OurPact parental control app review
Our Verdict
OurPact offers functions and features on iOS that no other service can match, simply it still lacks location history and a proper web-filtering system.
For
- Excellent user interface
- Powerful iOS feature prepare
- Covers twenty child devices
Against
- Relatively expensive
- Not much web filtering
- Complicated installation process
Tom's Guide Verdict
OurPact offers functions and features on iOS that no other service can match, simply it still lacks location history and a proper web-filtering system.
Pros
- +
Fantabulous user interface
- +
Powerful iOS feature set
- +
Covers twenty child devices
Cons
- -
Relatively expensive
- -
Not much web filtering
- -
Complicated installation process
OurPact: Specs
Price: Free to $100/yr
Number of devices: 1 to twenty
Platforms: Android, iOS
Spider web portal for parents: Yes
Telephone call logging: None
Text logging: None
Telephone call blocking: None
Text blocking: Yes
Geofencing: Yeah
Location tracking: Yes
Location history: None
Web monitoring: None
Web filter: Yes
Time limits: Yes
Scheduling: Yes
App direction: Yes
App blocker: Yeah
OurPact was launched in 2015 with a more robust feature assault iOS child devices than nearly other parental-command apps.
It then had a turbulent couple of years every bit Apple first croaky downwardly on those features and threw OurPact out of the App Store, then somewhat relaxed its policies regarding third-party parental-control apps and allow OurPact dorsum in.
OurPact has always offered an splendid user interface and overall experience, and despite some feature changes, that remains truthful.
At $70 a year for the premium version of the app or $100 for the total feature set, OurPact is one of the priciest options available on the market. But it does embrace up to 20 devices, and so if you have a lot of devices and/or children, the per-device price might non look so bad.
While the balance of its competitors have made upward some design ground over the terminal couple of years, OurPact remains one of the best parental control apps when it comes to both looks and usability, and it has a couple of unique and clever features that may help justify its high cost.
Read on for the rest of our OurPact review.
OurPact: Costs and what's covered
OurPact has a pricing plan that's slightly more than disruptive than most, with four options: a free tier, OurPact Plus, OurPact Premium and OurPact Premium+.
With the gratuitous tier, users can manage one kid device and apply up to 5 manual blocks per calendar month, along with one automated block schedule. Upgrade to OurPact Plus for just $1.99 per calendar month, and you can support up to 10 kid devices with unlimited transmission blocks and unlimited automatic cake schedules. Both these tiers support the visitor'southward "App Scrambling Solution!" for iOS (more on that later) and too full spider web browser blocking, including for Safari.
The side by side footstep upwardly is OurPact Premium, which costs $6.99 per calendar month ($69.99 if paid yearly) and gives you support for up to 20 child devices, unlimited manual blocks, unlimited automatic block schedules and every premium characteristic in the app just one. That i feature is reserved for OurPact Premium+ at $nine.99 a month ($99.99 if paid yearly) and it'southward the ability to receive both automatic and on-demand screenshots from your child'due south device.
Virtually parents will want OurPact Premium, but if your only goal is to manage device time, then the free or Plus plan may exist plenty.
OurPact: Installation
Different nearly parental-control apps we tested, you lot will demand a macOS or Windows computer to install OurPact. The app requires that you install its OurPact Connect software and iTunes on a calculator to set up the child devices. Y'all will besides need a USB cable to connect the child devices to your PC or Mac and the screen-lock passcodes to the kid devices.
The installer walks y'all through the process from in that location, merely y'all will also need to unlock the child device and disable "Find My iPhone" in the settings. You'll then need to assign the device to a child or create a child contour if yous hadn't already washed so. It'southward null more than entering a name.
The kid device volition reboot, and you'll need to enter the passcode again. Side by side you need to navigate to Settings, tap the Profile downloaded and Install. Follow the onscreen instructions to terminate setting up the Mobile Device Management profile, which volition let your kid's telephone be remotely monitored.
Android users get things a piffling easier every bit no additional software beyond OurPact Connect is needed. Plug the child device into the computer and you will exist prompted to turn on "Developer options." The instructions on how to do this will announced on screen if you haven't washed information technology previously.
