Hey Home Assistant Community — fellow parent + HA tinkerer here.
If you’ve ever tried to make Apple Screen Time behave like a reliable automation trigger… yeah. So I built mac-screentime-enforcer: a small open-source tool that lets you control and enforce Mac screen time from Home Assistant (think: HA schedules, bedtime automations, “homework first” rules, dashboards, etc.).
You missed Australia/not Australia with their new social media bans.
Gossip is most teenagers have circumvented the bans already, making a mockery of the politicians, and highlighting why your enforcer may not be effective for long.
Just smile - they are resourceful - a chip off the old block, made in your image, and a bit faster and sharper than you.
Wow thank you. I have been idly looking around to see if this exact tool existing and considering rolling up my sleeves - but will definitely give this a try.
My use case is to allow my kids say 30mins screen time per day as a general rule- unless they’ve not kept their end of a deal like tidying up their stuff, getting to bed on time etc.
I also would like to log generally what each session is doing (since some things are not allowed eg random YouTube rabbit hole content).
Also I’d like the flexibility to permit exceptions for example the kids have a legitimate reason to use the machine for something specific, that I can approve remotely by request - much like Apple screen time works for iOS devices currently.
So a HA iOS widget that allowed a quick approval or 5 minute increment for a given child would be awesome (but just for a given machine would be fine too)
This is for only mac users? screen time has some flaws. One of them is Roblox. It does not cut the time where you state is should cut off.
They will try any way possible that is for sure. I am at the the point where I assigned an ssid only for the child’s devices and cut off the ssid at xx time on a daily basis automatically. If for some reason they find the password for the global ssid network, they cannot login because I have restricted all ip addresses. They will need to log in to the router and try to figure out how to add their ip address to the whitelist. This battle will surely come when they get older. Hopefully, the game frenzy will fade off, but social media may not.
Turning off the kid’s SSID is a reliable way to call them to dinner, according to my neighbour. Yes, the teens have already volunteered to install a remote router on my unlimited fast internet to prevent interruption, but I have declined on security grounds, not helicopter remote parenting hypercontrol grounds.
Make sure you have a tested backup of your main router configuration and it is locked away. Resetting everything to factory is not beyond the capabilities of a young child. They set up the SSID with no security and all your network is wide open.
Buy them a push-button 30 minute egg timer. Teach them self responsibility and that all decisions have consequences, and you are well on your way to having responsible adults that don’t rely on you to assist in controlling their lives and being wholly dependent on you, boldly facing the big nasty world, brimming with self confidence.
You cannot outsource parenting, or automate it. Lots of hugs can assist.
Have you seen the discussion here from another parent?
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