Kidslox - Parental Control App

What is Kidslox app?

When kids get an internet-connected mobile device, they gain a lot of positive possibilities, but there are also some potentially harmful aspects.

Kids can:

• spend too much time using the device at the expense of other interests and activities
• neglect educational activities on the device to play games and videos
• use the device at inappropriate times
• be exposed to inappropriate content in apps or on the internet

A parent-control app lets adults monitor how kids use their devices and control that use. Kidslox is such an app, and it has tools to help with all of the above.

Additionally, Kidslox can report your kids' location over time back to you so that you can rest easy.

Most parental control apps only work on one type of device family—either iOS or Android. Kidslox doesn't mind what mix of devices a family has as it will work across all of them. However, through no fault of the Kidslox service, an identical experience across iOS and Android is impossible. You may need to follow different processes or accept certain limitations and quirks when using Kidslox on one or the other.

Be sure to check the app's support section on its website to ensure that it offers the features you most require on the devices you have.

This review of Kidslox app will concentrate on its overall ease of use, general functionality, and how parents and kids might use it.

What we love about Kidslox.

Kidslox is refreshingly device agnostic. Android using families have been well served by parental control apps, at least in number, iOS families less so. Uniquely, Kidslox works for families that use both, which isn't uncommon. Parents don't always want to get the most expensive devices for young children so, while they might be iPhone users, their kids might have a lower-spec Android phone or tablet.

The Android/iOS support also gives you flexibility for the future. You and your kids might both have iPhones, but you might decide that a low-cost but large-screen Android tablet could give them a better experience on some apps. If your parental control software only works on one platform, you'll either have to leave that new device unprotected or choose and get used to a new parental-control service.

Kidslox will let the new device (up to 10 altogether) fit in seamlessly. Kidslox also offers software for computers: PC and Mac. Their installation process and what they can do are not as straightforward as on mobile devices, so check the Kidslox supporting website. You'll see that the site promises to develop further these platforms, so check as you are buying to ensure you understand the most up-to-date capabilities of Kidslox on a computer.

What skills does it improve?

Kidslox doesn't claim to build knowledge or skills, but it can indirectly help. When you can control your kids' app use, you can influence how much time they spend on entertainment apps compared to productivity and educational apps. You could, for instance, only have educational apps available during certain hours of the day with games locked down until later.

What age is it appropriate for?

A parental control app is for kids whose parents want them to have a mobile device but are concerned about its risks. Of course, they also come with the potential to provide extra safeguarding, which Kidslox can do too.

The suitability of Kidslox is more to do with kids' responsibility, maturity and how you expect them to use their devices than it is to do with age.

Below are the key areas that you can manage and monitor.

Screen time

Make sure your kids don't use their devices at inappropriate times or for too long each day.

App usage

Stop kids accessing whole categories of apps or individual ones. Restrict the access of some apps to specific times. 

Restrict kids' access to websites not on Google's or Bing's safe search list and block other individual sites manually.

Location

Find out where kids are now and a history of where they have been.

Is Kidslox easy to use?

Parental control apps are often tricky to set up because they require a lot of access to device features. Kidslox is easy to set up relative to them but not as easy as a typical app. This statement is no criticism of Kidslox. The complexity results from how the devices intrinsically work, not poor design or implementation.

It mitigates the complexity with animations and text explaining what parents need to do at each step, and it does this well. Linking with kids apps does not require kids to have an account and uses a QR code to make the device association effortless. It provides further help by emailing a video directly to parents at the appropriate point of the set-up process.

Setting up won't be beyond typical app users, but it will take more concentration than they are used to. Once you've set up the app on your device and linked it to the apps on your kids' devices, it becomes straightforward to use for you and your kids. After you've done it for one device, subsequent ones will be easy.

How will students benefit?

Kids never like direct supervision or, in fact, any supervision. Kidslox provides a middle ground where kids have the freedom to use their devices as they choose within the rules set by parents.

You can negotiate and loosen the rules as children mature or at different times of the year. This is easy to do when you can manage the setting from your device and don't need to prise your child's away from them.

Kids don't have to use the Kidslox app much, but they can use it to request bonus time from their parents or confirm that they have finished a task that has a Kidslox reward attached to it. Kid requests are one of the reasons the app wants parents to have notifications—when kids make the request, you'll hear it straight away rather than making them wait until you think to open the app.

How will parents benefit?

Being a parent means worrying about kids' safety and fretting about how they spend their time. With Kidslox, you'll still worry and fret, but you'll be able to allay your fears regarding their devices.

The app's controls form a useful reward tool that parents can use to link children's actions to device usage. You can grant extra time or loosen up certain restrictions in response to kids earning them from chores or achievements.

