When I gave my children their respective devices, I wanted to monitor their online activities closely. I want to know what they are doing and how much time they spend online daily. At first, I thought it might be difficult to do, but I was mistaken after discovering the Online Monitor app.
Online Monitor checks and tracks the hours my children spend online. Through the app, it is possible to see their activities on various social networks and online messengers.
Check out how I monitor my children's online activity through the Online Monitor app below. Learn how to control their time on different social media or online activities.
- Discover the Online Monitor App
- Learning the App’s Privacy Policy
- Checking the App’s Overview
- Monitoring Profiles on the App
- Receiving Notifications of Online Activity
- Utilizing the History Feature
Discover the Online Monitor App
I work late most nights, which leads to having less time to monitor what my children are doing. Since the kids are fascinated with their gadgets and the internet, it has become difficult to keep track of what they are doing on their devices.
My biggest worry is that they will spend too much time on social networks and might miss doing more important things like their homework or getting quality sleep. After a few months of worrying, I found the solution to my problem - the Online Monitor app.
Even though I am away from home, I can still see what they do online and track how much time they spend online. Moreover, I can get a detailed report on the specific hours they are online, in which I may see whether or not they are sleeping when they should be.
The Online Monitor app feels like I am still at home monitoring whatever they are doing and ensuring they do not abuse using their gadgets.
More About the Online Monitor App
LAT Systems understands a parent's problem in checking up on their children's online activity. The team designed the Online Monitor app to help caring parents monitor their children's activity to ensure they are not spending too much time online.
The team launched the Online Monitor app in December 2020, which immediately gained the attention of parents everywhere. At present, there are over 500,000 downloads with thousands of active users. Online Monitor has a high user rating and excellent reviews on its features.
Learning the App’s Privacy Policy
One of my biggest hesitations in using the Online Monitor app is data protection since the app will have access to my children's devices. I acknowledge that there is a risk of a potential data breach of my children's personal information.
LAT Systems anticipates this apprehension from its users, so they ensure that their Privacy Policy is the first thing we can read upon installing the app. It explains what personal information they will collect, disclose, and use of those who decided to use Online Monitor.
The team promises that they only collect information for internal use to keep improving their service. They explained that they will not use or share any personal information with third-party services or external entities.
The personal information that Online Monitor collects includes the name and version of the operating system, application version, language, country, IP address, and device vendor and model. Agreeing to the Privacy Policy also entails accepting the app's Terms and Conditions.
Granting Permissions to Online Monitor
Aside from the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions that welcomed me to the Online Monitor app, I also received requests to grant permission to access some aspects of the mobile device that will be using the service.
These permissions will ensure that the Online Monitor app runs smoothly. Since the app is focused on monitoring online activities, it wants to receive data from the internet and view all my network connections.
The Online Monitor app also wishes to have full network access, which will help monitor other devices connected to my phone through the app. Moreover, the app aims to prevent my mobile device from sleeping be continuously running in the background.
Checking the App’s Overview
Upon agreeing to the permission requests, the Online Monitor app provides an overview of the Online/Offline Mode feature. The app guides us on how to enable the mode to check whether my children are currently online or offline.
When the mode is on, the profile will be labeled online or offline accordingly. Otherwise, the app will only provide the “Last Seen” feature, which is the time when the profile was last seen online.
Exploring the App's Home Tab
I like that the app is straightforward to its main goal and feature. I can immediately see how I can track my children's online activity on the app's home page. The Online Monitor app has a simple user interface that lets parents immediately see the report upon opening it.
The app has three main tabs: Monitor, Subscriptions, and Support. The Monitor tab focuses on what I can do to monitor other devices' online activities.
The Subscriptions tab is for premium items for a better user experience, and the Support tab is for whenever I need technical support.
Monitoring Profiles on the App
Almost everything I want to use is in the Monitor tab. To start monitoring, I add a new number to register on the app by clicking the plus sign icon at the top right corner of the screen.
It will lead me to a page where I have to provide the phone number of the devices I wish to monitor through the app.
Then, Online Monitor asks for the person's name or the owner of the phone number I wish to monitor. The name is required to reflect on the screen to better track online activities.
The app also asks if I want to turn on online notifications and offline notifications to always be on top of their activity. This will help me monitor their online activity closely anytime and anywhere.
Using the App’s Trial Period
The Online Monitor app offers a limited trial period of six hours. There's an option to extend the trial period to 12 hours if the users rate the app on the Google Play Store.
However, the only problem I encountered was that the app did not notice that the trial period had ended.
To continue monitoring the profiles, I had to manually check whether the period had concluded and then pay for the subscription.
Receiving Notifications of Online Activity
I liked seeing everything on the app's home page, especially when my children were online. For an accurate and in-depth report, the app recommends using the online and offline modes so that it can keep track of my children's devices in real-time.
To monitor using the online and offline modes, the device to be monitored should be online from the beginning of its use. This step will ensure that there will be an accurate reading and report of the online activity.
To check whether the app is working, open the messaging app you use to communicate with the profile of the monitored device to see if they were online or not. The result must be the same on the app, which can be seen with the green icon stating, "NUMBER IS ONLINE!"
If the number is offline, it will show that the profile is offline. As soon as they see my message, the app detects it, so the indicator will change, stating that the profile is online. Sometimes the app needs to recalibrate to monitor the profiles, which takes at least an hour.
Checking the Last Seen Feature
Another main feature of the app is checking the "Last seen" status. This displays the specific time that the profile was last online.
I liked that I could know the specific time my children went offline, which means that I can monitor their sleeping time.
If I see that they are online beyond their supposed sleeping schedule, I can contact them immediately and remind them to sleep.
Utilizing the History Feature
Even if I miss monitoring my children's online activity in real-time, I can still check their activity in the past few days. The Online Monitor app records the online activity of the saved profiles for the past 30 days.
This means that I can identify the trend or pattern of when and how much time my children are spending online.
For example, I discovered that they go offline earlier during weekdays than on weekends.
I can easily generate this report by clicking the "History" button on the profile.
Subscribing to a Premium Plan
When the trial period ended, I immediately subscribed to a premium plan of the Online Monitor app because I saw its perks and effectiveness.
The app offers a basic monthly plan that only costs $3.99 for monitoring one profile, and the price can range up to $54.99 depending on the number of profiles.
There is only a maximum of five profiles or numbers that can be monitored.
Conclusion
The Online Monitor app is true to its name because users can easily monitor the profiles they save. The app indicates whether the profile is currently offline or online and keeps a history of the online times to better track children's usage.
