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Dad loves Surface

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Mt. Rainier

I have given a surface to my daughter. A lot of my friends/family ask me how I like using Surface and whether my daughter likes it as well. I can tell you that the killer feature from dad’s point of view is Family Safety. I am not an iPad/Android user, so I do not know how they do in this area, but I love the capability in Windows. In my humble opinion this is pretty under-sold and a lot of parents are unaware of this gem.

You just need to follow the steps at https://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/set-up-family-safety to set it up either for a new account or for your child’s existing Microsoft account. Once you do just head onto https://familysafety.microsoft.com/

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Tap/click into your child’s account and you can setup various things. I use all of them including time restrictions, app restrictions.

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I get weekly email with her activity report and can ding her on the time she spends on Netflix.

Also I get an email when she tries to install weird games. And no I’m not going to allow her to use Gangnam Guy

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Setting daily time limits and curfew hours is fun :)

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When she goes out of this time range Surface locks up with a screen asking her to take the device to a parent to unlock. I can use my live ID and extend her hours if I so want. Now the main problem is to say no to such a cute face :)

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2014
    Even my mom loves Windows 8 tablet (Acer Iconia & my Surface). She could manage to install lots of games and try everything on her own. And I think, this is the success for Windows. Family Safety and Store has made everything simpler.

  • Anonymous
    February 20, 2014
    I'm starting to wish we weren't so heavily vested in the Android platform now, or I'd switch just for this. My kids are getting up there now (9&10) and are getting sneakier at abusing their privileges. Android/Google really doesn't seem to offer anything at all, while MS's approach looks pretty good!

  • Anonymous
    February 20, 2014
    It's really nice, it's got to be a copy of a NSA's interface to our own Microsoft services usage.

  • Anonymous
    February 20, 2014
    Great post - I just discovered MS's Family Safety as well.  Have it installed in our Windows 7 laptop and Windows 8.1 desktop, where it offers the same features as what you describe for Surface.  Nice to have a consistent experience across platforms.   My 10-year old son is now set up with an email address that I can monitor through the same interface using O365 (Office 365), and the web browsing settings can be adjusted differently to meet the needs of both my 10 year old and 6 year old.  Love the peace of mind.