Best Child Phone Monitoring App
This app, which has been featured on Today, CNN, and Good Morning America, allows you to watch live video feeds from any room in your home with a mobile device. To be monitored, each room needs to have constantly running computers with webcams and the app's compatible software installed. The app developer's website has full instructions (skjm.com/icam/support.php) and a very short list of cameras that are not supported. You can make a donation via in-app purchasing to help reduce the company's server costs. ($4.99; IOS, Android)
Whether or not your little one has a known food allergy, this app allows you to search for various unhealthy food additives. The free version contains information about 50 nasty additives, but a full app version with a list of 450-plus additives is available for $3.99. The list of additives can be sorted by name, risk level, symptoms, and diet (for example, gluten-free). The database is stored on your phone for easy access, even when you can't go online. (Free; IOS)
Sit down and talk with your child to find out what they understand about internet etiquette, privacy, security, cyberbullying, malicious websites, sexual content and time management. This is a lot to digest in a single conversation, so don’t try to talk about it all at once or run through it like a lecture or presentation. When your child is mature enough to understand on their own why good smartphone habits matter, it’s much easier to trust them with such a powerful and beneficial tool.
Time limits, too, are easy to institute, whether it's a limit on how long kids can use their Android phones or how much time they can spend on apps that you slap with a Fun & Games label. However, that time limit applies to all Fun & Games apps — you can't place different limits on different apps. ESET is particularly strong when it comes to letting you quickly review and approve which apps are installed on your child's phone.
That said, Mobile Spy has robust location-tracking and geofencing features. You can receive alerts whenever the device goes past a distance you've set or if the device is used in the vicinity of locations you specify. To take advantage of those features, though, you'll need to contend with a difficult installation process — easily the most frustrating among the services I tested.
FreeTime Unlimited has common parental control features, including time limits, web content filters, and app restrictions. However, it also has a few unique features such as an extensive library of kid-friendly books, videos, games, audiobooks, apps, and educational content. In addition, FreeTime Unlimited works on Amazon Echo and Kindle devices. Despite its primary focus on Amazon devices, FreeTime Unlimited also works with Android and Apple devices.
If your worried and concerned about your kid's internet usage, PhoneSheriff can help you with tracking and protecting your Kid's online presence. It is easy to install and creates a secure account for you where you can watch what your kid has been doing on the internet. PhoneSheriff has been the Gold Award winner of 2015 due to its excellent customer feedback.