Screen Time Parental Control Review - Pros, Cons and Alternative

Parenting goes through various crucial phases of responsibilities which includes keeping a check on the inclination of their young ones towards the technical gadgets. Nowadays people spend a lot of time on their smartphones, hence, it is not wise to let your child get into the cluster. It is extremely important to know how much time they spend on their smartphones. In other words, you should be aware of their screen-time usage on these devices, by managing their mobile devices remotely. Therefore you need to move towards an app like Screen Time Parental Control. These apps are designed to keep a tab on the excessive use of mobile or tablets.

So, without waiting too much, let us get to know about this versatile parental control app and also take a sneak peek into its best alternative in the market.

Screen Time Parental Control

Screen Time Parental Control is a carefully built parental control app to assist parents to manage their kid's phone device in order to check their usage. The app can help parents perform various tasks such as limiting the time for usage or fix a number of hours, which if crossed, a notification is sent to the parent and it will also lock the children's device. With Screen Time Parental Control, you can figure out how long the kids spend on their cell phones. One good thing about this app is that the children cannot change any settings or uninstall the app, as they will be prompted to provide the password set by the parent.

It also has some great additional features, like:

Allow and Block apps

You can allow and block apps that are not suitable for them or which may cost you money.

Set Time Limits

Since you can view the app usage, you thus have control over how they will use their device by setting limits to the apps they use. If they spend most of their time on games, then time limits can be scheduled for them.

Set Tasks

In addition to limiting app usage, you can also set tasks for them to undertake and reward them with some extra time on their device.

Remotely Control

This comes with the subscription package, whereby you get an add-on to the main Screen Time Control app, to distantly have access to their device.

Shared Control

You can share the control of the app to various other admins, like the grandparent who can also have a watch over the kids in your absence.

Pros:

a). Control app usage.

b). Supports various devices, iOS, Android, and many more.

c). Basic services are free.

d). Easy to set up and configure.

e). Instant notification via mail.

Cons:

a). May lag, takes time to update, and does not immediately deliver Screen Time requests such as instant pause.

b). It's not a cross-platform application and only deals with applications. Therefore, you have no access to social media platforms, contacts, messages, and other media applications.

c). No GPS tracking.

d). Certain features only come with the premium or subscription package.

Cost/Price

The app is essentially free but comes with an add-on to the main app that costs around $4.99 monthly

FamiSafe - The Best Alternative to Screen Time Parental Control

Screen Time Parental Control app is primarily used to manage the screen-time on children's phones. However, there are a lot of shortcomings and some missing features on the app are essential for parental control. This makes the app one-sided as you can only manage the time they spend on their phones. Moreover, it would be expensive to purchase a subscription package.

Some of the significant features which are missing include:

a). Screen Time cannot access media files and social media platforms.

b). Geo-Fencing and GPS location and tracking.

c). Providing the web-history from children's devices.

d). Instant parental lock on apps and games they often use.

e). Some features such as remotely controlling a device require one to have a premium package.

Thus, to overcome such limitations, you need an app with more features that can provide a wide coverage of monitoring your child.

In the next section, we have mentioned the best Screen time Parental Control alternative that supports various other features too such as a parental lock for your kid's device at a particular time or place.

A Reliable and Handy Parental Control App

• Location Tracking & Geo-fencing
• App Blocker & Web Filtering
• Web Filtering
• Screen Time Control
• Smart Parental Control Setting

When we talk about the best alternative to the Screen Time Parental Control app, there is one name that hovers our mind, it is FamiSafe software. This is a fully legal parental monitoring product that helps parents monitor their children's mobile phones for family harmony. It is safe and secure and offers tons of marvelous features. It is intricately designed and is also very robust and reliable. FamiSafe makes sure that as a parent you feel safe to let your child use gadgets and roam outside with any worry. Also, you can keep track of each and every activity on the child's phone so that you can optimize their time in the right direction.

So shall we move towards some of the key features of FamiSafe Parental Control?

Geo-fencing

Geo-Fencing is the setting of geographical boundaries that you may not want the child to go into or those allowed. You can monitor their location and get the time-stamps of each location they visit. You can choose to do this in real-time or just view it later as well. You will get a notification as soon as they get into or leave any geo-fenced places.

Real-Time Location and Location History

With this feature, you can see their real-time location. You can monitor where they are and at what time. The location history will give you the time-stamps of each location they are or were in. You can easily locate them on the grid or get the details of wherever they are on the map. It's easy and instant.

App Blocker & Activity Monitor

This feature allows you to block any unwanted apps or apps that take most of your children's time. It's easy as you can do it in just a few clicks. Block games that take away most of their bedtime and make them go to sleep on time.

Web Browser Monitoring and Content Filtering

Configure your children's internet usage in accordance with how they use the internet. The content filtering option from FamiSafe, allows you to give access to sites you want them to visit and block access to sites you don't.

Moreover, you can view their web history and know what they have been doing on the internet and the sites they visited.

Screen Time Tracking and Control

Figure out their app usage and how they spend their time on the devices. You can also set time limits which will lock them out of the app after the time duration specified has elapsed. This will come in handy when you want them to perform certain tasks.

Flexible Remote Control & Personalized Setting

This is a great feature as it enables you to instantly get their attention. You can configure settings on how they use and spend time on the device or any particular app. What's more, you can do this from a distant location. You can instantly pause any activity they are carrying out to have them come and get their lunch/dinner/supper or other important activities in a timely manner.

Conclusion

Through the article, you got to know more about the Screen Time Parental Control and FamiSafe Parental Control. Well, to be frank, both are good in their places however for a complete solution we would recommend using FamiSafe as it has got many additional advantages over other Parental Control applications like Screen Time. You may download it from its official website and try the free trial version, which will give you access to all the features.