Some ideas are so good that you can’t believe they haven’t been thought of before. One of these is School Time, a lockdown system that limits access to smart devices (used by kids, obviously) during predefined hours. It’s a feature that Google made available earlier this year on one of its Fitbit kids wearables.
The initial rollout must have been a success (we wouldn’t know) because the search giant has announced that it will bring School Time to more devices. Some of them we might even have here in South Africa.
It’s School Time
On the cards for the new feature are “select Android phones, tablets and Samsung Galaxy Watches”. While Google is still tight-lipped about which devices are in line for the feature, we’d hazard a guess that Samsung’s Galaxy A devices are in there somewhere. Why? Just a feeling (and Samsung and Google’s recent closeness).
School Time would be a handy feature to have if you’re a parent with youngsters in school. It allows parents to define specific times in Google’s Family Link app to lock the phone down. Typically this would be during school hours. Part of the lockdown includes which apps on the device — phone, tablet, or watch — are available during that lockdown. It’s also possible to set which contacts can be called or messaged during concentration time.
This device-specific feature is just part of a greater update that offers greater security options for teenagers specifically, though it does mean parents will be wholly privy to what their youngsters are watching on YouTube. That… might be a very revealing set of data for parents. Various safety settings will be enabled by default for the under-18s and parents will gain a greater ability to limit which apps can be used when in general.