I have three kids, who between them use three tablets and (after Christmas, shhh!) four Android phones that I would like to monitor. My main interests are:
- knowing what apps the kids are using, and web history;
- knowing when apps are installed/removed;
- knowing how long each kid has used their systems over the day; and
- knowing -when- they have used the system.
As you can see this is all inactive data, so a lot of the parental control apps are way too much overhead. Besides that, they are crazy expensive - $2 to $8 per month per device! That's all well and good for one device, but for seven monitored devices - and knowing I'll be monitoring at least one kid's devices for the next 15 years - that turns out to be a chunk of change.
I wrote a quick hack in Tasker for my phone; it logs to a file when there is a new window, screen on/off event, and I can do app add/removes once I get to it. I can sync to Dropbox. That actually works pretty well, except for the web history. However, I would prefer a more polished interface, and my experience with Tasker on the (low-end) tablets has not been great.
I've gone through everything I can find in the Play Store. "Screen Time" is probably closest to what I want, but - aside from hating the subscription model in general, especially for something that doesn't have a web-side component - it has been inconsistent because it keeps getting bumped from the memory of the kids' tablets. It also lacks web history, so I'm not a lot better off than just using Tasker, which at least tends to stay in memory when activated as an administrator.
Anyone know of an app that does what I want? Strong preference to a standalone app, even if it's expensive, that does not have a subscription model and can be purchased through the Play Store. Thanks!
- knowing what apps the kids are using, and web history;
- knowing when apps are installed/removed;
- knowing how long each kid has used their systems over the day; and
- knowing -when- they have used the system.
As you can see this is all inactive data, so a lot of the parental control apps are way too much overhead. Besides that, they are crazy expensive - $2 to $8 per month per device! That's all well and good for one device, but for seven monitored devices - and knowing I'll be monitoring at least one kid's devices for the next 15 years - that turns out to be a chunk of change.
I wrote a quick hack in Tasker for my phone; it logs to a file when there is a new window, screen on/off event, and I can do app add/removes once I get to it. I can sync to Dropbox. That actually works pretty well, except for the web history. However, I would prefer a more polished interface, and my experience with Tasker on the (low-end) tablets has not been great.
I've gone through everything I can find in the Play Store. "Screen Time" is probably closest to what I want, but - aside from hating the subscription model in general, especially for something that doesn't have a web-side component - it has been inconsistent because it keeps getting bumped from the memory of the kids' tablets. It also lacks web history, so I'm not a lot better off than just using Tasker, which at least tends to stay in memory when activated as an administrator.
Anyone know of an app that does what I want? Strong preference to a standalone app, even if it's expensive, that does not have a subscription model and can be purchased through the Play Store. Thanks!
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