Microsoft Family Safety
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Information
- Category: Lifestyle
- Price: Free
- Age Rating: 4+
-
Rating:
3.8
- Developer: Microsoft Corporation
- Version: 1.26.2.1015
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Features
The Microsoft Family Safety mobile app offers a range of features to help families stay connected and safe. With this app, parents can set screen time limits, view activity reports, and manage app and game usage for their children. The app also allows parents to set content filters and block inappropriate websites. Additionally, the app provides location sharing and notifications for family members, ensuring peace of mind for parents.
Another key feature of the app is the ability to set driving safety alerts, allowing parents to monitor their teen's driving behavior and receive notifications for speeding and phone usage while driving.
How to Use
To use the Microsoft Family Safety mobile app, start by downloading the app from the App Store or Google Play Store. Once installed, create a family group and add family members to the app. From there, you can start setting screen time limits, content filters, and location sharing preferences for each family member. The app also provides detailed activity reports and insights to help parents understand their children's digital habits. It's a useful tool for staying connected and keeping the family safe.
Pros & Cons
Pros of the Microsoft Family Safety mobile app include its comprehensive features for managing screen time, setting content filters, and monitoring location and driving safety. The app provides peace of mind for parents and helps them stay connected with their children in the digital world.
One potential con of the app is that some features may require additional setup and configuration, which could be a bit time-consuming for parents. Additionally, while the app offers many useful features, some users may find the interface to be a bit overwhelming at first.
User Reviews
Review Source: Google Play Store
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It was a bit difficult to set up but once I got it going it's fantastic. I also couple it with Bark and I feel pretty confident I've got a good handle on my 7 and 8 year olds screen time. The app lets you set limits on devices AND other apps (I'm looking at you ROBLOX) and will send push notifications to your phone if they want to ask for more time. It turns my kids laptops off when I need it to hehehehe. Highly recommend.
It works exactly as it’s intended to. It’s a great way to simply monitor and limit my children’s activity. And I like how it can set individual limits to specific apps/programs. I don’t see any security risk since the only way to access this app is on my phone that has a password. If parents choose to give their children the password to their phone or pin to their profile that’s their fault if the kids access the controls. Thank you for using Family Safety. We're glad to hear that you've been enjoying our app. If there are other ways we can improve the experience for you, please send a feedback via the app (Home/Menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback) Thank you!
With each of the last updates, all my settings get lost. When you update, please create a process to port the existing settings into tge new version. It takes time to set these up. Plus for a time all settings, so all safety features, are lost until the parent realizes it updated and the settings are no longer active. This is not acceptable for a family safety app. Otherwise, the app gets better. Just don’t make this any more complicated. It’s starting to have too many layers. People may be asking for minute levels of control but not realize that it makes the set up that much more steps or involved to get it. Then every time we lose our settings we have to do all that again. Simple is best. Thankful for this app though. Makes it so we don’t have to argue. When time is up, it’s up. Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it! We are glad to hear the app features are working well for you. Your existing family settings should not change after an app update, so we'd love to work with you to figure out what's going on - if you could send us email at [email protected], we would like to take a closer look. Thanks again!
Great product for managing screen time and basic monitoring of apps used on a device. This is a fantastic way to set clear boundaries on screen time and application usage across devices for kids. The approval of time doesn't always apply to certain Windows devices, but in general, it works well. Schedules can be set up per child, device or app. It lightens the admin load when it comes to managing screens across devices and users.
Please fix issues with adding money to child account. The 'add money to account' page has to be selected and closed several times before it works. Once getting to the point I can make the transaction I get an error message that there was a problem with the transaction. I re-ran the transaction only to find out that the first one did go through, there wasn't an error.
This app does a great job of allowing restrictions on devices that are solely used for gaming (i.e. Xbox). However, many kids use the same PC for schoolwork that they do for gaming. This app needs a way for parents to group Windows apps into categories then allow them to set the limits on those categories. My use is games vs. non-games. I don’t want to limit Chrome which is used for school but I do want to limit the total time played on games in general, not each individual game. The current paradigm for Windows restrictions does not makes sense. Giving them 4 hours on each game, say for three games, is 12 hours of screen time. I want to set it for 4 hours total. Please make this update! I know a lot of parents need this feature! Thank you for your suggestion. We review all feedback and suggestions and strive to make continuous improvements as a result of customer feedback. If you have additional feedback, please send it by tapping on the app Home/Menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback. Thank you!
