Famisafe: Get advanced parental controls with active location monitoring and activity alerts
Mobile devices are more than communication devices and as such, a mobile device is not just something you need for work or academic use. They’re tools that can help users learn a new language, stay safe, find help when they need it, and of course, entertain themselves. A mobile device is something plenty of children use and that’s normally where it gets complicated. In a child’s hand, a mobile device can be exceptionally useful for parents, or it can be dangerous for children. Most mobile devices, whether they run iOS or Android, have some form of restrictions that can be applied to limit how a child uses a device. They do still fall short of allowing parents to monitor a child’s device.
Parental controls for mobile devices
Parental controls for mobile devices allow a device, the parents’, to be connected to another device, the child’s. This connection is normally established through an app that’s installed on both devices with the parent device able to view content, and receive other information e.g., location data, from the child device.
Because these devices are connected and able to send and receive information between them over an exclusive connection, it allows far better control over what the child device is used for. It also means the device can passively serve as a tool to know when your child leaves school, arrives home, is running late, or is somewhere they shouldn’t be. To that end, you need a parental control app that supports location tracking, as well as geo-fencing. There’s no shortage of them but Famisafe stands out.
Famisafe: A reliable parent control app
Famisafe is a parental control app that’s available for both Android and iOS devices. It offers active location monitoring with geo-fenced alerts, control over which apps are installed on a child’s device, which websites can be visited, and block inappropriate apps. In addition to keeping kids safe, the app also allows parents to restrict how often a child uses their device, set a device usage schedule, and also detect if a child is receiving inappropriate or potentially dangerous text messages.
Famisafe lets you add multiple devices to a single parent account allowing you to use a single app and account to monitor multiple devices.
Location tracking
With Famisafe, parents can add several locations that are ‘safe’, and these locations can all be geo-fenced. Geo-fencing creates a smart, location based alert that tells you when a child arrives or leaves a location. You can add as many locations as you want for a device and also view a child’s current location. In addition to reporting location, the app can tell you if the monitored device is charged and how much battery it has.
App restrictions
App restrictions are available for Android devices and they allow you to add any app to the restricted list. These apps can not be installed from the Google Play store. For apps that you do allow on a child’s, you set limits on how long a particular app can be used and get a report of which apps your child uses the most.
Content blocking
Famisafe offers several different ways to block and monitor content on a child’s device. It can block any domain that you enter, and it has special content restrictions that can be applied to YouTube content. It can also keep an eye on the photos that are saved to a device and alert you if they contain nudity.
Additionally, the app can monitor messaging apps such as the SMS/MMS app on your child’s device, and other messengers such as Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. Lastly, it allows you to connect social media accounts for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others to keep a check on what kind of content a child is interacting with.
Device usage restrictions
Device restrictions allow parents to limit when a child can use the device. The restrictions will lock the device when the allotted time has been used up.
There’s also a smart schedule feature that lets you set school, study, and play times. You can then use times to set restrictions on device usage for those particular periods.
Pricing
Famisafe is a service and as such, you need to purchase a subscription for it. All subscriptions allow you to add as many devices to it as you need. The different pricing plans that are available allow you to manage your subscription according to your budget. Annual and quarterly plans offer the service at a much cheaper per-month rate while the monthly plan costs more.
Note: AddictiveTips readers get a 20% discount with Coupon code SENFSOFF from the prices below.
Limitations
Famisafe covers all the bases when it comes to providing a comprehensive tool to parents for keeping a child safe however, it has limitations on iOS device. These limitations are a direct result of how iOS is built. There are certain components of the OS that lock other apps from managing it hence, web restrictions can only be applied to Safari, and apps cannot be blocked. iOS does have its own parental control features and they can fill in some of these gaps.
How it works
Famisafe requires that you install the app on both your own device, and each device that you want to monitor. The devices are then connected via the parent phone. Restrictions on the device are applied from a parent’s device however, some settings do have to be managed on the child’s device. These include giving the app access to location data, as well as Accessibility access in case of Android devices. All this requires is enabling a few switches in the Settings app and Famisafe guides you through the process.
Set-up is simple requiring little more than knowledge on how to download and install apps from the App Store or the Google Play store. To keep a child from making modifications to the restrictions, a PIN can be set up to lock the access to the app.
Famisafe not only gives parents a simple, intuitive way to monitor a child’s device, it also makes it simple to set everything up. You won’t find yourself struggling with complicated settings on the device to get the app and its features to work. Likewise, making modifications is easy as is adding restrictions or flexibility to how your child uses their device.