Parental controls that reach the devices apps cannot
Most parental controls live inside one app or one phone. This works a layer below that, so it covers the console, the tablet and the television too.
Why the usual controls keep letting you down
You set up screen time on the phone. Then there is a console, a tablet from a relative, a school laptop and a television — each with its own settings, or none at all. You end up protecting some of it and hoping about the rest, and the gaps are exactly where the arguments start.
Everything on your network has to look up an address before it can load anything. That lookup is where we sit. Set a rule once and it applies to every app on that device, including the ones with no settings to change.
What you can decide
Different rules for different people
A six-year-old’s tablet, a teenager’s phone and the family television do not need the same rules. Each gets its own profile, so changing one never touches the others.
Block apps by name
TikTok, Roblox, Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Fortnite — pick them from a list instead of hunting for the addresses they use. New ones get added as they matter.
Rules that watch the clock
Social media off during school and homework, back on afterwards, without anyone having to remember. Set it once and the evening argument stops being about the internet.
Safe search that stays on
Google, Bing, YouTube and DuckDuckGo are held in their safe modes, and it cannot be switched off from inside the browser.
Covers the things you cannot install apps on
Games consoles, smart TVs, streaming sticks, a friend’s old tablet. If it joins your network, it follows the rules.
Setting it up for a household
Start with the router. One change there covers everything on the home network at once — including the television and the console, which is the part most people find hardest.
Then give the devices that leave the house their own profile, so the rules travel with them. A phone set up directly keeps its settings on mobile data and on a friend’s Wi-Fi. The setup guide walks through both, and there is nothing to install either way.
Worth knowing
A phone set up only through the router goes unfiltered the moment it leaves the house, which is why phones are worth setting up directly. And on a device you hand to a child, it is worth using the phone or tablet’s own restrictions to stop the network settings being changed — the same way you would lock the app store.
Beyond that it simply runs. Most families set it up once and only come back to adjust a schedule.
Try it on one device first
The trial needs an email address and no card. Put it on one device, block something you can test straight away, and see how it feels before rolling it out to the house.