S'moresUp - Best Chores App

I really do like this app, I like the functionality and what it’s built to do makes managing chores within the family SO much easier. Where it fails? 1. The load/refresh rate is terribly slow. I nearly always have to kill the app on my phone before I open it again, or it will not refresh to show changes made by family. 2. My kid doesn’t have a phone so the app is on the tablet.. it is not very tablet friendly. Sits in an odd rectangular shape in the very center of the screen. 3. If I made a change to an existing chore, it doesn’t save in the chore listing but the change is there if I edit again. Example: I create a chore but realize I want a different color/icon or I don’t want a due time.. I edit it but everytime I see it in the chore listing it’s always the original color and set-up. The only thing that has changed is the name. 4. The customer service is non-existent. I have submitted two “tickets” with follow-up and I don’t even get an acknowledgment from their end. I’ve also tried to post under suggestions or in the community section and my posts never show up. 5. If my kid puts their s’mores into a reward to save, it doesn’t allow me to move them back to the bank. I have to use their account/tablet. I should be able to do this from my own. 6. There are some features/ideas that I had on things to help or things I wish the app did but there’s no one to listen. Oh yes and there are no icons for couch, living room, sweeping, etc. Things I feel are common and you can’t add your own.

Overall, very good. And I think I may become a paying user, but there are some serious load-time issues and a couple bugs/oversights that seem like they should have been addressed out by now. Bug: When l try to use the Advanced scheduling to set up a chore that has more than one week between completions, the interface will not allow me to enter a number of completions different from the number of days in the frequency block I'm trying to use. For instance, if I am trying to enter a chore that needs to be completed X time(s) every X months, it will default to 31 times every X months. If I am trying to enter a chore that needs to be completed X time(s) every X weeks, it will default to 7 times every X weeks. If I try to change it to 1 time every X weeks/months, it will not assign the chore until it reverts back to the auto-populated incorrect value. Oversight: Though it's obvious that SmoresUp is trying to get users to use the app to manage their schedules, the fact is most of us who already use a cloud calendar use Google Calendar. It is so feature rich with countless integrations and a robust development cycle, that very few SmoresUp users would every consider leaving Google in favor of SmoresUp. With that, it would be far more beneficial for SmoresUp to allow users to push the chore schedule to a Google Calendar than to pull the Google Calendar into SmoresUp. Fix those two things and I will gladly pay for the service without hesitation.

This app is perfect for giving your children responsibilities and teaching them about taking care of their business which leads to rewards! They can earn money and it encourages them to create goals! It also helps them to learn time and money management. Oh and yes...points can be taken away too! So, if the job isn’t done correctly then you don’t get paid in real life and this also helps them learn this concept as well. This type of responsibility also helps children self manage and cultivate a sense of independence! And my two sons ages 9 & 11 absolutely love this app! We all have iPhones and it works great!! Side note: The app can be a little glitchy like my one of my sons couldn’t log in after successfully using the app on the first day it was installed. So, I uninstalled it and then reinstalled it and it has been working fine ever since! Also when you are trying to add a reward like “dining out” if you create the reward and then decide to edit it the app will keep closing, but if you just delete the reward and recreate it it will work. The boys have the iPhone 8’s and us parents have the 11 pro max if that helps any.