T-Mobile FamilyMode

All the problems I listed below have been resolved from the time of its first release: If they spent more time and development on its function rather than its packaging they’d be on to something here. When I first bought both the plan and the home base a couple of weeks ago I almost returned it the next day because the management app was deleted from the App Store for unanswered reasons. I was told to use the management web portal, which I could not find or access on my t-mobile. A week or more later, while lugging the base around with the intention to return it, I searched for answers on whether this product would be supported or not going forward and found the app was back so I downloaded it and gave it and the base a try. As of now I still cannot login directly with the app. I continue to get the message “The App is experiencing difficulties. Login using T-Mobile’s App optimized web page.” It loads it in the app and I can login. More frustrating is that my login is not preserved and I’m forced to manually login twice every time and login even when I switch away from the app and back to it. I can go on because there’s more issues but I’m out of time for now...

I have always been struggling with control. Control of my life and health, control of my kids lives and health. What I should or shouldn’t do, what’s best. I’ve recently gone through so many changes and transitions, and this app has allowed me to check myself. What am I really trying to control and why. I love my son and all I wanted to do was teach him about life and it’s a constant lesson everyday. This app originally brought me a sense of relief in the thought that it would solve all my problems with trust in my son, then when I found out that I can NOT control things, or remembered that I can not, I gave up trying to make sure it was on his phone, I gave up the trust I thought I had, I was a lost soul. I had to make the change in me. I had to be the example. I learned everything I know from watching others, listening to others, sponging off of others. My kids are the fruit of my tree. They need me to be a good example. Not just for them but for the world. In all things that I do, I need to do them with good intent, with love and kindness. I put my faith in God because I know he loves me. I know he watches and listens to me. I’ve seen miracles, and I know that a change is here, and I have a purpose and my kids have a purpose, and we will live it everyday with love and patience in our hearts. I want that for the world, so we do not have to rely on apps like this AMAZING app 🧡🧡. Thank you for helping me in a time where I was lost. -Andie

I have spent multiple days on with Apple to the point we have wiped and restored to factory setting a iPhone 3 times trying to fix the issues. With Apple we figured it out to be this program is not up to date with iOS 15. Phone works perfect till you put this software on and it messes with a lot of settings and applications. One major one being iMessage can not stay activated so you won’t get iMessages , your messages go through as text only , you can only receive text messages and if messages you are receiving go through as iMessage they will not come through and gone forever . I have spoken to tech support ( I am a business owner / plan ) so I am supposed to have top notch tech support. Well that is a lie , they tried to blame Apple said they are up to date software no update to this app in 7 months so there is a lie , proved to tmobile it was this app and still they blame Apple. SaidEngineering will look at it and I would have a return call by Tuesday Thursdays come and gone I placed multiple calls since and I keep getting the runaround. This is unacceptable , I am paying for a service I can’t use , my phone will not work correctly , and they are doing nothing to fix this ongoing issue.

Dude, this app is terrible. It makes your kids not trust you. And I’m reading comments, and a lot of other people are saying the exact same thing! It is sort of good, that you can see what your kid is doing but. This isn’t the way. See, it show the apps your kid has been useing. And every website your kid has visited. And personally, this is not the way for you to gain your kid’s trust. They’ll stop talking to you because they’ll,feel like you are spying on them! And that is not the way. I hate this app from the bottom of my heart due to the fact that my parents are useing it against me. I feel completely violated at all times. And my parents are watching me. At all times. I hate it.. but, if this app was a little less privacy consuming it would be great for children. And people of all ages : ) just please take this to mind, I’m not sending hate to the app, however it really needs to not show so much, you are practically spying on your child. And destroying the bond between them and you. You are ruining the bond! And if you thing this is good parenting!? Spying on your kid!? Yeah? You are dead wrong!

I hate that the fact parents download this app all because they say you need this app so I can see what your doing if you didn’t notice kids feel violated about there privacy. This app is a huge burden to the children this is a recipe to ruin trust with your child if you have one. I see why parents downloaded this app because there power hungry they just want to control there child. I hope they know that when parents download a family mode into there children’s device it makes the child feel discourage, hopeless even gets them really upset. I don’t know why parents can’t trust there children first of all are they really paranoid? Since I’m a child myself I can’t really do anything about it I just feel really disappointed with my parents I thought they were always on my side but turns out Maybe I shouldn’t trust them as much anymore I just feel like I should start keeping my distance. Please don’t download this app it’s a recipe for your child will lose trust in you and will not look up to you anymore.

