I’m always thinking about ways to monitor screen time for my toddler—not necessarily in terms of quantity, but quality. Is he watching the right kinds of shows for his age? Should he be reading more books? How do I make sure he’s not stumbling onto weird YouTube videos? Amazon FreeTime, an online subscription service offering age-appropriate digital content for 10 million kid users ages 3-12, strives to answer those questions for parents.
How to Get FreeTime for Free
Amazon FreeTime content and parental tools are free, provided you’ve got a compatible device. That includes Amazon Fire Kids Edition tablets, which run anywhere from $99 to $129, or Kindle eReaders, but FreeTime also expanded to Android phones and tablets as well as Google Play earlier this year. No matter what you choose, the service allows your kid to explore white-listed videos, books, apps and games while parent-specific features offer a dashboard, discussion cards, and the option to create goals and time limits based on activity and usage. In-app purchases and social media platforms are excluded.
Pay Extra, Get Extra Features
If you pony up for FreeTime Unlimited—with monthly fees of $2.99 per month for one child, $6.99 for a family—you’ll get access to much more: 15,000 selections from well-known brands like Disney, PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, DC Comics and more. Bonus: any purchase of a Kids tablet automatically gets you a free year of Unlimited.
How to Set Up FreeTime
Setting up a profile for my two-year-old son took about five minutes. Under the “Smart Filters” section, I selected an age range of 2-4 for content, which resulted familiar territory: books about trucks, episodes of Daniel Tiger and anything emphasizing letters and numbers.
According to Kurt Beidler, director of kids and family for Amazon, this is intentional. The FreeTime editorial team partners with Common Sense Media to strike a balance between educational and entertaining content, curated for specific age groups—3-5, 6-8 and 9-12—to meet various user needs and interests, instead of trying to be one-size-fits-all.
“The peril of taking everything on the internet and blocking or filtering things out is a game of whack-a-mole that’s hard to stay in front of,” Beidler told me. “When we added a kid-safe web browser a few years ago, we took a very different approach: we only add websites we’ve personally looked at, ones we know are safe and free of ads and commercials.”
It Vets Content for You
As a parent navigating kid-friendly technology, I want three things: convenience, user-friendly tools and affordability. FreeTime is pretty cheap for so much content in one, on-the-go location—particularly if you’re already a Prime member. Even though I occasionally feel a little nickel-and-dimed by a plethora of subscription services, this is one I’d prioritize as a parent, especially with kids in the 5-10 age range.
More importantly, FreeTime reduces the amount of time and energy you might spend on vetting digital content. You can manually add your own stuff, in addition to all that’s provided, but I appreciate that FreeTime does all the upfront work.
“Our editorial team goes through and tags every single video or app with age-appropriate data,” says Beidler. “For example, if you set for age 3-5, and your child logs in, all they’ll see is content appropriate for 3-5 year olds, not math apps or books about sharks or zombies. If you set it for age 9-12, then your kid can log on and see stuff that’s interesting and engaging for them, not Elmo and learning ABCs.”
It Does for Kids Books What e-Readers Did for Adults
Videos and apps might seem most popular, but Beidler says books remain a key content section. Due to improved book quality over the past few years, he indicates over 600,000 books have been read inside FreeTime, which adds up to more than 470 million hours of reading. Customer feedback also led the team to add an offline mode feature, which lets kids access videos without Wi-Fi. It sounds simple, but considering the world of streaming-only, indicates Amazon’s desire to meet parents where they are—literally.
From where I sit, FreeTime does for kids books what e-readers did for adults: makes easier to transport them on the go. I love that books are an integral part of FreeTime, because it means my husband and I can just grab a device, knowing it is stocked up on books, rather than bringing a huge bag of them and then stressing about keeping track. Plus, like most kids, my son has a short attention span, so the vast number of books (along with the rest of the content) means he can scroll and swipe to his heart’s delight—and I can relax, knowing his little mind is in safe hands.
Discussion Cards Help You Continue the Conversation
The phrase “parental controls” sounds authoritarian, but Beidler says these features are actually intended to build transparency, promote connection and put families on the same page about technology habits.
You can view your parent dashboard by logging in at parents.amazon.com, where you’ll see recent activity, such as the books or videos last opened or the type of content explored over the last week. Discussion cards function as mini editorial guides, says Beidler, to help parents learn about concepts their kids are using. And daily goals and time limits can be customized per child, based on hours of use, bedtimes, days of the week, time by activity or total screen time.
My son is on the younger end of the user spectrum, so naturally, some of these features aren’t needed quite yet. Still, I gave him free rein on the tablet to play around, and was later surprised to discover how much I enjoyed seeing what caught his attention. I also didn’t anticipate how the discussion cards could breathe new life into the same old favorites—for example, we’ve read Pete the Cat a hundred times, but suggested question prompts and interactive activities made it feel like a brand new story. In our family right now, we mostly want to set an example that books are fun, and FreeTime only helps us reinforce that mindset.
The goals and time limits are generally better-suited for older kids who need to be reminded to put down their devices at bedtime or prioritize reading over recreational use. (Or, um, an adult like myself who should open a book before bed instead of diving into an Instagram rabbit hole.) You can turn them on or off, and adjust at any point.
“With my own kids, I put no time limits on reading,” says Beidler. “They can read as much as they want, but if they want to watch videos or plays games, they only get 30 minutes a day. You can really customize to the values or goals of your family, and you can set up reading goals for each child that unlock entertainment content.”
Where FreeTime Can Improve
FreeTime is a fantastic service for all the reasons listed above, but a couple of pain points immediately stood out to me:
Content loads slowly. This may be related to Wi-Fi, though I tested it at a few different locations, and each book or video took at least a minute to load on the first open. Once a piece of content loaded, there weren’t any delays upon reopening, but if you’re used to the immediate satisfaction of most devices, then you might want to readjust expectations.
You have to input your passcode a lot. Toggling between profiles is, in a word, annoying. It’s not hard, per se, but you do have to input your passcode each and every time. Great for security purposes, frustrating for anyone trying to manage multiple profile settings.
The camera quality is terrible. Seriously. I didn’t expect an amazing camera, but the blurry pictures, jumpy lens and slow speed made me wonder why one existed at all.
Considering most customers may purchase a Fire tablet for the free year of Unlimited, it’s also worth noting these come with a thick, colorful bumper—perfect for small children, maybe not ideal for tweens, who are likely already accustomed to the slick devices of their parents and friends. It looks like you can pop the bumper off without much issue, but think through what device best suits your kid before purchasing the service itself.
FreeTime Supports Parents Who Want Technology to Work For Them
Obviously, you don’t need a service to tell you what’s okay for your kid in terms of device usage or appropriate content, but the baseline of tools and support certainly help, especially if you’re just getting started. FreeTime helps parents get a handle on what their kids are consuming online, and teaches kids to use technology responsibly.