Parental Control for Android Phones

Note: this is an archive page


For the most recent version of these details, please go to Android Phone App


 

Manage and protect your child’s smartphone experience with our award-winning parental control app.

Download the MMGuardian Parental Control application, and start to enjoy peace of mind about your child’s use of their phone.

 

 

About the Product

The MMGuardian Parental Control application provides a simple to use, yet powerful, parental control solution for Android smartphones.  This includes accurate location, device lock, app block, text and drive prevention, text monitoring, call block and more.  Collectively, this powerful parental control app for Android gives parents the ability to monitor and control the crucial aspects of their child’s phone use.

Peace of Mind

Android phone parental controls can form an important aspect of achieving peace of mind for parents. Our products help you address your concerns by providing parents with a comprehensive solution. MMGuardian Parental Control helps children make the right choices as they grow and learn how to safely use mobile technologies.

What Does It Do?

The MMGuardian Parental Control app allows you to:

  • Locate your child’s phone, on demand or scheduled.
  • Lock your child’s phone, on demand or scheduled.
  • Control which apps can be used, and when.
  • Prevent your child texting and driving.
  • Monitor your child’s text messages.

And much more! Read on for more details about our parental control app for Android phones…


MMGuardian Phone Parental Controls Features



Time Limits

Time Limits allows you to easily pre-configure the times when your child’s phone will be locked. Several time schedules may be defined, during which, the phone will be totally locked down.

The flexibility of Time Limits allows you to set lock times to cater for multiple scenarios such as differing sleep times during the week versus the weekend, or various periods of time throughout school days to differentiate between class times and free time breaks such as lunch.

Simply enter the start and end times, and select the days of the week required for the specific time schedule. Note that the start time may be after the end time, to lock the phone overnight.

Premium Feature: Please note that this feature forms part of our Premium offering.

P.S. Time Limits allow you to pre-set times when the phone will be locked. It is still possible to send SMS commands to lock or unlock the phone on demand, or send lock and unlock commands from the Parent Web Portal or the Parent App.

If your child uses Facebook Messenger, please see Note 1 below



Locate

Locate your child’s phone without having to call them to ask where they are, or to check if they are where they should be. You will receive text messages containing the location and a clickable link to show the location on a map.

You may obtain the location of your child’s phone at any time using a simple SMS text command message sent from the admin phone, or various schedules may be pre-configured using the Track/Scheduled Locate function.

SMS text Locate command



Track (Scheduled Locate)

 

This function allows you to pre-configure times to receive recurring updates of the location of your child’s phone. Up to four different locate schedules can be configured, and each schedule can include up to four time schedules.

The flexibility of Scheduled Locate allows you to cater for multiple scenarios such as ensuring that your child made it safely to and from school – allowing for after-school activities on selected days, and other events at weekends.

Creating a Scheduled Locate is easy: simply define the required start and end times, and how often you wish to obtain the location.

Premium Feature: Please note that this feature now forms part of our Premium offering.



Application Control

 

This function allows you to block selected apps, or to only allow selected apps to be used by your child. Additionally, you may specify whether the block/allow is forever, or should only apply during certain times.

Combining the flexibility of Time Limits and that of Application Control allows you to configure your child’s phone to cater for scenarios such as a total lockdown over night, whilst allowing use of the device at homework times; but only for homework, and not for playing games or chatting on social network sites!

You may also set a maximum daily usage limit for each app, with different times for weekdays and weekends. (Currently the Daily Limits can only be configured from the Parent Web Portal).

Block mode also has two additional and important uses: Preventing your child from accessing the Android “Settings” application, and preventing them from installing new applications, by blocking the PlayStore (or other application store) app. Note that if you are using “allow” mode, then your child will only have access to Settings and PlayStore if you specifically include those in the allowed apps list.

Premium Feature: Please note that this feature now forms part of our Premium offering.

If your child uses Facebook Messenger, please see Note 1 below



Text Monitor

 

Text Monitor allows you to specify words that, if contained in SMS texts sent to or from your child’s phone, are messages that you want to know about. If such a message occurs, you’ll receive an alert text to your phone (the admin phone) containing the full context of the message 2.

