The Internet offers boundless opportunities for learning, exploration, and connection, but it also presents significant challenges. Keeping children safe from online predators, cyberbullying, and inappropriate content can be a daunting task, especially when trying to monitor their screen time and safeguard their personal information. Until now, finding a single, effective tool to ensure our children’s online safety has been elusive. Enter Aura.
Over the years, I’ve evaluated numerous parental control apps, and while many have their merits, each has its limitations. What sets Aura apart is its comprehensive set of features, consolidating various parental control tools into one unified platform, all easily accessible from a single dashboard.
This review is specifically focused on Aura’s parental control solution, but it’s worth noting that Aura also offers three plan options for digital security and identity theft protection.
About Aura
Aura is an online digital safety and identity protection software company with a mission to create a safer internet environment. Their primary focus is on safeguarding families, and Aura is committed to providing essential tools to help families establish secure boundaries for their children’s online activities.
Aura offers robust parental controls for an annual fee of $99. With Aura, you can block access to websites and applications, set screen time limits, and receive notifications when your children attempt to access blocked sites or apps. Recently, Aura’s parental control capabilities expanded to include Safe Gaming, a feature designed to monitor voice and text interactions across more than 200 online games, promptly alerting parents to potential dangers like cyberbullying and predatory behavior.
If you’re curious about Aura, I encourage you to read on and take advantage of their free 14-day trial to experience it for yourself. Additionally, there’s a limited-time offer of 60% off as part of their back-to-school special, but act fast as this discount ends on Monday, September 4.
Aura’s Parental Controls and Safe Gaming Features
In today’s digital age, children spend a significant amount of time in front of screens, with statistics showing that kids aged 11-14 spend nearly 9 hours a day engaging with entertainment media online. Many children who play online games interact with strangers and may experience bullying and harassment during their gaming experiences. It’s no surprise that 84% of parents express concerns about their child’s online safety.
Aura’s parental controls simplify the complexities of digital parenting. These tools offer content filtering, activity tracking, and time limits for your children’s mobile devices. Safe gaming features are also available for Windows PCs. With Aura, you can set age-appropriate screen time limits for each family member.
Aura’s parental control features are powered by Circle, an award-winning technology trusted by hundreds of thousands of parents. These robust features not only prevent children from accessing objectionable content but also provide insights into their daily device usage and help enforce device-free time. The Safe Gaming features empower parents to address top concerns like online predators, cyberbullying, harmful content, gaming addiction, mental health, online privacy, and internet addiction.
One of Aura’s standout features is its ability to monitor and protect across various activities and devices through a user-friendly dashboard, providing parents with peace of mind. Here’s a summary of the key parental control features offered by Aura:
Content Filtering: Aura’s content filtering allows you to control your children’s online experiences based on their age. You can use child or teen filters to customize restrictions or block specific apps, games, and websites on tablets and smartphones. The filtered category feature also enables you to block over 100 apps, as well as entire categories of sites and apps. If your child attempts to access blocked content, you’ll receive notifications via the Blocked Activity feed on your Aura dashboard, accessible from your phone, tablet, or desktop.
Pause the Internet: Instead of waiting for an internet outage to encourage your children to interact in person, Aura provides a convenient “Pause” button. You can temporarily suspend internet access for specific family members to enforce screen time rules. By tapping the “Pause” button on your child’s profile screen, all devices assigned to their profile will lose internet access until you choose to unpause it.
View Their Activity: Aura recognizes that parents often wonder what their children are doing during their screen time. While it’s impossible to monitor every moment, Aura offers a comprehensive overview of your child’s internet use across all their devices. This feature helps you protect their online safety and make informed decisions about their screen time.
Safer Online Gaming: Aura collaborates with ProtectMe by Kidas to monitor online gaming activity. This means you’ll receive alerts regarding potential threats through 24/7 voice and chat monitoring across more than 200 of the most popular PC games, all accessible from your Aura dashboard. To connect your child’s PC to Aura, simply download and install the Aura desktop app, select the safe gaming option, and click install to establish an instant connection with enhanced protection. The safe gaming feature discreetly scans gaming-related communications for issues like flaming, hate speech, threats, sexual content, and privacy violations. You’ll receive email alerts if cyberbullying or online predators are detected, as well as a weekly insight report detailing your child’s overall threat severity exposure score, a breakdown of all detected threats, and insights into gaming time.
Summary
In our quest to protect our families, we often find ourselves constrained by limited time and resources. Fortunately, Aura offers a proactive solution that keeps your family safe online for a fixed annual fee. The user-friendly dashboard provides real-time information, allowing you to stay informed about your children’s online activities and ensure their safety on the internet.
Aura Parental Controls is a valuable investment for parents with children of all ages. The ability to customize settings based on your children’s different ages is incredibly useful, as children grow and the nature of online threats evolves with their digital device usage.
If you’re intrigued by Aura, I recommend taking advantage of their free 14-day trial to experience it firsthand. And if you act before Monday, September 4, you can enjoy a 60% discount on your plan.
