Carrier T-Mobile on Monday unveiled a comprehensive digital solution that it says was designed to give parents control over their kids’ online activities and screen time on smartphones and across the Internet-connected devices in their homes.
Available through T-Mobile’s FamilyMode app, this feature requires a new FamilyMode Home Base accessory that connects to a Wi-Fi router to provide access to any connected smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, laptops and other Wi-Fi-connected devices.
Parents can manage, monitor, filter and set time limits for any Wi-Fi-connected device, monitor their kids’ location, set up custom restrictions and much, much more. If the device disconnects from your home Wi-Fi network, these features are temporarily suspended.
According to T-Mobile:
You can now determine what, when and where your kids have access to the internet The daily and weekend time limits allow you to control your children’s internet usage and pause the access when it’s family time, or time to sleep with the BedTime feature. The app and content filter, as well as the GPS tracker, help you to ensure child safety in the real and online world.
The FamilyMode Home Base accessory will set you back $20 (a savings of $80 off the suggested retail price for a limited time) whilst access to the FamilyMode app is $10 per month. By comparison, rival Verizon in April launched a Smart Family app for tracking screen time, setting restrictions and more, ranging between $4.99 to $9.99 per month.
The FamilyMode feature will be available to customers starting on June 29.
Tech giants are becoming serious about providing their customers with the tools to help them curb their smartphone addiction and monitor the time spent on digital devices.
Both Google and Apple recently took the wraps off of a set of digital wellbeing tools in their respective Android and iOS 12 updates. YouTube recently launched a trio of very useful features designed to help users know when it’s time to take a break from binge-watching.
Instagram is working on a Screen Time-like feature and today parent Facebook has confirmed that it’s been prototyping an unreleased “Your Time on Facebook” feature.
For more information, visit T-Mobile’s website.