Parents' adjustments are reflected almost instantly on kids' devices, which is excellent for rewards and control. A quick tap of the lockdown setting disables many of a device's apps and features. For example, apply this to a kids' iPad, and all downloaded apps vanish until the parent unlocks it.

You'll get the added benefit of location monitoring. You can do this with other apps, but you won't need to set up and pay for an extra app when it is built into your parental control software.

What can Kidslox improve on?

While it is understandable that the app wants users to enable notifications to make the app more effective, it should nag about it less. Kidslox asks for permission every time parents open the app if it does not already have it. Respecting the user's choice by prompting for this much less would be better.

Other improvements it could make are in the app's support section and how it presents the differences between features on iOS and Android. The app's information is candid about any limitations on its features imposed by a platforms' rules or quirks, but it requires potential purchasers to dig deeper into support than they should need to do.

Better and more prominent signposting of features is required where a significant difference exists between Android and iOS either in setting it up or in its limitations. 

Understanding the app-blocking features before getting Kidslox illustrates the above point and exemplifies a further issue: in a couple of places, the writers of the app's support could have structured or phrased the content more clearly.

For example, whether users can block individual apps on iOS is answered ambiguously. The text distinguishes between users who use advanced features and those who don't. Those who don't can use internet-based app blocking and are pointed to a list of apps they can block.

The confusion comes at the next step, which states: "Users who want to lock all apps individually can activate 'Advanced features'". But as this is followed by a list of "Currently Blockable Apps", it is not clear before using the service whether Advanced-Feature users can only block apps on this list.

This explanation needs to be more precise because iOS is a much more restricted platform than Android—the functionality that Kidslox can afford parents could reasonably be expected to differ between the two. App blocking is likely to be a key feature for parents, so they must see what they can and cannot do on their different devices.

For readers of this review of Kidslox: iOS users can block a predefined set of apps from within the parent control part of the app. This list includes many of the most popular games and social media apps.

If they want to block anything outside of that list, they can do so, but only by activating the advanced settings and downloading the computer-based application. 

This becomes clear when you have the app, but before buying, this is a difficult concept to understand from the support section's explanation.

Despite it taking a lot of words to highlight the above points, you should not take them as serious errors. The app's free trial will ensure that you can understand the app's use before spending money.

How much does Kidslox cost?

Parent control apps are long-term choices. You don't want to jump frequently between them; you and your child need to build familiarity with how they work and what they do. If you have selected Kidslox as your app of choice, use the free parental trial to access its full feature set for three days.

Use this trial during an average week to see how it works alongside typical family routines. In particular, pay attention to the most important features to you and ensure the app's implementation allows what you want. At the same time, keep a sense of realism, as features you want might not be possible on the types of device you own or just not possible at all.

What is included with the free version vs. paid?

If you are happy with Kidslox during the trial, you can let it roll over into a paid subscription and seamlessly carry on. There are various options: shorter ones that trade commitment length for value and longer ones that work out the cheapest over time.

We'd recommend choosing value as Kidslox fulfils its purpose very well, and if its features align with your needs, it is a service you'll want for a while.

Is Kidslox safe to use?

Kidslox is a tool to help keep kids safe, and to do this, it must access features of their devices that you might typically restrict. You will get the choice of whether to allow them or not, so it always remains in your control.

If you deny permission, some features cannot work. Obviously, if you won't let the app access your child's precise location, it cannot relay the information to you. Some permissions, like notifications, are for convenience. If you turn it off, you might miss important messages, but it is a choice you can make, and the app will still work when you open it. 

The older and more tech-aware kids become, the more likely they will discover that they can remove Kidslox. This action would leave the device outside your control, but this would be visible to you. It is not as simple as removing the Kidslox app, which while this would stymy some of the features, most would remain.

Complete removal requires following a process not typically used on a device, so kids must research it. As the developers acknowledge, if kids do work this out, there is no way to stop them, but parents still can insist that having the device depends on Kidslox not being disabled.

If you want to know how to remove Kidslox, you can request the details be sent by email from within the app. This extended process prevents kids from easily finding out how to do it.

Overall rating of the app.

Kidslox uses the strapline "Parental Controls That Just Work". Does this claim hold true? In this review of Kidslox, you'll have seen that the app offers powerful features that are helpful, well-implemented, and straightforward for parents to administer. At the same time, kids don't need to do anything. It would be a bit strong to say that the initial set-up 'just works', but the difficulties are not the app's fault, and it mitigates them as well as you can expect.

Kidslox, relative to many parental control apps, does just work, has the features most parents want, and does a great job of managing the complexities of each platform. These combine to give parents the experience and functions they want from parental control software.

Check the Kidslox website to fully understand its features on the devices you have and give its free trial a go. If this is the first parental control software you try, it might be as far as you need to go, and you can relax knowing your kids are using their devices safely and productively.

You can download Kidslox - Parental Control App on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the Kidslox - Parental Control App app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.