Nintendo Switch Parental Cont‪…‬ 17+

I would deffo recommend this app, it does what it says it does. It reminds my child on his screen (top corner so doesn’t disturb game play too much) makes a little bell noise so that they look at it and realise that it’ll soon be the end of game play. The reminders are good as let’s my son know it’ll be over soon and won’t be too upset by the game turning off. 5stars in my opinion as u can set what ever time you wish for your child to play for. Lots more options too! Happy parent :)

This has the makings of a slick application, but it is woefully inconsiderate of simple, practical considerations.

For example:

- Usage and time of day restrictions apply to the whole Switch. If you've got more than one child using it and one of them burns through the usage credit, well tough luck for the other one.

- No matter how many parent/guardians you have in a family group, only one of them can actually link a Switch. The rest might as well not bother using the app as it doesn't function at all without linking - you simply cannot get past the linking step to do anything, even if you're registered under an account that IS linked.

- There is no facility to suspend operation on demand. Child refusing to come to the table for food? Nothing you can do except to physically take it from them if they're within the usage/time of day parameters. The app pushes new settings to it instantly so no reason it can't suspend on demand.

- Child been really good today? You can't give them extra time unless you change the usage/time of day rules persistently, "disable alarms for today" in the app or "temporarily disable parental controls" on the Switch, which lasts for as long as it doesn't go to sleep (no "you can have an extra 30 mins" etc)

This stuff is pretty fundamental, but curiously absent.

I hate this app and would not have bought my son a Nintendo if I had realised the parental controls are so unfit for purpose.

1. Only one parent can connect to the device, family sharing on app doesn’t work.
2. You can’t release half hour/hour blocks of extra time, once your child has used up their daily time allowance you can only unlock it for the whole day meaning fights and arguments if you then want to turn it off again.
3. App frequently doesn’t work/freezes.
4. No granularity of controls so for example friend requests are either on or off, whereas with Apple you can add approved contacts and then your child can’t add or remove.
5. Similar lack of granularity as to what games they can use and what functionality into what games.
6. So many things just don’t work like adding people and don’t even get me started on Minecraft.
7. Usability is completely appalling and have wasted hours with many friends trying to get advice and work out the settings. Four months in have still not got this working the way I want and for context I have worked in tech for 15 years. This is inexcusable UX.

Definitely would never have bought Switch for my child if I know the parental controls this unfit for purpose.