What you need to know
- Family Link is getting a design refresh, reorganizing the app into three pages: Screen Time, Controls, and Location.
- School time will come to Android phones managed with Family Link starting next week.
- Parent-managed controls will hit Family Link devices “in the coming months.”
Google is refreshing the design of the Family Link app and bringing a few features introduced for kid-friendly Wear OS watches to Android phones, it announced today, Feb. 12. The user-interface shakeup splits the Family Link for Android app into three main pages: Screen Time, Controls, and Location. The new look for Family Link is designed to make it easier for parents to manage multiple children and devices, Google explains.
With the fresh UI, the Screen Time page shows a breakdown of a child’s device and app usage. Parents can also create or manage Downtime and School time restrictions from this page. Basically, everything Screen Time related is now organized cleanly in one place, no matter how many devices or kids you have.
Meanwhile, the Controls page is the home for changing account data settings, approving app downloads, and blocking specific websites, according to the company. This includes individual options for managing a child’s parental controls for YouTube, Google Search, and other apps or services. At the top of the screen, there’s an oval that shows which child’s profile you’re currently viewing, which also lets you swipe between them.
Finally, the Location page is exactly what it sounds like — it’s a map showing your child’s last-updated location, device battery life, and cellular connection.
Google made waves when it introduced the Fitbit Ace LTE, a kid-friendly smartwatch. More recently, it helped Samsung make the Galaxy Watch for Kids. Both of these efforts helped make smartwatches available for children, and created new parental control options for parents.
One of those features is School time, which is a parental control option intended to reduce distractions from smartwatches during school hours. Now, Google is bringing that same feature to Android phones with Family Link starting next week. School time can be customized by parents to limit phone features, silence notifications, block certain apps, and report which apps kids are using while they’re at school.
Additionally, the Galaxy Watch for Kids was the first Wear OS smartwatch to support parent-managed contacts. This feature will come to Android phones “in the coming months,” which will let parents restrict calls and texts made by their child only to contacts they’ve approved.
School time and parent-managed contacts are the latest Family Link feature set to come to Android phones after starting on watches. Last year, Google announced plans to make Google Wallet available to kids in a limited fashion.
If you’re just learning about Family Link for the first time, we have the complete guide for how to get started here.
