While there are a plethora of utilities out there, including the built-in ones on some smartphones, which help users keep their screen time under check and better utilize the time, not every single one of them serves the needs of most of us. Talking about kids, in particular, when it comes to keeping track of their screen time, there isn’t much granular control, let alone functionalities, available on most screen time apps to help parents better manage and protect their child on/from the internet/smartphone addiction. And this is exactly where the FamiSafe parental control app comes into the picture, with its entire suite of essential parental control utilities. So what exactly is FamiSafe, and why we think it is a must-have app for parents? Let’s dive in find out.
Screen Time
First things first, let’s start with addressing what screen time is, and how it is one of the essential metrics of one’s smartphone addiction. Simply put, screen time is the amount of time that an individual spends on a device with a screen, be it a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or even a gaming console. The thing that is a focal point of concern with excessive screen time is the exposure to blue light. Blue light, for the uninitiated, is known to have various side effects on an individual. It is one of the reasons that disrupts the circadian cycle of a lot of people, which consequently, disturbs their day-to-day activities.
Not just that, the adverse effects of excessive screen time extend beyond the circadian cycle. Studies have, over the years, shown that spending a large part of your day in front of screens — irrespective of what you do it for — can affect both your physical and mental health. And the worst to get affected by this are the kids, who are said to attract negative cognitive outcomes upon excessive exposure to technology (smartphones and the internet). So, if you have been bothered with such concerns, here’s how FamiSafe aims to offer a solution.
What is FamiSafe?
FamiSafe is a parental control app. It comes from Wondershare — the makers of popular software and apps like Dr Fone, PDFelement, and Filmora Video Editor. The app is essentially a suite of different utilities to give parents better control over their child’s screen time and their access to web content. In addition to just being a screen time app, FamiSafe also gives parents the ability to know the whereabouts of their child and keep them protected from online dangers.
What does FamiSafe offer?
The entire utility suite of FamiSafe is classified broadly into three categories: Control, Track, and Detect.
- Control: offers parents the ability to control the screen time limit on their kids’ devices to control the time they spend on smartphones, and in turn, help them built good digital habits.
- Track: gives parents the superpower to know the whereabouts of their little ones — where they go and where they have been via location tracking.
- Detect: puts parents in the front seat to protect their kids from potential online dangers that exist on the web.
Wondershare FamiSafe Features
1. Activity Report
It gives parents the ability to track the daily activities of their kids’ devices. For instance, they can monitor their kids’ devices to know the recently installed or deleted apps, most-used apps, as well as the amount of time the kids spend on these apps. And the best part is, parents can monitor these details remotely, and no longer need to check their kids’ phone every day.
2. Location Tracking
One of the most useful features of FamiSafe is location tracking. As its name suggests, the feature allows parents to track the location of their kids. FamiSafe offers both real-time location and location history timeline, so you can know the location of the kid in real-time or have the entire timeline of the locations they visited in the day. Furthermore, the app also gives instant location alerts using geofences. A geofence is a border set by parents around specific locations, such as school or home. So, if the kid crosses the defined geofence, the parents are instantly notified of the same.
3. App Blocker
In addition to viewing an activity report for all the details around your kid’s daily phone usage, FamiSafe also makes it possible for you to take authoritative actions. For instance, you can block certain apps, limit app usage time for offensive apps, and even restrict certain app categories like social media and entertainment. Not just that, the app also sends instant warnings to parents when their kid tries to access blocked apps.
4. Screen Time Schedule
Alongside the ability to block apps and keep track of kids’ phone usage, parents can also schedule screen time for their kids remotely and cut down on their phone addiction. What’s more, FamiSafe takes it one step further and gives parents the ability to temporarily block their kids’ devices and have them focus better on other activities. And it also provides insights into how much time kids spend on their phone on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
5. Website Filter
To further limit your kids’ access to the web and create a better environment for them, FileSafe adds to the feature set with the website filter functionality. With the help of which, you, as a parent, can filter websites by categories and block the ones you feel unfit. Besides, you can also whitelist certain websites, which the kids can access freely. In addition to blocking/whitelisting, FamiSage also allows you to view the kids’ browsing history even after they delete it from their phone.
6. Delete Suspicious Photos
With this feature, parents can track the photo gallery on their kids’ phone for inappropriate media downloaded from the web or social media apps. In case any questionable media lands on to the kids’ phone, the parent’s will instantly receive an alert and the detected photos will be directly forwarded to their device.
Other Features
Besides the essential set of features listed above, there are a few more highlighting features of the FamiSafe you must know about. These include:
- Multi-device support – to be able to use FamiSafe, you require a subscription plan. With a single FamiSafe account, you can protect up to 30 devices with the annual plan; 10 devices with the quarterly plan; 5 devices with the monthly plan.
- Security and privacy – the app suggests it uses the RSA public-key RSA cryptosystem for data transmission to keep the personal data of the users private and secure.
- Customer support – FamiSafe offers customer support for all user queries and suggests a maximum turnaround time of 24 hours after a ticket is generated.
- Machine learning models – the Wondershare FamiSafe app incorporates the TensorFlow Lite framework to detect suspicious pictures and protect user privacy.
Pricing and Availability
Wondershre FamiSafe offers three subscription plans: i. Monthly – $9.99 per month; up to 5 devices per account ii. Quarterly – $6.66 per month; up to 10 devices per account iii. Annual – $4.99 per month; up to 30 devices per account FamiSafe also runs a 7-day moneyback policy, which, in case you are not satisfied with the service, gives you an option to apply for a refund against your subscription. Talking about availability, FamiSafe is available across all the major platforms. You can use it for Android and iOS, on the mobile side of things, and Mac or Windows, on the PC side. Moreover, you can also use the app on Kindle Fire devices. Depending on what platform you use, some of the features get added or subtracted from the overall offerings.
Conclusion
Given that smartphones are becoming one of the basic necessity these days. And for the most part, they do more good than they do wrong — granted the intended use case is legitimate — handing over a device that has access to practically the entire web to a kid is not the wisest thing to do. Especially in today’s day and age, where misinformation and questionable content so readily creeps onto the mainstream internet, it is more important now than ever before to keep the smartphone activity of your kid under check.
And the Wondershare FamiSafe helps you do just that, with an entire suite of utilities that help you all the way into monitoring your kids’ phone usage — from viewing their activity reports to setting screen time and limiting their access to apps and content, to deleting suspicious content that random appears on their phone, to keeping a tab on where they are (or have been) through the day. So, if you are a parent and your kid has their own mobile phone, you must definitely check out the FamiSafe app from Wondershare to better monitor and control your kids’ phone usage and screen time habits and have a piece of mind.