This app has faster the request approval as well as the schedule update, but the problem is there’s no passcode protection, the once the kids get the chances to touch my phone then they might update the screen time schedules (it happened on my phone). Eventually I deleted this app and still use the Outlook app (passcode protection activated) to approve the kids requests, even this way is not convenient, but it is what I want — avoid the kids to change the settings. Hopefully the developers would to hear the users opinions (no strong expectations lol, you know sometimes the developers are living in their own world). Thank you for sending Microsoft feedback. Your input is valuable to us and helps improve our products. Most of the time we figure out that it is indeed the case that the child figured out how to access Family Safety on the parents' phone or computer and made these kinds of changes. We have received a lot of feature requests to add fingerprints or passwords to the app, so children aren't able to do this anymore. We hope to build this feature for our users soon! If you have additional feedback, please send it by tapping on the app Home/Menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback. Thank you! Thank you.
Update. Just doubling down. Forgot I had left the review. The last few times I tried to add money (never the exact amount needed) the process stalled out in the app. Did the money transfer? Who knows! Should I hit the button again or will I be double charged? Had to use the web page. --- So frustrating to add money in large denominations, always leaving leftover funds. And when I bought more MS/xbox money than I needed to the balance still shows as zero until after I add more money. Frustrating!
Great potential, could benefit from a 'Bonus Time' option like Google's Family Link. Awesome that it extends into individual Xbox games. Unfortunately it's unstable, sometimes doesn't send notifications, and recently my kid's whole account disappeared with no more than a vague notification of suspension without explanation, leaving them with a completely unlocked computer. For a company as large as Microsoft, there's really no excuse for that.
This App is far inferior to Xbox family, which makes it that much more frustrating. The UI is counterintuitive, it pulls in XBox but not in a useful manner, and it's lacking control features. I cannot add bonus time without a request, and once my child is out of time the request won't process as the Internet connection is blocked. Just copy XBox Family for Windows devices and we'll all be better off.
The software tracking is wildly inaccurate and contradictory to what the website says. For example, I know that my son has play a specific game for about an hour (because we played together) and both the website and the app are saying 2 different number (both of which are wrong). Great idea and some impressive control features, but they have a long way to go.
I've use a similar app for my Google products so I figured this app would be great for the Microsoft products. It's been nothing but a hassle. All the actions take 5 to over 10 minutes just to sync. It takes too long to receive request and even longer for the approval to sync back. Every little thing needs approval, more than once. Changed the restriction settings which took forever to sync. So I just ended up removing all restrictions, just so my kids could be able to play simple games.
Needs a lot of work on granting time / removing time. If I use a custom time, most often it doesn't work and I have to go to the machine to add time. Other times it won't reliably unlock the device. I also can just add time from the app, but have to wait for a request. Nor can I easily remove existing time if needed. Please fix the issues.
This app is 5-10 years behind the times in terms of User experience and features available. If it was possible to supervise my child's laptop with any other free app I would. I might have to pay for another app, this one is so bad. You can't supervise any web browser other than Microsoft Edge. you can't see a breakdown of what apps your child is using each day. You have to manually set the schedule for each day instead of applying the same schedule to all weekdays or weekends.
Microsoft Family Safety is absolute junk, probably 80% of the time. Sometimes downtime schedules do nothing at all. Then when they actually do work and I approve my child's request for additional screen time, it's almost guaranteed that THAT won't work. tldr; This app almost never works. If you're looking for something that works on PC as well as Google's Family Link does on Android, this ain't it.
Disappointing. Constantly asks to run in the background, every time I open the app. Ads for other products and features are plentiful, basic parental control functionality much less so. I cannot add time unless a child sends a request first, there is no immediate adjustment options. Time is frequently logged while computer is OFF! And it keeps telling me to setup car/drive mode for my ten year old. You get your money's worth with this free app.
Completely useless. Doesn't work. PC won't connect to the family app even when signed in as the family user. Phone app doesn't recognize the PC (probably because the PC won't connect to the app). Even if it did work the "strict" screen time limiter is 3 hours with no ability to customize beyond that. Absolute garbage, looking for a third party solution.
For your child's safety, LOOK ELSEWHERE!! This is the WORST and most frustrating app I've ever used! When you attempt to do something simple, like change your child's schedule, it consistently give you a message to the effect of "Oops, it's not you, it's our fault. Please try again." and it simply won't work until you back up and try again 10 times!
Rarely works. Often can't even approve extra screentime for kids. I'm on the latest version of the app, windows, etc. No reason it should be this bad other than they don't actually care to make it good. They try to sell me premium (even if you close the popup, it comes right back), but why would anyone buy it when the free version doesn't function consistently.
Horribly unstable, do not install. Charged my account five times for a single purchase since it can't stay connected. Since it's an account balance addition, they won't refund it. App displays "It's not you, it's us" message multiple times every connection. For family and screen time changes you see it far more than the content on any wireless or cellular connection. Save yourself the time and pain and just use the website. Wish I hadn't ever bothered with it and stuck with the site.
