Nintendo Switch Parental Cont…

This is a great app that helps me control when my kids can play on their Switches. For the most part it works pretty well as expected. The one major feature that I see missing is the ability to set a "start time." For example, you can set a time which is considered "bedtime" and the Switch will suspend itself and the child will not be able to play anymore past that time. Which is great for preventing them from sneaking out of bed and grabbing their Switch and playing it. BUT, for some strange reason you can’t set up a start time, so if the kid wakes up at 6 AM and you don't want them to play until 8 AM too bad. They can wake up at 6 AM and play on their switch for two hours before you even wake up and there's no way to stop it. Please Nintendo add this feature and I will rate it five stars.

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I was super excited to learn that the Switch had parental controls. Unfortunately the options are severely lacking, rendering useless the parental control feature. As others have mentioned, the inability to set parental controls (time limits, content ratings) for individual users is a complete non-starter. My next thought was to set a combined time limit for the whole family, and then use the app to monitor whether family members were self-managing and splitting the time equitably. This too is not possible, as the app’s accounting of time per user is wildly inaccurate. Lastly, it would be nice if two instances of the app could be linked to the same Switch console (e.g. both mine and my wife’s iPhones) for co-parent monitoring. Assuming Nintendo fixes all of the above, this app could actually fulfill its assumed promise. From there it would be amazing to also be able to set parental controls for my kids’ Nintendo 3DS consoles using this same app. Even cooler would be if screen time limits per kid were enforced cross-device, which would allow parents to mange total daily screen time regardless of which Nintendo device their kids are using. After all, what’s the purpose of making parents establish Nintendo accounts and IDs for each kid if not to ultimately provide features like this? Or is it just so Nintendo can track, profile, and sell stuff to my kids? Disappointing.

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Two issues. 1. The purpose of setting parental controls is so that you can tailor them to the individual person. This app only allows for the control of the device. This is our family device and I won’t be buying multiple so I can control my kids’ access individually. I don’t want to put controls on four people when I just want to restrict the usage individually for each family member dependent on earning time to play on it (school grades, helping out at home, general free playtime). Issue 2. The use of the PIN. If my kid goes on my phone and into the app, the PIN is displayed, so not only can they change the parental settings that I have set, but also go on the Switch, enter the PIN I’ve chosen and then they can use the switch for as long as they want and gives them an override for everything that I’ve set up. Nintendo, it seems like you could come up with something far better. Everyone complains that kids are addicted to video games and don’t do anything else, just like the cigarette manufacturers you should have some kind of obligation to lessen and assist with the regulation of this addiction

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Not being able to change the 6:00am start time after which the switch can be played during the day (like it does for the other end of the day when using the bedtime feature) has led to morning battles like no other in my household. Video games are pretty much the worst thing for my son to get into at the start his day. “Honey, time to turn off the game and eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, and go to school!”—That doesn’t work on my kid (wouldn’t have worked on me either—lots of kids struggle with transitions). Having to hide it from him every night is a hassle and I don’t always remember to do it. I would give it five stars if I could restrict game time to after school only. I really fault Nintendo Nintendo for failing to include this obvious feature, especially by now when lots of people have asked for it. When I try to imagine why they would not, by now, have added this, it brings to mind Silicon Valley parents who don’t permit their own children to use the products they create, but are comfortable marketing to other people’s children.

I love this app because i can control how much my kid plays and what I can restrict. What I don’t like is the bug I noticed right away. I was testing it out and when I switched from a bedtime to NONE, it still was counting down 5 min on the switch, which made no sense. Also I keep getting error messages on my app which I think is weird. Anyways please fix these issues, check the app for bugs nintendo! UPDATE: One thing I recently don’t like is that if I disable the parental controls on the switch itself, I can’t enable them from the app. For example I disable the controls only so my son can play “fortnight”. But that also disabled the bed time and the game shutting off. I HATE this! I need it to be where I can disable for that game only but not the time limit. Nintendo please fix this!