child doesn't immediately uninstall the app. Make sure to also remove any guest accounts on your child's smartphone, since FamilyTime's settings do not apply to these profiles. If your child or anyone else disables FamilyTime, the company sends y'all a alert email.

Design and Web Interface

FamilyTime uses Material Design sliders pretty much everywhere in its apps and on the spider web. Although it looks sleek and consistent, the one downside is that there's lots of whitespace and long lists of options that yous need to scroll through. Occasionally, it is also difficult to make up one's mind what is really clickable. That said, nosotros practise capeesh the colorful accents.

The spider web panel's default page (My Family) shows all the hardware linked to your account along with their associated Reports, Settings, and Lock options. The FamilyMap icon lives in the upper right corner; this shows the location of all of your monitored children on a map. From the side menu, you lot tin change your account settings and access billing options.

You need to select one of the devices from the My Family tab before you can start diving into specific restrictions. The left-hand carte du jour gives you the option to view any number of reports, including location history, text messaging, and app usage. In the center of the console, options are cleaved down into 2 master sections, Family unit Watch and Family Care, distinctions that seem arbitrary.

Parent App

FamilyTime is mobile-axial, so information technology merely makes sense that the parent app offers the same capabilities every bit the spider web interface, forth with a few extras. For case, the Bookmarks, Cyberspace, and Daily Limit toggle simply exist on mobile for some reason. Some of the aforementioned functions and headers on mobile have unlike names than the desktop counterparts as well, which makes the production experience unpolished. For case, instead of the Lock Device choice, there is a Pause button. Besides, the default page is called MyKids instead of My Family.

To manage restrictions, you need to click on the Settings option for a particular child; there's no way to specify policies broadly across multiple children. FamilyTime organizes options into the same two categories, FamilyWatch (Apps, Bookmarks, Calls, Contacts, Locations, Net, and Texts) and FamilyCare (App blocker, Contact Watchlist, Daily Limit, Limit Screen Time, FunTime, and Places). Note the lack of a space in the FamilyWatch header, as compared to its desktop counterpart. You lot tin also toggle what notifications you receive, set a passcode, and view/edit device information and status. One oddity is that you lot tin can disable notifications for both SOS and PickMeUp Alerts (more than on this afterwards), which defeats the purpose of having these emergency condom tools in the beginning identify.

From the subconscious left-paw card, you tin access more notification options, modify basic account settings, and submit a ticket to the FamilyTime helpdesk team. In the bottom right-manus corner, the star icon lets you leap into a live chat support or add another phone or tablet for monitoring. The FamilyMap feature besides appears on the mobile app. Our biggest annoyance with the app is that the back button does not work consistently; sometimes information technology sends you dorsum to the master page, other times yous only go dorsum ane screen. The app performance also lags from time to time.

Kid Dashboard

The child app deviates from the cloth design of the parental app and uses a dashboard interface instead. There are four options for the child: PickMeUp, Profile, SOS and Timebank. That's pretty much it for the child app, assuming your child doesn't accept an interest in reading back up documentation.

Did you lot forget to pick upwardly your child from band exercise? Maybe you accidentally stranded them at a mall. Whatsoever the situation, FamilyTime can help your child get in touch with you by tapping the PickMeUp button. Parents receive an alert in the parental dashboard, including the child'south location. You tin tap one of two buttons, "OK, Coming!" or "Sorry, I Can't!" to send a quick response. The notification itself doesn't include the precise location, but when you open it in the parental app you lot tin see it on a map. You can besides see when the request was sent and send the kid a follow-up bulletin.

Borer SOS sends the parent a similar notification. On the child's app, it advises staying at-home and staying put. The just preset response on the parental app is "Got it, on my fashion!" It shows you the same location, time, and messaging options as with the PickMeUp option. This is similar to Qustodio'due south Panic button, which emails a notification to every bit many as four trusted contacts.

At that place's one more pick, TimeBank, which shows a child how much allotted fourth dimension they have left to use in FunTime (more than on that later). This feature requires initial setup by a parent.

Time Restrictions

FamilyTime lets you lot control screen fourth dimension in two main ways, using either the Daily Limit or Limit Screen Time options. Daily limit works equally expected; simply drag the circular slider to whatever corporeality of time you desire your child to be able to spend using a device. You tin specify which apps the limit applies to, and set it to automatically limit new apps.

Limit Screen Time lets you lot schedule times when device employ is forbidden. Earlier you access the Limit Screen Time settings, FamilyTime requires you to fix a Pin. By default, it organizes rules by Bedtime, Dinnertime, and Homework categories, though y'all can gear up up your own custom time dominion set as well. You can accommodate the start and end times for each section, also as what days of the week it applies.

On a more ad hoc basis, y'all tin go back to the parental app's main page and simply click Pause for any associated device. When Pause is enabled, FamilyTime's lock screen takes over, advising the child to do something else for a while. SOS and Selection Me Upwards are even so available, never fear. Merely unlocking requires that PIN you created. You can also unlock the phone remotely through the dashboard from the parent app.

FunTime is a unique feature in that it lets kids use apps and games without restrictions for a specified period of time, which is presumably useful for weekends. Children tin can earn FunTime past saving up allotted time from during the week. We like this feature, since it gives kids a bit of command over their usage.

