First published: Sep 12, 2021 Updated 2 times since publishing Overall, I’m not convinced that FamiSafe is “the most reliable parental control app.” I rank Qustodio slightly ahead of them due to a more comprehensive web filter, screen time schedule, and dashboard. That being said, you can’t go wrong with FamiSafe, it has many powerful features, and with a free three-day trial, you can test it for yourself before committing to a subscription.

In a Rush? Here’s a 1 Minute Summary

Compared to other dashboards I’ve seen, like Qustodio, which uses graphs and charts to give a great overview of all relevant activity, I found the FamiSafe dashboard to be a little disappointing. The only information I get with a quick glance is the live location and overall usage time. There is also a daily activity alert that I can scroll through, but it’s tedious and doesn’t give any real information without clicking through each item.

Activity Report – See Exactly What Your Child Does on the Phone

If you’ve ever wondered what your child does on their phones all day, the Activity Report should interest you. It provides a real-time breakdown of each app used and how long the app was active. During the initial two days following the installation of the application on my son’s phone, I refrained from implementing any limitations. Instead, I monitored his phone usage to gain insights into his daily activities. The application provided a comprehensive overview of the utilized apps and their respective timestamps. Then, I took that information and knew if I needed to block or restrict apps or set strict screen time limits.

Multiple Screen Time Restriction Tools

It seems like FamiSafe took almost every possible scenario into account coming up with their screen time tools. There are a total of five different ways to limit screen time:

  1. General Time Limit: Choose how long your child can use the phone. I like that it gives me the flexibility to set a one-time limit that goes into effect for every day of the week, or I can set different time limits for every day.
  2. Smart Schedule: This is one of the main features I would improve on the app. While they named it a “Smart Schedule,” it only gives me the option of when to lock and unlock the phone once a day. This is good for setting a bedtime and making sure my son isn’t on the phone all night. However, I’ve used other parental control apps like Qustodio that allow me to create an actual schedule for when the phone will be locked or unlocked throughout the day. To create a schedule like that with FamiSafe, I have to create multiple Smart Schedules for each day, which is a bit of a hassle. One unique feature of the Smart Schedule is a location-based schedule. This allows me to set a time limit that goes into effect based on where my son is. This means that I can block the phone while he’s at school, or if I don’t want him sitting on his phone with his friends, I can create a special schedule for the friends’ house.
  3. Instant Block: I can instantly block all apps at any time. Perfect for when I need my son to do chores, homework, dinner, or I just want to see him look up from the phone.
  4. App Limit: Set time restrictions based on app categories or specific apps. In other words, I can set time limits on all games or social media apps. I can also create a time limit that only restricts how long my son can watch YouTube videos.
  5. Allowed Apps: This feature takes the opposite approach. I can remove restrictions from specific apps.

Web Filter with 21 categories

The FamiSafe web filter has 21 categories, 13 of which are turned on by default. These include: I gave my son permission to try and bypass these filters to see if there is a weakness. We tried Incognito Mode, using the Mi Browser that came preinstalled on his phone, and using a VPN. Each time, the filter caught him and wouldn’t load the page.

The one weak spot he found was viewing adult content through apps instead of a web browser. He opened the Reddit app and found some NSFW content, and the filter didn’t stop it. Thankfully, this was an easy fix since FamiSafe can block apps from opening. The web filter has an “Exceptions” section where I can enter specific URLs that can be viewed even if the category is blocked. I did this so my son can access his Fantasy Sports pages, even though these sites are blocked by the Gambling category.

Real-Time Location Tracking and Geo-Fence

In addition to peace of mind from inappropriate websites and screen time addiction, with FamiSafe, I also don’t have to wonder where my son is. The app can access the phone’s GPS, give me real-time updates, and show me his location history to see where he was. There is also the option to create a geo-fence or a radius of a specific address of up to 1,000 meters. It then sends alerts when your child comes or leaves from the area. This is helpful for making sure your child is going to school or isn’t going to a specific area that you don’t want him visiting.

