Child Device Monitoring App
Most kids are on mobile devices at least some of the time, and many are almost exclusively accessing the internet on their phones. Fortunately, many parental control services offer a companion app that lets you view your child's activity, set basic rules, and view notifications as they arrive—NetNanny is a particularly noteworthy example. This kind of companion app is particularly useful for responding to access or time-extension requests on the go. Otherwise, you manage everything online, where you have fine control over activity reports and restrictions. Any changes you make should propagate to your children's devices when they connect to the internet.
Bottom Line: OpenDNS Home VIP applies parental control and monitoring at the network level, for all your devices, and its essential features are available for free. Consider using it in conjunction with a more conventional parental monitoring tool.
In order to make an informed choice for your own family, check out our full reviews of these parental control solutions. If you have any suggestions for software to try or just want to sound off about a particularly positive or negative experience, please add your comments and join the discussion.
What an amazing review. We just circulated this around the office for the whole team to see, it's feedback like this that keeps our team working hard day in and day out. Thank you so much for your honest take on OurPact, and genuine appreciation! This certainly is a challenging space, but we do our best to keep the app as simple and user-friendly as possible. We're so, so happy that we have helped you and your family balance tech. Thank YOU for your support, and for joining us in our mission to keep screens in their place. ;) (Also - PS - We have your mentioned features in our request log already, but we will add these notes as tallies!)
Pros: Online configuration and management. Can apply child profiles to multiple devices and user accounts. Powerful content filter. Weekly Internet schedule. App control on Android. Available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Kindle and Nook.
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)
I went ahead and gave it 5 stars anyway. I am an iOS developer myself, and I know the incredible amount of thought and work that goes into creating something like this. I have read some of the other reviews and I have to say that most of the negative reviews are just silly. Of course you need an internet connection. How else is the device going to receive commands. Of course the installation is involved. Honestly though, the installation took me less than 5 minutes - and wasn’t difficult at all. I can understand that some people may get confused - but honestly - you must realize what the developers at Our Pact have created is no easy feat. We have tried just about every parental control app available all to our dissatisfaction. Our Pact accomplishes 95% of what we were looking for. Having said that, the reason this review is entitled “Almost Perfect” is because there is one thing this app is missing. That is the monitoring of which web sites the child goes to as well as the monitoring of text messages and whatnot. However, the reason I gave this app 5 stars is due to the fact that this app’s purpose isn’t to monitor, but rather to teach children good device habits and accountability as well as personal responsibility. Well done! Thank you for all of your effort and hard work!