App Blocker and Communication

Like nigh competing products, FamilyTime can cake your kids from any apps you lot consider inappropriate. To go started, y'all tap App Blocker in settings, and and so use a toggle to select the apps you lot want to block. All the apps announced in a list on the screen in alphabetical order, but there isn't a way to search for a specific app. When we did manage to blacklist some apps, the feature worked every bit promised. It notifies the kid that the app was blocked and sends a notification to the parental app.

It can also log all your child's phone calls and messages on Android. It doesn't only catch incoming communications; it shows the entire history going back as far as the phone does. This is disconcerting, but it is an effective fashion for parents to do get a total picture of their child's communications. Still, you cannot cake contacts direct from this list, nor tin can y'all view whatever MMS content or grouping messages. Boomerang provides similar functionality, but it is limited to those messages that come in later it is installed.

FamilyTime doesn't effort to block contacts; the contact list is a watchlist, not a blacklist. If your child texts or receives a text from a contact on the watchlist, the app sends you a notification. Oddly, it did not send a notification when we called the same blocked contact that we texted. Other parental control systems take more than control over your children'south communications. wITH Norton Family Premier, for example, y'all tin can specify for which contacts it monitors and logs conversations. Proceed in mind that, if in that location aren't any stored contacts, this choice will manifestly be unavailable.

Places and Geofencing

FamilyTime can runway everywhere your child goes. If you wish, you can define any number of geofences and enable notifications when the child enters or leaves 1 of these areas. Boomerang lets you define a identify for geofencing by drawing a virtual boundary of any shape effectually an area. FamilyTime'due south method is a bit different; you move the map until the stationary pointer is in the right identify. And rather than freely defining the boundary size, you choose between 150M, 300M, 500M, or 1KM circles.

Afterward we gear up a geofence around our office, FamilyTime reliably sent out a notification when Ben arrived and left each mean solar day. Alternatively, you tin check your child's current location history from time to time by just checking the Reports section (explained below). Locategy also offers geofencing, simply reports even more incremental positioning data.

Express Reports

Borer Reports on a kid's contour takes you to a confusing plethora of choices. Initially, it but shows your child's location history for the by day. Places History is a split up listing of geofencing events—times when your child entered or left a defined geofence area. The App Usage section shows y'all how much fourth dimension your child spent in total on a device for any given day and the corporeality of time spend on each app. However, it doesn't include detailed app launch details like Locategy does.

Additionally, this is where you tin admission Text and Call History. Other items on the carte du jour aren't really reports at all. Rather, they duplicate choices from Settings. Tapping Contacts, for case, gets yous the aforementioned list as in the Contact Watchlist section, merely yous cannot edit it here. The Installed Apps department, similarly shows a list of all the apps, without the ability to block them.

FamilyTime for iOS

FamilyTime offers split up child and parent apps on the App store . The apps are virtually identical design-wise to their Android counterparts but benefit from iOS's stricter design principles and more stable functioning. It's easier to read options distinguish individual icons than on Android.

Some features are missing on iOS, yet. About notably absent are telephone call and text message monitoring. You besides cannot cake apps in the same manner, either. FamilyTime does allow you disable Safari, the camera app, and Siri, but those are the only apps you tin block on an private ground. Autonomously from that, you tin restrict access to the iTunes store, prevent a child from installing apps, disable in-app purchases, or cake all App Shop apps. Other missing capabilities include the Daily Time Limit department, the Fun Fourth dimension adequacy, and the ability to remotely lock the device.

However, the iOS version does take a few features that don't appear on Android. The Content Filters section, for example, lets yous set historic period restrictions for Movies, Television receiver programs, and apps. You tin can also block explicit content in iTunes or erotica in iBooks. There's also a unique Speed Limit characteristic, which notifies y'all if your child breaches a certain speed limit that yous define (in KPH). The reports section lacks Android'southward text, call, and app usage sections. While these omissions don't ruin it, they certainly hinder its utility.

What's Missing

FamilyTime's biggest shortcoming is its inability to filter web content. Web tracking is also extremely limited, and this is but supported on Android 5.0 and below, so we could not even test it. Both of these are major shortcomings and are disappointing limitations for a mod parental control app. Still, it is worth noting that FamilyTime plans to add content filtering in the future and that this characteristic worked in previous versions of the software.

FamilyTime also lacks any sort of social media monitoring or video tracking capabilities. Many kids use their devices for those purposes, and both are potential portals to explicit content or dangerous contacts. Although yous could just block these apps entirely, this heavy-handed approach could steer your kids towards the uninstall option. Norton and Qustodio offer a better tracking approach that lets you monitor activity closely, without completely shutting down admission.

An Inconsistent Approach

In the mobile era, parental monitoring includes keeping runway of your kids' location, in add-on to what apps they apply and who they contact. FamilyTime is strong in that regard, just information technology is expensive and does not currently filter web content. In testing, we also found that some capabilities don't work every bit expected. When FamilyTime works out the kinks and adds web browsing protections (non to mention PC and Mac apps), it could become a more viable option. For now, though, Qustodio remains our Editors' Choice for the parental control category.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/familytime-premium-for-android/19350/familytime-premium

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