The one weakness in the location tracking (other than the child just leaving their phone at home) is the child can simply turn off the GPS tracking on their phone. While FamiSafe can’t prevent kids from disabling the location services, it will alert the parent dashboard when location tracking is disabled.

Connect FamiSafe to Social Media and Chat Apps

FamiSafe is compatible with several popular social media and chat apps (Facebook, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Gmail, YouTube, and more). There are individual sections for YouTube and TikTok that will show you the videos that you watch. You can block videos, add keywords to a blacklist, and block specific videos. I gave permission for FamiSafe to monitor my son’s WhatsApp for any dangerous or harmful keywords. It monitors all types of messages connected to bullying, sexual discussions, drugs, and illegal activities. However, what I found was that there’s no context to what creates an alert, and it seems really sensitive. I received alerts for words such as love, hate, finger, blood, annoying, weird, and heavy, just to name a few. While these can connect to bullying, they were perfectly harmless. I ended up getting constant alerts about Explicit Content, and in the end, I had to turn it off because nearly every message had a potentially troublesome word.

Promotes Safe Driving

This is a pretty cool feature that I haven’t seen on other parental control apps. It allows me to set a speed limit, so I know that when my son is driving, or in a car with friends, that they aren’t driving too fast. I couldn’t really test it on my son, since he’s just 13 and doesn’t have a driver’s license. However, I took his phone and went for a drive, and sure enough, as soon as I went over the speed limit, I got an update on the dashboard. The one downside is that I can only set one speed limit, so it doesn’t tell me if he’s speeding on city streets, just the highway. Hopefully, an updated version will sync with a GPS app, and monitor the speed limit based on the roads or streets the child is driving on. While I couldn’t test this on my son, since he’s just 13, I took his phone and went for a drive. This is a feature that I couldn’t really test because my son is only 13 and doesn’t drive. That being said, I think it’s pretty cool and extremely important for anyone with kids that have a license. You can set a max speed limit, and anytime the phone GPS tracks the speed as going above the limit it will send you an alert. The setup wizard takes you through the entire process, as you have to change the permissions on the phone to give it access to display over other apps, access the contacts, photos, GPS, and battery saver options. Once the permissions were granted, I logged into the account I created before downloading the app to connect it with the parent account. It was all very clear, and within five minutes, the setup was complete and it started recording the data. The installation of the parent app was similar to installing any app from the Play or App Store. I didn’t have to give it any special permissions since it’s not tracking my phone. After logging on to my account, I had to create a 4-digit PIN that must be entered each time the app is opened. It’s important to keep this a secret from the child, otherwise, they can log in to your phone and change the monitoring settings. Click on the Features tab (on the left-hand side of the desktop dashboard and the bottom of your screen on the mobile dashboard) to open the monitoring menu. Here is where you can set the web filter, time restrictions, geo-fence, and all the other monitoring tools. It took me a little over a half-hour to familiarize myself with all the different features and how to configure them all. Once everything is ready, there is very little maintenance needed unless you want to adjust any of the rules or restrictions. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, the next step is to ask the ChatBot. I’m not usually a fan of these, and this is no exception. The Bot tries to guess what your question is, but most of the time it came back with answers to questions I didn’t ask. If you still can’t find the answers you’re looking for; there is a live chat option. Representatives are available from 06:00 – 18:00, although it doesn’t specify a time zone. If you’re not sure if FamiSafe is for you, start with the three-day trial, install it on your children’s phones, tablets, and computers, and see if it’s the right parental control software for your family. It gave me insights into how my kids were spending their time on their phones and which apps they frequently use. I was also impressed with the screen time management tools. I could create a schedule, set app limits, and lock the phone at any time. My biggest complaint is with the parent dashboard, I think it needs a major overhaul to make it more user-friendly, but I have no complaints in terms of how the app performed. Register your account to start your 3-day free trial, and within minutes you can start monitoring what your kids are doing online.