- Google has just upgraded its useful family liaison service for parents
- It now allows you to reduce distractions on your children’s phone during school hours
- The family link has also received a large overhaul to facilitate the use
Google’s family ties allows you to remotely manage your children’s devices and is one of the most unknown tools in the technology giant. If you are a parent and you have not yet used the service, this is the very good time to take a look because it has just received three major upgrades.
The first and undoubtedly the biggest update of Family Link is a functionality called “school time”. This is currently helping to reduce distractions on your child’s intelligent watch during school hours – and from “next week”, Google says it deploys the support for Android phones and tablets.
This means that you can silence the notifications and plan limited Android phone features during your child’s school hours. This should not necessarily mean a complete phone or tablet during these periods, you can define a “break” in the schedules, for example, if you are happy for them to travel the web during lunch or recreation.
You can also choose specific applications that are silenced or limited – for example, keeping those specific to the available school. And even when your child’s phone or the functionality of your tablet is restricted, it will always have access to important features like being able to call emergency services.
The second new Family Link feature, which will only be available “in the coming months”, is the possibility of restricting who your children call and send SMS from their Android phones. Google says you can add approved family ties to your child’s phone, which means that they can only interact with approved contacts. The drawback is that this will only work with Google messages and numbering applications on Android phones and not with third -party applications.
The final modification of Google Family Link is a fairly important overhaul. A new screen tab brings together all your management tools, and Google says it has also rationalized its control tab to facilitate the blocking of private websites or approval of application downloads.
If you have more than one child, juggling several accounts should also be easier. You can now slide between their profiles and manage all their devices from a single page, with the most advanced tools stored on a separate screen.
If you are a parent on Android, you should try a family link
We are big fans of Google Family Link on Techradar, and these upgrades certainly seem useful – in particular the arrival of “school time” on Android phones and tablets. The tool is mainly intended for children under 13, but you can also use it for adolescents (if you are ready to cope with inevitable friction).
Speaking of his experiences with the application, the world editor of Techradar, Marc McLaren, previously said: “I would not say that Google Family Link was a better parent than me or my partner, but it was one thing Closely for a while.
“Being able to set limits for individual applications was a massive help because my daughters entered their first years and were finally authorized on Tiktok and Snapchat; without that, I suspect that they would all spend about 20 hours a day Their flows, rather than the two hours given to them, “he said.
Family Link also has a practical location function that shows you where your children are on a map. The whole service naturally only works if the parent and the child are on Android (the functionality of “contacts managed by parents” requires Android 14), so it’s not so great if your family is on a mixture Android and iOS. But overall, it is worth exploring – and you never know, your children could also love him.
