That last one for Nintendo Switch is part of core now.
1 Like
Looks like we are getting pretty close to a decent integrated parental control solution in HA.
At the risk of repeating what @AngryAnt mentioned:
My take on this is that HA should NOT build a general integration for this. It’s not what it’s made for.
HA is great at bringing together all these disparate solutions, and then provides the tools for the users to integrate them together as they like.
Think of how you each of you have your dashboards representing the mix of tech you have in your house to control lights, heating, garage doors etc…
No one is proposing that someone builds a single “house lighting integration” that combines Hue, zigbee, lutron…
But having single integrations for Microsoft (well two now 
), google, Nintendo, etc; built by this awesome community allows parents to build there own single dashboard/control plane to manage screen time similar to what @DeFlanko did with pfSense but with multiple integrations instead.
This is what I built since @pantherale0 built the Microsoft and Nintendo integrations and added WAN kill switches from the Unifi integration.
This has been working quite well and the next step for me is to start automating this in combination with a kid’s chores dashboard i built (Just simple toggles that get tallied and reset daily with the help of Nodered).
Thanks to all the devs and contributors to these integrations. You are all awesome!
2 Likes
Hello,
thanks for your feedback!
Are you still using @pantherale0 microsoft integration ? I didn’t find how to install it, it’s the reason why I’ve rebuilt a new one .
You can still use it, its just archived due to the known issues that I cannot resolve due to my lack of Microsoft hardware.
Yep, in my view a unified integration is not something that would be accepted into core due to what Home Assistant really is doing. Family Link, Family Safety and Nintendo all require different authentication methods and it would make the integration and library a complete mess to maintain (I won’t get started on all the other possible parental control apps out there).
1 Like
Hi @pantherale0,
Thanks for your great work on this!
I’m trying to set up the new Nintendo Switch integration on Home Assistant Core, but I can’t get past the authentication step.
When I paste the URL I get after clicking the red button into the Access token field, the config flow immediately shows “Failed to connect”. Unfortunately I don’t see any logs corresponding to that attempt.
For safety, I’m not posting the full URL here. This is the sanitized format I pasted:
npf[REDACTED]://auth#session_token_code=[REDACTED]&state=[REDACTED]&session_state=[REDACTED]
Could you please tell me:
- what log namespace I should enable to capture what’s happening during that step
- and whether the integration expects the full callback URL or only the
session_token_codevalue?
Thanks a lof for your feedback.
It is currently broken as Nintendo did an update, it should be fixed in 2025.12.4.
1 Like
Just to add an alternate way of looking at this. Home Assistant is an awesome way to automate everything, but it is supplemented by purpose built platforms to achieve different goals.
I actually run Allow2 - which is a purpose-built unified parental control system (patented, but free to integrate and use with a small account). There is an allow2automate open-source project that has a new marketplace capability in it. The idea is, you use the overall parental controls in Allow2, and you use allow2automate and the agent to effect the controls on your local network. And you can also integrate with Home Assistant.
The beauty of this approach is all the complex controls for allowances, monitoring and comms/rules/etc are all in the Allow2 platform. You then can augment it with inputs from Home Assistant and use allow2automate to enforce restrictions as well (so you expand your reach using both and simplify the whole thing).
It’s still got work to go to make it all seamless, but have a look at Allow2 and the “update” branch of allow2automate github repo. GitHub - Allow2/Allow2Automate at upgrade
You basically won’t need to build all the stuff around it, you can just connect what you want to control.
Thanks for sharing, that’s an interesting approach 
Quick question though: what platforms does Allow2 / allow2automate actually interface with today?
For example, do you have native or agent-based support for:
- Android devices
- Windows PCs
- Game consoles like the Nintendo Switch
I’m trying to understand how deep the enforcement layer goes on each platform, and where Home Assistant would typically sit in that setup.
Hi, Sorry for the late reply, had family visiting.
OK, so the platform is designed to support direct integration with SDKs and APIs for the vendors themselves. But as it’s become apparent the last few years, they are “resistant” to this as it’s not in their best interest. So I switched approach.
I had “allow2automate” originally as a test project and example of how to use the APIs to integrate with wemo and timed power usage for when my kids kept leaving the lights and fans on in their rooms. I’m about to release the plugins marketplace version (in heavy testing right now) and it’s taking me nominally about a couple of days give or take to port things from other platforms into it using AI. So far I am testing Steam, Epic, Xbox, Wemo, Nintendo Switch, CMD (which includes ssh remote control) and others. So probably a couple of weeks before I get it ready and published in the Mac, Windows and Snap stores. The plugins are GitHub hosted and registered in the “registry” github repo (GitHub - Allow2/allow2automate-registry: Registry for all Allow2Automate plugins). The interesting thing is allow2automate now has “agents” you deploy onto target machines, so they will be able to manage Windows PC, Mac and others as well (I’ll build those plugins next).
There is a stalled project for Windows PC’s but the CMD/SSH plugin will cover it for now (shortly) and then I think we’ll switch to the agent support and drop a separate pGina project, unless there’s a reason to go that way.
As far as android, I invented a standard I want to publish for “delegated parental controls in MDM systems” I have a demonstrator of the technology I had built a few years ago, it’s “Anamico MDM”. See: How to install the Anamico MDM Android App | Anamico.
I am more than happy to have a call with or assist anyone who wants to try it out or look at contributing. As you can imagine, trying to get something this huge off the ground needs a fair bit of effort to get things rolling. Just reach out and let me know.
Home Assistant can also directly integrate with Allow2 (or vice-versa). I created an allow2nodered npm node-red integration component that allowed any device to interact with Allow2 via node-red and a similar integration could easily be built for Home Assistant. This would extend the universal parental controls to any Home Assistant device. I just haven’t got around to that one yet.
By the way, I use the term “Parental Freedom” rather than Parental Control. My approach is more around teaching children responsibility and daily skills through having them form a healthy relationship with technology. So it’s not really “Parental Controls”.
1 Like
OK, I gave some thought to how Home Assistant and Allow2 would best work together and started a first level design. GitHub - Allow2/allow2automate-home-assistant
Feel free for anyone to read and make comments in the repo, or fork and make PRs.
I have some changes I already want to make, so will do them shortly. But it should give an idea of the plugin I will start building shortly.
I am not as across Home Assistant as most people here, but have an idea of how I think it would work best for parents/children.
I actually then had a thought that maybe it’s easier to integrate Home Assistant directly with Allow2 like I did for node red, so I compared the 2 and made a home repo for a new HA add-on: GitHub - Allow2CEO/allow2homeassistant
This has some good documentation on use cases I skimmed from the web and a discussion/comparison between using a direct integration and what allow2automate does. They are sort of complementary in providing coverage for a home ecosystem.
I’ve just kicked off development on both approaches, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll report back with progress and when people can start testing it out.