I put this app on my children’s iPhones and iPads hoping to control access times and content. However, I am peppered all hours day and night with unwanted and unhelpful notifications about the various child devices not responding to the app! I have confirmed countless times that the app is installed and open in the background, so the issue is infuriating. When I being the app to the foreground, I get some peace from the notifications BUT a few hours after the devices have gone to standby, I start getting peppered again with these useless notifications! STOP IT! This is terrible! Developers: you can NOT reasonably expect users — especially children — to keep your app in the foreground and the devices awake all hours of the day and night! Fix your app so that it can cope with being in the background on a device in standby for many hours or STOP sending notifications when you think the app is unresponsive!

There are many irritating issues with this app. Location feature, if it works, (half the time it doesn't), may position your child somewhere off the coast of Africa. In the south Atlantic Sea. Despite choosing to stay logged in, I'm constantly being asked to login again. It's difficult to determine days that are highlighted and days that aren't when determining schedules. Light shade, darker shade of pink? On off?? One of our four kids has an iPhone and he just turns it on and off at his convenience but that's not the apps fault. (and yes there's consequences for that behavior and internal features through the iPhone ((which is free))) Notifications, when turned on, don't always give notifications. Sometimes notifications seem faulty or not accurate. I had arranged phone call with T-Mobile to talk about this app and have them walk me through an issue I was having. It's taking several calls to find somebody who knew the app enough to talk about it. After setting up an appointment for someone to call me, I was stood up. Looking forward to my kids getting old enough where I don't need to use this app anymore. It's at times, when you need relying on it, that it seems to fail. I ask is this worth the money if it's not accurate. And seriously! I hate having to log in all the time.

Parents who feel the need to control their child are the ones who are going to end up with a child that does not listen. Trust must be instilled in your relationship. You might feel as though you can’t trust your child, but that’s because they need to trust you too. This app can ruin relationships and cause unnecessary tension. Teens will always be teens, if you excessively monitor everything they do online, then you are not letting your child be human. Parents should remember that as a teen themselves, they needed privacy. Whether or not your child “needs” this app in your mind, imagine what goes through the child’s mind. Whereas if you are looking to start fights or arguments, or even cause your child to be unhappy because of their controlling parents, then this is the app. Apps like this and Life360 are being abused. The CEO of Life360 has even mentioned that it was never his intention for it to be used this way, nor does he want it to continue to be. This is ridiculous. Please do NOT download this app.

This has been pretty good. I wish that it didn’t effect my internet so heavily and was designed to allow gigabyte flow. Really enjoy being able to better know what’s going on with my kids internet use. It assist me to make sure they aren’t overly exposed to adult content that their psychological development hasn’t caught up with. It’s difficult to use if you need a VPN for work and can strongly effect that, or hinder productivity when working from home. All in all not a bad product. Would like it if devices (work computers) could be added to and exclude feature where the traffic isn’t filtered, and speeds effected.

Love location history! 7 days worth of history for everyone in the family. Parents can now know where their teen went out and what time they came home. And great to see the map update in real time. The safety alerts are cool when your child leaves or arrives at a designated place. You can set up to 20. Would love to see safety alerts for content as well. Get an alert if your kid received a text that was aggressive or contained any cyber bullying. Or an alert if anything similar was said on social media. If T-mobile can incorporate those features parents would be even more at ease. But still, great improvement over the old FamilyMode.

This company is disgusting how they do business. You pay $10 a month for a service that doesn’t work 90% of the time. I’ve called t-mobile at least 15 times with this same issue and I’ve had it for about 5 months. It crashes everyday the VPN doesn’t work and turns itself off every day. Clearly there is something wrong with their service and they choose to turn a blind eye and just take your money every month and not fix it. I will continue to call till every month I get my money back for it. I will not pay for something that doesn’t work. The tech department doesn’t know anything all they say is “reinstall the app” “log out” “download again” I don’t have time to do this every week with customer service. DO SOMETHING T-MOBILE YOU $67 BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY!!! You have all that money and can’t fix an app. Lol pathetic. *update* they reached out to me telling me the same crap I’ve been doing. Check the VPN, install and uninstall the app. I’ve done everything and they’re telling me nothing new like always. And what I don’t understand is how they have so many 1 star reviews but manage to keep a 5 star rating lmaooo ok If you have an iPhone you can do it for FREE on the phone itself on screen time and it works 300% better and offers more and never crashes. Idk why I even paid for this

If you’re Tired of Apple’s not working Screen Time, This is a paid add on to your Tmobile account and manages the screen time by monitoring and cutting off cellular and wifi data using a VPN. There is not much documentation but you can limit the apps in categories and some popular apps only individually. It worked fine for a day, most usage was in line with what screen time showed. The problem is that my 12 yo son turned of VPN repeatedly for 4-5 and VPN crashed disabling the control. There is no bug reporting or tech support in the app, it keeps sending you to FAQ. I am not keen on calling Tmobile trying to explain whT is going on and hope that someone who knows this app will respond.

