Verizon Family

Overall I’d say it’s an app. A little confusing, but generally functional which is just fine for an app that’s supposed to be functional. I’m not spending a lot of time messing around on it, so 🤷‍♀️. Where we have had repeated issues is with app requests. I have it set up so my kids have to request every app or App Store purchase they want, but we’re now a few weeks into yet another spell of those requests not making it to me. We’ve gone through this several times. We reboot all the phones, try checking all the settings on all the phones. I’m still getting notifications if they’re on during the night or school hours, just not their app requests. Then all of a sudden previous times, the requests will start coming through again and we won’t have a clue if some combination of the phones in question rebooting after running out of battery or just absolute randomness caused it. This wouldn’t be quite as big a deal if I could open the parent app and see a list of the requests to review. While I’m on the subject, my preference would be sorted, showing those pending approval, but also an option for seeing historical requests for maybe the past month whether approved or denied, in case of appeal etc.

I’ve been using this app for a year now, and paying for it as well. I wish I could have all the money I’ve paid into using this app monthly. I got it so that I could control time limits and restrictions on my child’s phone. As well as have her constant location. Unfortunately the app has caused more problems with accessibility than not. Content filters will tell you “1000 apps blocked but ——“ and then only list a few for you to unblock, which has caused us to be unable to use a lot of apps that I can not unblock. When the time limits are for a specific time range, Random apps will stop working outside of that time frame(when all apps and internet access should be available). It’s taken us months to figure out that the reason that apps would not work was because of Verizon smart family. We’ve even lost out on a lot of money to subscribe to premium apps, only for them not to work and us not know why. Even after contacting THOSE apps developers with complaints. Come to find out the root of the problem was Verizon smart family app this whole time. Outside of these problems which are a major source of contention right now, the location services are subpar at best, laggy, a slow to update. Especially when compared to apps like life360. Basically the only RELIABLE thing that this app is good for at this point is to be able to pause your child’s internet. Which, for the cost, isn’t worth it when simply taking the phone away is FREE. Verizon needs to do better with this app, or at the very least make it free, because that is all it’s worth.

It is utterly awful! Seriously, for instance with the time restrictions, you can’t even tell what you’re restricting. Is the time that you restrict the time the phone is off, or on? You really have no way of knowing, until you do it, and then your kid complains, or not. It actually says “set custom hours“ and then has a start time and stop time. That’s it! What does that mean!? Plus you can’t set different times for different nights, like different for weekdays and weekends, but who would ever want to do that? (Heavy sarcasm). Plus, you can set a limit on your kid’s data. But then it just shuts off! It doesn’t throttle down so they limited access to data. The purpose most people want is to limit their use so they only use their share and don’t use up all of the family plan, not cut them off completely when they reach their limit. That should obviously be an option. Unbelievable! But wait, there’s more! It doesn’t work and less you install an app on their phone! That’s idiotic! All they have to do is delete it! Of course there are ways to set up the phone so they can’t do that, But I shouldn’t have to. I really can’t believe someone with even a high school diploma could’ve come up with such an awful app. What’s even worse is they charge you 10 bucks a month for this awfulness when it should be included with your plan!