And then you will need to turn on USB Debugging in the Developer Options menu on the child'due south phone. You'll need to create the OurPact profile for this child if you lot haven't already washed so. Await for the app to consummate the pairing process and you're washed.
This is certainly a more cumbersome procedure than y'all'll get with most parental-control apps, merely information technology should exist a ane-fourth dimension, or at to the lowest degree an infrequent, thing. Once it'due south done, you'll be able to manage everything from the parent app.
The app does an excellent task walking yous through that the setup process, only after that information technology abandons you. It would be nice to have a brief tour or at least a walkthrough well-nigh finishing the child profiles, which at this point will merely have names.
The app will select a random piffling cartoon avatar for each child, just if you click on the contour, y'all can upload an bodily photo of your child (or any y'all want to correspond them). You can also enter their age and gender if you wish, although those have no effect on the app.
Every feature in the app is disabled by default, so you will demand to customize each setting for each child. I demand to stress that I love the OurPact interface but given the thoroughness of the installation walkthrough and the intendance given to the rest of the app, I find the lack of any guidance on the setup process to exist an odd oversight.
The more recent versions of both Android and iOS don't let y'all grant permanent location privileges to an app in the pop-upwardly dialog box during installation. If y'all want the location tracking to ever work, you need to go to the phone's settings carte du jour and toggle the location privilege choice for OurPact.
One other note: If you ultimately determine to remove OurPact from your child'southward device, you must employ the OurPact Connect desktop app to do this. Information technology's much simpler than the installation procedure: You just demand to connect the device over USB, click remove, select iOS or Android and and then click start. If you lot don't practice this, and so the management organisation volition remain in identify without the ability for you to control it.
OurPact: App direction
App management is one of the strengths of OurPact, as it is identical on iOS and Android. Every app tin can be set up to adhere to the overall schedule set for the child or tin be toggled to "E'er Blocked" or "Always Immune." No other parental-control app that I tested that came close to this level of functionality on iOS.
The total list of installed apps on a child'south device is automatically populated on both iOS and Android. I would honey information technology if OurPact gave you a sorting option for this alphabetized list , but that's a relatively modest complaint.
Clicking on each app'southward proper name shows y'all some of the app-store data on it, including the recommended user age, its rating, screenshots and the description. While this is non equal to the full app-advisor service you get with Net Nanny, it's notwithstanding quite handy for identifying potentially unwanted apps.
Another new characteristic is the "App Organizer." OurPact used to make blocked iOS apps literally disappear so couldn't bring them dorsum in the aforementioned society in which they were originally installed. Reinstated apps were but dumped back onto the habitation screens in alphabetical order.
The App Organizer now allows the child to sort and save their home screens inside the OurPact Jr. app. Apps volition return to their places in one case the current block is over. This new feature is not going to permit for the fancy iOS 14 custom habitation screens, but information technology'south worlds better than the fashion it previously was.
Android app management is excellent and avoids the disappearing/reappearing iOS app headache by merely graying out apps that aren't presently available. This isn't as impressive on Android, equally about parental-control services manage it on that platform, merely OurPact is 1 of the very few to have cracked this problem on iOS.
OurPact: Filtering
Web filtering remains an afterthought on OurPact. Parents can toggle the option to block adult content ... and that's it. There's just one category you can set up to on or off. Now I will say that dissimilar some of the other services, OurPact's filtering for its one blockable category did actually work. Information technology tells the child that a site is restricted due to adult content, including Google search results that could include adult content.
Your just other options in this section of the service are to either block or allow specific domains or subdomains. The functionality that is here works, but this is just incredibly limited and has been for years. If web filtering is a primary concern for y'all, then look to Internet Nanny.
OurPact: Time management
This is another area of the OurPact app that could use more attention. There are two different components to fourth dimension direction in OurPact; Schedule and Allowance. These are on singled-out pages, which isn't a problem, but is perhaps unnecessary.
Schedule identifies the periods of time when you practise not want your child to be able to use their device at all. At that place is a "Bedtime" schedule already programmed with a Sunday-Thursday routine, only you tin make changes to it or hit the plus push in the upper-right corner to add together your ain schedules.