I was a user for almost a year and was waiting for the update for better location services. I was told for months it was coming and I finally cancelled at years end. Does the company plan on having a free month trial to lure new and old customers like myself ?

The app is very limited due to iOS restrictions, it you are able to track people and disable internet on iOS phones. This is why the app isn’t good, it’s limited to just phones. They don’t offer anything for tablets or PCs so it’s easy to get around and your children can just turn on the mobile Hot Spot that T-Mobile refuses to block and connect to each other to bypass everything. Also, the app still says it supports T-Mobile Home Base, a product they discontinued in 2022. And they charge you $10/mo for this service. There are competing services that do this and more for less. If this were a free service I’d have no complaints.

My parents only got this app because I came out to them and they didn’t like it now they want to monitor what I do 24/7 and have restrictions and besides this app they check my phone all the time honestly they could just check my phone and not have to use this horrible app I would have been ok if they decided to just talk about it like civilized people and not turn to an app as their first decision they have honestly lost all my trust and I don’t talk to them anymore and this even doesn’t let me do anything on my wifi anymore I have to use my data all the time now. So parents if you are deciding to download this for your kid make sure your either have a good reason or you are prepared to completely break the bond between your and them.

Although I am just another review from a kid, please listen. This app is not good for family and phone wise. This seriously damages your relationship with your parents. We had this for 2 weeks and it was horrible. Always fighting. Zero trust. On top of that, the app makes the rest of your phone slow and messes with the WiFi. One of the most annoying parts is when the parent unpauses the child’s phone, it takes like 15 minutes to go back to normal! If you’re looking to have a little more control over your kids devices, just use the screen time from the settings app. It’s easier and teaches the child to be responsible of how much they use their phones knowing that they’re time is limited.

In a world where our kids are on electronic devices for hours every day, I am always concerned about what they will see/be exposed to online. This app allows me to set restrictions that should keep them safe online. I also love the location feature, but find that it isn’t as accurate as I would like it to be. Sometimes it locates my kids somewhere miles away from their actual location. My favorite feature is the ability to “pause” their internet.

This is a big improvement over past versions, which I believe was made by a different developer. This one is more intuitive and feature-rich. Definitely a few bugs to work out with regard to getting up-and-running. Would expect that to be worked out in short order because customer support has been very helpful. Hoping to see driving functionality added in the future.

Great improvements over previous version. Tmobile has too many apps for different functions. Its a challenge to navigate and select apps for folks that moved over from Sprint. Please consolidate everything within Familymode app just like what sprint did with safe and found app. Location + parental controls for phone + parental controls for home/5g internet + pet & item tracking using gps tracker or gps watch all in a single app.

Parents complaining about kids not trusting you for using this app are the same parents of children doing horrible things at school saying “I trust my kid!” These kids are the same that are on their phones all day, sometimes watching porn, and when they get called out parent will say the teacher has something against their kid. My only problem with the app is that it’s advertised as a good app and then once you download it have to pay for the service. They should be upfront about that information.

The concept is really good but the app needs a lot of improvements. The child gets notifications every single time you check their location. They can disconnect VPN and they have access to everything. The FaceTime restriction doesn’t work, when you go to the history to see what pages they were searching an error page shows up. You can basically can only pause the data and restrict pages and that’s about it. It would be amazing to be able to control and see what my child is texting and who she’s calling, for parents to have total control of pages, apps, etc. I actually have more restrictions with screen time from iPhone and it’s for free. The $10 are not worth paying at all.

Our home base is constantly offline and I’m unable to connect. The box is very simple so I’m not sure why it won’t connect to our kids phones. All other internet dependent devices work fine, why won’t the base device sync ? The filtering system is worthless. I can see my kids navigating patterns, but when I click on a link, the webpages are dead. What’s the point if I can’t investigate? The feature, “Locating my device” through T Mobile Family mode is worthless. My kid had a Samsung device and it rarely worked. Now we switched to Apple and Apple’s system works great, never use FamilyMode specific to this feature because it never worked

In all the advertising and literature for this app, it repeatedly states, Parents (plural) can edit, view, pause and manage kids devices through the app. The reality is only one Adult Admin has the rights to edit, add devices, set parental controls, or pause internet use. Any additional parents are added as Adult Viewer which is basically useless other than allowing that viewer to see locations of devices. I’ve been on support for over an hour only for them to tell me, that only one parent can manage. Curiously they also told me the app is managed by an unknown 3rd party, which also raises privacy concerns.