I've given my child time and it doesn't seem to update. Sometimes, I grant him time and he can't access the app. Sometimes, I have a limit, and he can use a restricted app all day, even though it says in the app that he has no available time. Overall, when it works, I really like the way this app works. It's just frustrating when it doesn't work.
Great in theory, but it never works correctly. It won't pick up my 20 min drive to work, really any drive at all, and if and when it does, it assumes my route after halfway through the trip, and my distance and times and "driving violations" are all wrong. But, it will pick up a .1 mile drive at <10mph on a forktruck--make it make sense. Oh, and all app permissions are on, and I've turned off any restriction that might disrupt the access to location or data.
When someone in the family asks permission to buy something ($ 29.99) the only option to add money is to select from a number of preset choices. There is one for $25 (insufficient) with the next one being $50 (too much). A custom field or the ability to pay the exact amount is missing. Should you choose to pay the $50, the remaining balance is non refundable and stays with Microsoft presumably for ever. Should you want to make another purchase in the future, the problem will only perpetuate.
Miserable, infuriating app. It often refuses my password, and makes me jump through many hoops just to sign on to the thing. My child who is desperate for screen time, stands there waiting while I try my password multiple times, check my email for the code, check the authenticator app-which doesn't work either, only to have it time out, or give me an error code. I hate this thing more than I can say.
Great in theory, but it never works correctly. It won't pick up my 20 min drive to work, really any drive at all, and if and when it does, it assumes my route after halfway through the trip, and my distance and times and driving violations are all wrong. But, it will pick up a .1 mile drive at <10mph on a forktruck--make it make sense. Oh, and all app permissions are on, and I've turned off any restriction that might disrupt the access to location or data.
Update, after 3 years, it is still just as annoying, awkward and buggy. E.g. "Give more time" regularly fails to work. I reproduced several errors and sent logs multiple times to MS, but it has never been fixed. By the way I tested the search term flagging and it simply does not work. You can log in as a child, search for all kinds of dodgy stuff and it just does not notice. I am not interested in helping you debug your own broken software.
I was hoping to see and respond to requests from my kids quickly and easily using an iOS app. Unfortunately it’s not helpful yet. The problem is that when you get a request you can only unblock the app completely. On the website, you get an option to give access for a specific number of minutes or hours. If I’m goi to unblock all the apps, why bother using Family Security at all? Also an issue is that when the notification pops up and you tap on it, it opens the app but doesn’t show the newest request. Once again, it’s clear Microsoft doesn’t use the products they make. I discovered this issue the first time I used the app. I used to be a big Microsoft fan, but they have gone downhill in the last couple of years. I’ve slowly started moving to all Apple products, but my kids need these machines for schooling.
I uninstalled the app because it refused to close a demand to turn on location for my children so I could control their driving with, Drive safety. Umm, they're under 12! The demand wouldn't go away, no way to dismiss it. The app has outdated notices that can not be dismissed.. for example, password reminders that are almost 2 years old. Their passwords were changed the same day they expired, but still the error notice remains with no way to dismiss. My child sent a game purchase request so I bought it for her yet the request STILL sits in the family dashboard with no way to dismiss it. Reinstalled the app and can't get past the, your family cares about you, turn on location tracking (using my family as an excuse to track me and sell targeted local ads to me, cute). It says I can turn off location tracking at any time but it won't allow me past it... Can't dismiss or reject it, my only option is to agree and enable. An error notification for one child to be reverified on a game console continues to be annoying with no way to dismiss even though they were verified on that console months ago. Half baked and invasive. We're sorry you're having issues with the app. We want to better understand what is happening. Please share more details by tapping on the app Home/Menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback. Thank you!
This review is based only on the location tracking and notifications. I wouldn't get a notification until 10 or more minutes after my family member arrived at their location. I was tracking with both this app, and Life 360. Also, setting up notifications in the first place is a pain. You can't create multiple notifications without going back into settings after each new notification is setup. The maps are also horrible, because individual buildings and houses aren't shown.
This app will allow me to block websites, see search history, and I believe it does filter content, but as far as screen time limits? This DOES NOT WORK ON WINDOWS 11. Other people have complained to the Microsoft team about this but they don't acknowledge there's a problem. So the lock computer out function doesn't work nor does any time limits whatsoever.
As a 13 year old male, I found this app very frusturating. Sometimes when I'm in calls with friends, my screen time would run out. This would make me unable to mute or leave, creating an awkward situation. When playing modern multiplayer Triple A titles on the Xbox One, the 5 minutes warning would pause the game no matter what. The restrictions don't care if you're doing something important, and could kick you out of the software without an auto save. On my laptop however, it won't exit ever.
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