Can you secure Sharptools from a tech-savvy teen?

SharpTools.io (web)
1

I know this is an old thread. I need help with two things, 1) better parenting skills and 2) expanded PIN protection for the Sharptools dashboard. I have a 14 year old with restricted computer time. I have a smart plug in a lock box that turns on and off his monitor and speakers at set hours. My SmartThings app is password secured and he has not figured how to bypass that yet. Mom wants the computer smartplug on the Sharptools dashboard with a PIN so she can give him more time. She does not want to go into Smarttings and I don’t want her to either. The kid does not know the PIN to Sharptools. I have two tablets wall mounted in the house and Mom and I use the dashboard on our phones.

To give himself more computer time, my son will go to one of the wall tablets and hit the browser back button to get out of kiosk mode, and then will go to edit and add a second instance of the pin protected tile, go back to view, turn it on, and then delete the second tile he made. I have also seen him make a new dashboard and just add the one tile so he can control it without the pin. I cleared the history on the tablet and copied a link to the kiosk view dashboard so he can’t hit the back button but he just types in the root URL and gets access.

I don’t know if this request has come up before, but it seems like it would be useful to expand the utility of the PIN protection:

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Perhaps to include a third toggle “Require PIN to Configure”. If that toggle was on, then the PIN prompt would come up to:

  • Edit Dashboard
  • Add a Dashboard
  • Delete a Dashboard
  • View Configuration

A downside to this, is that if you forgot your PIN you would be locked out. Perhaps you could add a forgot PIN override with entering the account password.

Thank you for your help with this. Great product and great support, greatly appreciated.

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Dashboard Sharing covers this use case well.

The primary ‘owner’ account will always have editing capabilities so if the ‘owner’ user is able to exit out of kiosk mode or otherwise open SharpTools in the browser then they have edit features.

But you can create a separate free account and share the dashboard with that account with limited controls and that account will only be able to use the dashboard rather than edit it.

Some families use this approach for tablets in the house that are accessible where they don’t want kids or other household members editing things.

You can also share a dashboard at one with Interact permissions and then customize the security on an individual tile to override it to restrict individual tiles an d achieve a variety of different use cases.

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This is perfect. Thank you.

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If your son is using a Windows computer, I’ve taken another approach which is to use Microsoft’s Family Safety app, which allows for setting screen time. My daughter’s laptop automatically locks and unlocks at set times. It also provides a method for the teen to request more time, which sends a push notification to parents’ phones to allow you to accept or decline (and choose how much more time if you are accepting).

Another side benefit of this approach is that it allows you to control the apps they are allowed to use, shows you statistics of what they are using and for how long, allows content filtering (automatic blocking of websites with questionable content), etc.

Like pretty much any technology, a tech-savvy teen may find their way around it, but mine hasn’t so far.

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