Child is on the internet, yet usage time is saying “0” !! Waited an hour to see if the time just needed to adjust and nothing. The categories should also provide examples of the web pages. Arts & Entertainment, Sports & Rec … what type of web pages would that be ? Good concept, yet needs a lot of improvement ! There should be a place to add the actual webpage to either always allow or block. There are also appl such a book/reading appls that’s a parent should be able to choose to always allow (not included with time limit) and block at bed time. . Safety Areas are limited! Yet once you reach the max safety areas in the appl, you can’t add another and there’s no place to view or delete the safety areas you’ve already added! . If a child is in one area for a while and safety area is not listed … it should tell you child is X. . Definitely needs improvement!

Parents who use think they are helping their children by making an app do decisions for them. Now the issue is what happens when the kids are adults and they now have to make their own decisions, and a glitchy app by t mobile won’t be there for them. Parents also download apps like these because they don’t their children. Usually this isn’t an issue but don’t worry when you get this app your kids will go behind your back all the time, as they finds ways to beat the app. This distrust can lead to relationships falling apart. I really recommend if you want your relationship with your children to get ruined.

Wow is all I can say. I am so wowed at the improvements that T mobile rolled out on this update. So many useful features that I will use to ensure my family’s safety and security! Definitely worth trying out for anyone with children in their household. I’ve seen other reviews mention driver safety features. That would be a total game changer and no-brainer. Please incorporate this!

my parents got this for me thank god only for a little bit, but whatever you do it tracks that for you and then your parents can see EVERYTHING. watch 1 video then they can see that. then of course you get mad and it ruins the entire relationship! if you don’t believe me that this ruins everything read other kid reviews. i didn’t want to be controlled when i got a phone just don’t give it to me. any parents when you see this trust me it will ruin everything. just 👏 don’t 👏 get 👏 a 👏phone👏if 👏you 👏 are 👏 going 👏 to 👏 do 👏 that 👏

I just switched from AT&T due to reception issues in my neighborhood. With them I had the ATT family app which although was also slightly glitchy, if always gave accurate location updates of my kids. In addition it gave a minute to minute update of what apps they used and for how long. Family mode is unreliable with its surveillance of my kids’ locations and also does not reliably convey their locations . There is also currently no ability to monitor which apps the kids are on.

I’ve been using this app for years now to keep track of family members but even after iOS 15 update it’s been over a year with no security advances in this app ? do the developers even know it’s quirky at best I think it was iOS 15 thank asked my password was over a year old ( legitimately solid generated iOS password) So I changed it to an even more difficult pass. That’s about it for security updates.

My parents downloaded this app for me because they thought it would help me with managing my time on my phone. I agreed with them so we got the app. My phone REFUSED to work for 48 hours and the only way I could get it to work again was by uninstalling this app. When I say it didn’t work i mean I could not open anything regardless of the app saying I had time left. This app is good in theory but not very user friendly in my opinion. I suggest setting rules IN REAL LIFE about when your child can use their phone. (PS I am in 10th grade so I think I can give a valid opinion on this)

This app is not bad but it’s constant updates (almost daily), makes very difficult tracking your sons. It requires to check daily if the latest version was downloaded in your sons’s devices even if you set the auto-download option. At the end, if you can’t check this you won’t be able to use this app when is more needed and this is really frustrating.

To anyone complaining about trust issues. You live in a mirror verse. Anything you find wrong in someone else is something you have to fix in yourself. It’s really simple if you have nothing to hide you shouldn’t have a problem with this or any location services. If you have nothing to worry about you should understand it’s something your parents have to get over. You want parents to have patience with you remember your mirror and have patience with them. We are all in this journey called life and we are all walking each other home 💛🙏🕯️

I really enjoy this App it helps me regulate my teens time on the web. Lately it has been acting up a bit so I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. In adding it can be a bit annoying if my teen turns her VPN off, because she can go silent. She does not do it often but it’s a bit worrisome at times. Thanks!

I mainly use this app for the location services for my kid (teen driver who’s mom was killed in a wreck) so call me over protective, and it doesn’t work half the time. Been through the whole log out, log in, uninstall, and reinstall crap….still doesn’t work. I’ve only have got it to work one time in the last few months was when I had the phone right next to me. I probably gonna tell them they can keep this app and find something that actually works. Any suggestions on an app to replace this one?

