Giving our kids smartphones or tablets to “fit in” and enjoy the benefits of the Internet has become the new norm. Unfortunately, the Internet is not a safe place for kids due to the many dangers it brings along. From online predators to cyberbullying and exposure to objectionable content at an early age – a lot of danger awaits your kids online if left unmonitored. As a responsible parent, it’s your duty to keep your children safe from online dangers. But how do you ensure a safe online environment for your kids? By closely monitoring their online activities. And this is where a parental control app comes in. We had the privilege to test Kidgy to write this honest review of the app.
What Is Kidgy?
Kidgy is a parental control app that helps parents monitor their children’s online activities remotely. This one-of-a-kind app comes with a host of advanced monitoring features that help parents keep an eye on their children’s online and offline activities remotely. The goal of Kidgy is to make modern parenting easier while protecting your kids from all sorts of online perils. It will help you monitor and block unscrupulous contacts as well as restrict access to sites with lewd content. Besides monitoring, Kidgy also has a task manager that lets you set tasks remotely and receive notifications once the tasks are completed.
Kidgy Parental Control App: Installation and Setup
Before you can start tracking your child with Kidgy, you’ll first need to install the app from the Google Play Store/iOS App Store. The entire installation and setup process involves only three steps: The Kidgy app is available for both Android and iOS users. Follow these steps to install and set up the app. Step 1: Head over to the Google Play Store or iOS App Store and download the app. Install Kidgy on both devices.
Step 2: Set up your profile as a parent on your device. Also, set your child’s profile as a “child” on their device. Create an account on the app. You’ll receive a code that you’ll use to link both devices. Link the child’s device to your account by entering the same code on their device.
Step 3: Provide permissions for the app to start monitoring your child’s device. That’s it! You’ll now be able to access everything on their device and can link and monitor up to ten devices.
How Kidgy Protects Your Kids from Online Dangers
Dangers online are around every click. But with Kidgy you can make your children’s online experience as safe as possible by constantly monitoring their online activities. Here’s how Kidgy can help to keep your kids safe online.
Block Harmful Websites and Apps
With Kidgy parents can be fully aware of the sites their children visit. There are anonymous messaging platforms such as curiouscat.me that are often entrenched with sexting and are usually the hiding grounds for online predators. By blocking these sites, you can help prevent a potential meeting. Also, most teens fall prey to gambling, dating and adult sites where they end up degrading their morals. Kidgy can help to ensure your kids won’t visit adult sites, harmful social networking sites, or use browsers for the wrong purposes.
Better still, you can even restrict Internet access or limit your child’s screen time if you want them to concentrate more on studies – a feature that can help to boost their productivity. Plus, you also get a ton of parental control advice on the Kidgy blog that can help you stay ahead of the game.
Monitor Your Child’s Messages
Restricting online chatting with strangers may not cut ties with your child completely if they had already exchanged contacts. Thankfully, Kidgy has a solution for that, too. If the communication with that online stranger proceeds offline, you’ll have the ability to view text messages on your kid’s device remotely.
If you deem the relationship unhealthy, you can proceed to the contact list and block that contact remotely.
This way you’ll be able to cut off communications with that friend completely, preventing future trouble.
View Call Logs and Contacts
If you’re having a hard time trying to figure out who calls your child at odd hours, Kidgy can help with that, too. This digital family assistant lets you view all call logs and contact details from your child’s phone remotely.
Kidgy will help you look through calls (made and received) and show you detailed call history – duration, date, and time. The app also allows you to block specified contacts, thereby keeping your kids safe from fake callers.
Location Tracking and Geofencing
Kidgy comes equipped with a GPS location tracker that displays the child’s current location on the parent’s device. This tracker provides real-time information about your kid’s location with time stamps. Geofencing is another feature Kidgy offers that you won’t find in any other parental control app.
The geofencing feature allows you to create virtual fences, and the app will notify you once your child enters or leaves those zones. For example, you can set anywhere that is 2km away from home as a danger zone. Once your child crosses the geofence, you’ll be notified immediately with their exact location.
Panic Button
The Panic button is a security feature that allows your kids to contact you with just a single click in emergency situations. Once they click the panic button, it activates the panic mode on your phone, and you’ll know your child is in trouble as well as see their current location in real time.
Task Manager
In addition to protecting your children from online dangers, Kidgy has a task manager that acts as a virtual assistant to your child. You can set up tasks that you want your kids to do and get alerted once they are done. Moreover, you can follow the task progress and interact with your kids remotely using the Kidgy daily schedule planner.
Even if you’re far away from home, you can still set tasks remotely and watch them being done without making a single call. This feature can also teach your kids how to manage priorities and meet deadlines.
Pros & Cons
Here’s what we liked and disliked about the Kidgy app.
Pros
User-friendly interface that makes it super easy to use. Real-time location tracking of your child that lets you know their whereabouts at all times. App supervision that lets you limit the amount of time your kids spend online. Panic button that lets you know when your child is in trouble.
Cons
Subscriptions are automatically renewed which can be inconvenient if you forget to cancel the subscription. Three-day free trial is too short. We’d love to see it increased to seven days or more.
To Sum Up
All in all, Kidgy is a good parental control app to have if you’re concerned about your children’s online safety. It not only gives you full control over everything they do online but also helps to boost their productivity and teach them how to be responsible. Having performed an in-depth review of the Kidgy parental control app, I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a robust app to keep their kids safe from online dangers.