Whether you are concerned about sexting, bullying, or use of inappropriate words, just add the relevant words into the sensitive word list and let the MMGuardian application discretely monitor the text messages that your child is exposed to.

Words may also be added or removed from the list at any time using simple SMS text command messages sent from the admin phone.

SMS text Monitor commands

Premium Feature: Please note that this feature now forms part of our Premium offering.



Call Block

 

Prevent your child from being contacted by undesirable people and protect them from bad influences by blocking calls to or from selected numbers and contacts selected from their phone’s address book.

The MMGuardian application allows you to choose to either block specific numbers and contacts, or to only allow calls from numbers or contacts that you pre-select.

Note: From app version 3.0, the MMGuardian Parental Control app includes a built-in MMG Messaging app for SMS and MMS messages. If this app function is enabled and set to be used as the phone’s default Messaging app, then SMS messages will also be blocked based on the settings set for Call Block. However, if this MMG Messaging app is not enabled or used by your child then SMS text messages will not be blocked, and instead an optional admin alert would be sent, should a text be sent to or received from a “prohibited” number.

Premium Feature: Please note that this feature now forms part of our Premium offering.



Daily Report

 

Optionally, a brief report can be sent to your phone (the admin phone) as a text message around 8.00pm each day containing an overview of the number of calls and texts to and from your child’s phone, over the past 24 hours.

Sending of a Daily Report is enabled or disabled in the MMGuardian application’s settings screen.

The Daily Report mode may also be enabled or disabled at any time using simple SMS text command messages sent from the admin phone.

SMS text Daily Report command

Note: If you use the Parent App on your own phone, you will receive a detailed call and SMS report each day, so you will probably not want to enable the 8pm overview report that is sent via SMS. The parent app will also receive detailed reports about application usage and web browsing, if web filter is enabled. Alternatively these detailed reports can be viewed at the web portal.

Premium Feature: Please note that detailed reporting is a Premium feature.



Anti-Tamper and Uninstall Protection

 

We’d all like to think that children readily accept the use of technology to help them make the right choices and keep them safe, and is something they are happy with. For the times when this is a challenge, the Anti-Tamper and Uninstall Protection functions can help.

Enabling these functions makes it close to impossible to remove the application by normal means, without knowledge of the admin password, and also prevents access to critical screens in the Android Settings menu that could otherwise be used to tamper with the correct operation of the MMGuardian app.

Enhanced anti-tamper capabilities are now included the Anti-Tamper Service as a separate configuration step when registering app versions 2.3.7 onwards.


HOW TO USE:

The application should be installed onto the phone you wish to locate and protect.
You may of course install it on your own phone to try it out, and get to know how it works, before installing it on your child’s phone.

To install the application, simply goto the MMGuardian Parental Control application page on the Google Play site, press install to download and install it, then open the app and register with an email address and password. This address does not have to be the one associated with the Google Play Store account used to download the app.

Please note that the “admin” parent’s phone number is required to be able to send SMS commands to the app, and is where alerts and reports from the app will be sent.


TRIAL PERIOD:

The MMGuardian application has full functionality for the trial period of 14 days from registration. There is no requirement to enter payment information, such as configuration of Google Wallet in the Google Play Store app on your child’s device, to start the trial.

Following the 14 day trial period, you will be prompted to make an in-app upgrade subscription or purchase to continue using the Premium Features of the application. The purchase options include monthly or annual subscriptions at $4.99 and $49.99 respectively. Family options covering up to 5 phones or tablets are also available at twice the individual phone price. Please refer to: Pricing


 
 

The above information describes an older version of the Parental Control application, v.3.0, some features may not be present in earlier versions.
List of Android permissions used by the MMGuardian application.

Note 1 – Facebook Messenger: When the Chat Heads function is enabled, the MMGuardian app is currently not able to block access to the message “bubble”, and accordingly messages can be received and replied to, even when the app is blocked or the phone is locked.
Note 2. Only applies to SMS messages sent via phone carrier, not apps such as TextFree, TextNow, Kik, Viber etc where message are sent via data
Android is a trademark of Google Inc.