Spent 2 hours with a senior T-Mobile tech trying to set this app up only to find out that I be way it works is deeply flawed. Parents really don’t have any control through this app over kids’ phone usage. Their phones need the app too and once any limitation function is activated, they can just turn it off through their app or delete their app. If you kids are very small and don’t understand much about apps, or if they are super compliant, this may work for you. But for normal iPhone knowledgeable pre teens or teens .... good luck!

I was worried this would be difficult to use and implement with my kids phones but really was easy to set up, $9.99 is well worth the peace of mind (and making sure they don’t turn into screen zombies!). Good perk to switching to T-Mobile if your kids have iPhones

This new update to the app is exactly what I have been wanting and needing for my family. The geofencing and live location tracking is fantastic! My only complaint/request would be for a driving feature to be added.

My parents installed this childish app on my phone plan and it STINKS! There is no reason to use this if kids aren’t even looking at porn or anything like that. I have not looked at anything bad however, my parents decided to install this without telling me. I can’t go on YouTube,TikTok, or ebaumsworld without getting a stupid opendns error! I just hope that someday parents will understand what this does to kids. I am more sneaky because of this stupid app. Hope it gets taken off the App Store forever! 😡👿👎

All I can say is Wow, the new update to FamilyMode is game changing. T-Mobile really overdelivered on their promises. If you were using the old version of FamilyMode you need to give the update a try. As a father of two children this app helps give me much better peace of mind.

Unable to add my sons phone to FamilyMode. We have talked to T-Mobile support several times, and still nothing. Each time they claim they are “opening a ticket” whatever that means, but that goes nowhere. When I call back, I get transferred to a call center and we do nothing but start the process all over again. Nobody ever follows up from the last ticket that was opened. I’ve been paying $10 a month and can’t even use the app.

Nice to be able to keep track of the kids, where they are and what they’re exposed to online. With phones being such a big part of our lives this app makes things easier to manage.

my mother put this app on my phone and my ipad, and its the worst. my mom is aware that i have schoolwork to do, and at 08:00 my bedtime is over. i start school at 6:40 and put a bedtime for your child in my opinion is ridiculous. like why even bother buying your child a phone if all your going to do is control it, your just wasting your money in my opinion. i’m going to be honest, like if you’re a parent using this app, this is not helping you gain your child’s trust, it helps you lose their trust. using this app on your child especially if their older, makes them feel like you can’t trust them. and plus, they know you’re looking for trouble, they’re not going to give you that. you’re just wasting 100$ a year for nothing.

I only wish that Familymode also had 1) driver safety features 2) ability to use a gps tracker to track valuables & pets 3) Familymode homebase support. This is the only big disappointment that these features present in basic apps like life360 are not incorporated in the app.

So thankful the attendant from T-Mobile told me about this option “FamilyMode” I didn’t know it existed, Now I have pece of mind knowing that I can control what my son does on his phone, and also I can pinpoint his exact location. Thank you T-Mobile!!!!!

App is basically useless. Has zero limits or influence on Hotspot feature. Any kid with a Nintendo Switch or laptop can connect to phone hotspot and browse the web completely unrestricted ignoring this app. T-Mobile doesn’t offer a way to disable hotspot so don’t bother.

I wish I could give this a 5 star review, but the fact that it only gives one parent full access to change time limits is really frustrating. I as not the main account holder can only see what is happening and not make any changes to time limits etc…. Find a way to make it so that both parents can have full access and I would happily give it more stars.

The new update is very helpful. I like the new search feature which allows me to search for any app...plus the description of all the apps my kid visited is a nice addition. Thanks T-mobile

I also agree with the kids leaving reviews on here! This would be the fastest way to ruin trust in any relationship! We all have this fear of something going awry BUT we also need to trust that they will handle an amiss in a positive way without us being a HELLicopter parent. Before all this technology landed in our laps (when we were kids) we had no choice BUT to put trust in our kids. Just saying

I’m sure the app itself isn’t bad once everything is 100% situated. It does seem like it’ll work great when it’s set up. However, i downloaded the app on both my phone and my daughters, finally completed setting it up and it deleted everything. I have to Re download it onto my daughters phone and set everything up once again.

This is an invasion of privacy for all the parents using this on there kids that are over the age of 12 or 13 that’s when you should be able to trust them and trust they will make the right decisions and not have to monitor them 24/7, yes they will make mistakes cause they are teenagers but try and imagine how you would feel if you were them and your parents put this on your phone when you are a 17 year old.