You tin toggle each of these schedules on and off without getting rid of them. This is swell if you lot take dissimilar schedules over the grade of the year, such as for the summer. Simply brand the schedules once and and so toggle equally appropriate.
Allowance is the other time-direction component. This is the full amount of time each child is allowed to use their device during a given twenty-four hour period of the calendar week. The options ascend in xxx-minute increments from zero to three hours, then from 3 hours to eight hours in hourly increments, and then jumps to "All Solar day."
This lack of granularity is a little odd, as I can't imagine how or why it would be problematic to requite you lot the 15-minute increments you get with Qustodio. At the same time, I recall most parents will find OurPact'due south interface a reasonable option.
OurPact has airtight the motion-picture show-in-moving picture loophole that would let YouTube or Netflix play on even afterward time was upwards. Just another time-management annoyance still exists. The child needs to tap the play button to commencement the clock on their daily allowance, then return to the app to hit intermission once more when they're done. These steps are easy to forget, and OurPact should be able to simply suspension the allowance automatically when the child's device goes into standby fashion.
OurPact: Texting management
OurPact's solution to texting direction is to let you cake texting apps when you don't want your child using them. Somewhat impressively, this does include Letters on iOS, but while this does stop texting, there's no text monitoring available. Text monitoring and logging seem to have fallen out of favor among parental-command apps regardless, so this isn't likely something OurPact'due south developers will address in a future update.
OurPact: Location tracking
OurPact does a solid task delivering virtually of what we want with location tracking, although information technology offers no location history. If you click on the map immediately to the correct of your child's avatar, information technology volition pull up the Family unit Locator map with anybody's concluding known location. If yous click on their icon on the map, it volition tell you when they were last detected.
Places is the geofencing feature for OurPact. It'south quite well done and is now available on both Android and iOS.
Type in an address so fix a circle centered on that betoken to create an area. Select to which children information technology should utilize and whether you would similar notifications when they enter or exit the circle. The minimum circumvolve radius size of 656 feet (or 200 meters) seems slightly too large, but the maximum radius of 32,808 anxiety (10 kilometers) borders on the comical, as that creates an area of more than 120 square miles. You can easily resize each circle past clicking and dragging.
Grant/Block
These features become prominent placement every bit they are the chief functions for the free and OurPact Plus tiers. They are quick and easy to use when you want to ignore the schedule or allowance. They either just give your child extra device fourth dimension or block them from using their device immediately.
Y'all just select the length of time that you desire to "Cake" or "Grant" from the drop-down menu and that'south information technology. The moment you click on it, it volition be in effect. To go back to the normal fourth dimension management before fourth dimension is up, merely click or tap "cancel override."
Encrypted Screenshots
This new feature is the sole extra you go with the top-tier OurPact Premium+. It allows you to prepare the app to capture automated screenshots from your child'southward device or to trigger a screenshot immediately. Information technology will too apparently tag screenshots that have concerning keywords on screen. These are then loaded into the encrypted gallery constitute betwixt the map and the Grant/Block spaces on your OurPact dashboard.
This is a somewhat odd add-on, and I simply don't see it every bit being worth an extra $3 a month to most users. Merely nosotros'll have to encounter if it hangs on in the future.
OurPact review: Lesser line
OurPact has fabricated its manner back into consideration for its iOS functionality, but in that location are still some definite drawbacks to the service for some users. The lack of whatsoever call or texting monitoring may be a deal-breaker for some parents, and the virtually complete lack of web filtering makes it a less useful overall tool than competing apps like Net Nanny or Norton Family.
For iOS-first households, none of the other services that I've tested offer anything shut to this level of control over iOS devices, only that app command would have to be your superlative priority to justify going with OurPact. The blueprint, particularly in the mobile apps, is still unmatched by the rest of the services I tested, but I'm unconvinced by some of the new characteristic additions given that OurPact notwithstanding lacks a few cadre features.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ourpact
Posted by: lomeliyousintor.blogspot.com
0 Response to "OurPact parental control app review"
Post a Comment