Boomerang Parental Control Review

Parental control apps help children use their first smartphone safely and responsibly. The affordable Boomerang app is especially good for setting screen-time limits and blocking specific websites. But during testing, we noticed it doesn’t give parents real-time push notifications about their child’s activity, which seems like a major oversight.

Boomerang costs about $16 per year for one child’s device. Or you can monitor up to 10 children’s devices for about $31 per year. Licenses can be purchased through the parent app or web dashboard. There are no refunds. 

You don’t have to input any payment information to take advantage of Boomerang’s 14-day trial.

Boomerang isn’t an all-inclusive parental control app. It works best if this is true for you:

• Your child uses an Android device. Boomerang offers limited functionality on iOS devices and doesn’t monitor computers. 

• Your child is too young for email or social media. Boomerang monitors neither.
• You want to monitor 10 or fewer devices. Boomerang’s device limit isn’t ideal for large families.

Although some features differ on iOS vs. Android devices, here are the main things you can do with the Boomerang parental control app:

You can see the following history logs and alerts from the parent app or online dashboard:

• App usage history
• Web browsing history
• Call history
• Text history
• Screen-time reporting

This data helps you figure out if your child uses their phone in a healthy way. 

We especially like that you can see full web browsing history, even if their attempt to access a website was thwarted by the content filter. You’ll know what kind of topics your child is curious about and have well-timed discussions. 

The Boomerang app doesn’t offer these controls or features:

• Email monitoring
• Social media monitoring
• Panic button

We recommend Boomerang for younger kids because they’re less likely to use social media or have their own email account. 

You won’t get the following on the parent account:

• Push notifications
• Text alerts

This was a major point of frustration during testing. Maybe it makes sense for busy parents to log into the app to review their child’s activity once per day, but we wish more notification options existed for parents who want real-time updates. 

Setting up Boomerang is pretty straightforward: 

1. On your own phone, visit the Boomerang website to download the app for Android, iOS, or Samsung devices. 
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account and parent profile.
3. Then, download the app from your child’s phone and follow the instructions for child mode. 
4. You’ll get a chance to set location services to “Always on,” create screen time schedules, and set up a few app preferences right away. You can always change these settings later via your parent account or the web dashboard.
5. You also need to download Boomerang’s SPIN browser and delete other browsers from your child’s phone. You’ll be provided a link to the SPIN download when setting up the Boomerang app. 

We tested the Boomerang app with two iPhones. Here’s what happened. 

I created the account in parent mode, and my coworker Rebecca set up her device in child mode. We had no hiccups during setup and felt the on-screen prompts were easy to follow.

After that, I felt stranded. There was no tutorial to walk me through the different functions of the app. I had a nagging feeling that I was missing something, especially in terms of push notifications or text alerts.

For our test, I blocked the following topics:

• Hunting & Fishing
• Beauty & Fashion
• Religion 
• Job Searches
• Health & Medicine

I blocked all access to Cheerios.com. Then I went to the Dictionary tab and added “centrifugal” to the list of inappropriate words.

As you’ll see from the screenshot below, Rebecca was still able to do quite a bit of research into hunting & fishing, beauty & fashion, religion, and centrifugal force.

Even though some sites got through, plenty of others were blocked, including Cheerios.com:

Remember, blocked sites and content filters only work if your child uses the SPIN browser. Rebecca could look up anything on Safari.

As for that blocked word “centrifugal,” apparently the dictionary feature alerts you to inappropriate words used in text messages, not in the search bar. This wasn’t clearly explained in the app, and I can imagine other parents would make the mistake of thinking they’ve set up internet alerts instead. 

I knew Rebecca was putting the Boomerang filter through the wringer—she kept instant messaging me screenshots as proof. But my phone was completely silent. I would have loved a push notification or text alert telling me my “kid” was up to something so I could have a conversation with them right away. 

I did see an option for email alerts, but these are sent just once a day. Otherwise, it was my responsibility to get on the app or online dashboard to see what was happening.

• You can chat with your kids through the app, and this seemed to work fine. Messages show up as push notifications. 
• It was easy to set up screen schedules, enact a time-out, or grant device access outside of scheduled screen time. I preferred using the web dashboard for this feature since it offered a more visual representation of screen time.
• The location tracker seemed reasonably accurate. The marker was placed in a parking lot in front of Rebecca’s house, not actually on her roof. At least it wasn’t miles off base.

• I couldn’t see which apps were already on Rebecca’s phone, even though there was a tab called “Apps Management.” This feature might be limited due to Apple’s privacy rules.
•  Nothing happened when I tried to block Rebecca’s camera access.

Because Rebecca used an iPhone, she could delete the app without inputting a password. I expected to get some sort of alert about this, but nothing happened. My “kid” could have deleted this app and searched for any mature topic before I’d have a clue what was going on. 

I couldn’t refresh Rebecca’s location after she deleted the app. This was the only sign that something was amiss. 

Boomerang works with mobile devices running on at least Android 5 or iOS 12.

As with all parental control apps, Boomerang offers limited functionality if your child uses an iPhone or iPad. Our main gripe is that Boomerang’s parental dashboard doesn’t always make it clear that some of the features won’t work with your kid’s device. 

For example, we tried to disable our iPhone tester’s camera. Nothing happened. It’s hard to say whether that was an iOS issue or a Boomerang issue.

Here’s a round-up of the other major differences between Boomerang for iOS and Boomerang for Android.

If your child has an Android phone, their location updates automatically in the app. If your child uses an iOS device, they’ll receive a push notification when you request a check-in. They can ignore it.

Uninstall protection doesn’t exist on an iOS device. Your child can delete the Boomerang app or SPIN browser whenever they feel like it. We didn’t even get a notification when our tester deleted Boomerang from her iPhone. That’s super frustrating and means you don’t get a chance to enact a swift intervention.

With an Android device, you can monitor YouTube search history and create YouTube-specific content filters. On an iOS device, you’re limited to just blocking YouTube altogether.

Boomerang lets you fine-tune your child’s screen time through the “Always On” feature on Android devices. For example, you can allow your child to access educational apps, visit specific websites, or call certain people outside the normal screen time schedule. 

There’s no way to do this on an iOS device. The most you can do on an iPhone is see which apps your child has installed after downloading the Boomerang app.

You can see which apps your child uses the most if they have an Android phone, but this function disappears on iOS devices.

On Android devices, you can set up a dictionary of words that will trigger a notification in the parental control app if they’re found in a text message. You can set up a dictionary for an iOS device, but as far as we can tell, it doesn’t actually do anything.

You’re in luck if your child uses a Samsung Knox device. Boomerang lets you disable tons of features that could be used to get around the parental controls, including the following:

Boomerang’s best feature is the website blocker. It worked like a charm. We also really liked how easy it was to set screen-time limits. 

There’s room for improvement in terms of content filters and parent notifications, so we recommend routinely checking your child’s web browsing history and blocking any specific websites that concern you. Don’t forget to tell your child what you’re doing and why.

For our Boomerang parental control review, we downloaded the app and tested its features. We also used our knowledge of other parental control apps to compare its features to competitors. Visit the SafeWise methodology page for more information.

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