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Unlike the apps we reviewed for this guide, Circle (now part of the digital security company, Aura) allows you to manage your child’s screen time and block access to inappropriate sites and content through your Wi-Fi router. It works at home as well as on phones and other devices that move around the world with a kid. We did not test it for this guide. Circle is a strong tool, especially if your concern is blocking pornography or other disturbing content from your kids. It costs about $90 a year. Our top-pick Wi-Fi router and Wi-Fi mesh-networking kit both include Circle functionality. For another option to block access to certain websites or online games at home, consider the Firewalla Purple firewall. It’s expensive, though effective, particularly if your kid knows how to get around other kinds of parental controls.
The Bark app, which we tested and dismissed in late 2022, does not track how much time your child is spending on their phone, a data point that we found helpful in monitoring a child’s smartphone habits. But it does allow you to set three screen-time schedules: school, bedtime, and free time, with the ability to customize rules such as allowing, say, Instagram during free time but blocking it during school and bedtime. Its artificial-intelligence technology also scans for keywords, and in our rudimentary tests, it alerted us to references to nudity, violence, and suicide. Because of our settings (on “high”), it also sent alerts for not-so-harmful content, including a camping reservation with a reference to a beer and wine permit requirement.
Installing Bark on a child’s Android phone is cumbersome: Because the child app doesn’t meet Google’s policies, it is no longer available in the Google Play store, so you must download it as a file onto the phone. A workaround is also necessary to download Bark on an iPhone: You must download Bark’s desktop app and connect the child’s phone to the computer to install the program, and the child’s phone needs to connect to the home’s Wi-Fi for Bark’s software to scan and analyze messages and photos. On iOS, Bark cannot monitor certain social media apps, including Facebook’s Messenger Kids, Snapchat, and TikTok.
In 2022, we also tested and dismissed Kidslox, one of the most-rated parental-control apps in Apple’s App store and the Google Play store. Kidslox lets you “telescope” into a child’s phone by way of periodic screenshots that provide a peek into how the child is using the device. You can reward kids with screen time when they complete homework or chores, and you can set multiple screen-time schedules. But unlike Apple’s Screen Time, Google Family Link, and Qustodio, Kidslox allows you to block or allow only specific apps, and you can set time limits only on categories of apps (such as entertainment, games, and education). Generally, we also found Kidslox more confusing to navigate than our picks.
We tested and dismissed Mobicip in 2022. Like Qustodio, Mobicip allows you to set multiple screen-time schedules and includes a daily activity feed that shows each app that your child used along with a time stamp. But we didn’t find Mobicip’s tools to be as effective as those of our picks. The activity feed, for instance, doesn’t include how much time your child spent on a particular app. Instead, it tracks time spent on apps in four categories: social media, entertainment, games, and “other.” Somehow, in our tests, my child spent the majority of time in the “other” category, but it was difficult for us to discern just what kind of activity that category included and how to manage it. You also cannot set time limits on individual apps, as Mobicip allows you to set time limits only for three categories: social media, entertainment, and games (and it’s limited to setting time limits on games only on Android phones). Mobicip offers social media monitoring (with a child’s permission), but we found it lacking: It keeps an eye on just Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—leaving out TikTok, the current social media sensation. It also merely flags problematic posts, such as those containing references to drugs or sexuality, and it doesn’t detect problematic searches, follows, or other kinds of social media activity.
In 2019, we dismissed both Norton Family and Net Nanny because they were cumbersome to set up, and at the time they didn’t offer an app for parents or caregivers to manage their child’s screen time easily. We chose not to retest them this round, as their main feature is monitoring messages, social media, and searches for harmful content, rather than managing screen time. Both now offer a parent app, but they only block or allow apps and cannot set time limits on individual apps.
We tested OurPact in 2019 and retested it in 2022, and we dismissed it for the second time. While the parent app for OurPact is available in both Apple’s App store and the Google Play store, you need to install the software onto the child’s device through a computer. This step requires that your computer run at least Windows 10, macOS Big Sur, or macOS Monterey; if your computer runs on an older operating system, you won’t be able to complete the installation. On the child’s Android phone, you must also turn on the phone’s developer options and allow USB debugging. The installation process felt laborious—more so than for our picks.
OurPact offers several tiers and prices; we tested the Premium+ tier, its highest level. Even this highest tier does not allow you to limit the amount of time spent on a specific app; you can only completely block, always allow, or limit the amount of time for one set of apps. OurPact does not provide data or analytics on a child’s screen habits (except for the periodic screen snapshots in the Premium+ subscription), so it’s hard to get a sense as to whether a child is spending an inordinate amount of time on, say, gaming.
We tested Screen Time (not to be confused with Apple’s Screen Time) in 2022, and we found it easy to install and set up. The premium version keeps a log of the child’s activities, including how much time the child spends on individual apps, the websites they visit, and the YouTube videos they watch. You can also set up multiple schedules, such as for bedtime, school, or weekends, during which you can designate which apps are allowed or blocked. You can tap a button to allow “free play mode,” overriding any of the limits you have set up. And you can create tasks, such as washing the dishes, which you then reward with screen time. But we found this tool to be less flexible than our picks in managing individual app use, and we preferred that flexibility over the ability to set multiple schedules and rules.
We considered but did not test Kaspersky Safe Kids, due to past security concerns about Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cybersecurity firm that makes the parental controls software.
Additional reporting by Thorin Klosowski. This article was edited by Kalee Thompson.
