Whether you are handing your smartphone to your child in the grocery store to keep him or her occupied or letting them use it to play games, chances are at some point your smartphone is going to be in the hands of your child. As a Sprint Mom Ambassador I have a unique opportunity to try out different devices and service throughout the year, and am excited to share how the Samsung Galaxy S5 Kids Mode makes your phone child friendly and safer for parents.
Smartphones aren’t toys at all, but I have personally been guilty in the past of handing my phone over to my son to keep him occupied when I was busy. The danger in doing that is having files accidentally deleted or your settings changed to some weird state.
To activate the Kids Mode on Samsung Galaxy S5 you will need to install the app. The Kids Mode widget can be found either on your home screen, in widgets, or in the app drawer. It is a rather large file, so I recommend you install it over wifi. After you install the app, you will be asked to setup a PIN. This PIN is for managing the Kids Mode app only. You will use the PIN to access the Kids Mode Menu and to exit Kids Mode. Don’t worry about forgetting the pin. You can set a backup password as well. You will also need to set a child profile with name and birth date.
There are 5 pre-loaded apps for kids in Samsung Kids Mode: a camera app, a drawing app, a karaoke app, a picture gallery app, and a video playback app. If you think your child will get tired of playing with these 5 apps, you can choose additional apps for their child to use. You can just go into the settings and select which apps you want them to have access to – pick any app or game and it’s instantly added to the Kids Mode menu page.
There are a variety of parental controls available through Samsung Kids Mode. You can set a daily playtime limit which I think is great, and select which applications and media to allow them access to. Samsung Kids Mode is geared for children ages 10 and under.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 is currently available from Sprint. The Kids Mode makes it a very appealing purchase. By the way, I love this phone! (Review coming soon!)
What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Kids Mode? Is this something you would use?
This is a great idea. I can see this working well especially when multiple kids are pushing buttons on one phone. Thanks for the review.
He has one serious overbite! Looks fun for kids.
Sounds like a great app to have. I am glad they are coming up with kid friendly products.
I like when there’s a kids mode for a phone, for when they want to play on it.
I have the S5 and I like a lot of the handy features that it offers… I’m still getting used to it after years of the blackberry. Good to know about this additional feature.
This is awesome. I have friends whose small children use their phones. When they get them back EVERYTHING is totally out of whack. It’s amazing how a kid can accidentally get to a setting that an adult can’t find after looking for it for three days.
I always worry about the things my daughter who is 11 might come across on the web. As her interest becomes more and more to explore. This is wonderful for her to do so and stay safe!!
It’s great that there are so many new apps to protect kids from internet abusers as well as keeping all the files on your devices safe from kids accidentally messing them up.
Well I sure like that you can make a kid profile. Kids are so tech savvy that it’s smart to make our items good for them to use too.
This is great! Whenever I get my phone back from the kids, I have to redo every… single… thing. It’s a nightmare, but I feel like a grouch if I say no.