Bark Parental Controls  Avis 64

We are about a month into a Bark phone for our 10 year old. Overall, especially compared to other options out there, I'm happy with it! We currently only have calling and texting enabled, but it's good to know we can upgrade to the internet and app plan in the future.
One thing to note - voicemail is not included in the calling & texting plan.

The monitoring really gives me peace of mind, and it's a good balance of privacy/trust and oversight. We can't see EVERY message or thing she does on her phone (unless we were to physically take her phone), but I feel the alerts have been doing their job. There are a lot of alerts. It would be nice for alerts to have a blurb that gives context; there have been some alerts that have had an unclear trigger. Theres also alerts for small things. I'd rather get too many alerts than not enough, and there are some good things it has caught. It would be nice to adjust the sensitivity of alerts though - like low medium or high. Maybe even an option to filter alerts based on the context of the conversation? For example, her and I were texting about an alert. That conversation triggered another alert. To that point, it would be SUPER COOL if we could enter the relationship of the contact for the monitoring to consider. We don't need alerts for parents, and the analyzation often says 'see how they know this person'. We already know how they know this person, because we need to approve her contacts.

Speaking of contact approval - if a non-approved contact reaches out, there's a notification in the Bark app with the option to approve. Our kiddo really likes this because she can give her phone number to her friends instead of needing to get theirs. It also gives the option for 2 kids with Bark phones to communicate.

It's great that we can always see her location and she can check in.

The Bark phone also has good control options. For example, I can say she's in school weekdays 8-3, and bedtime. Bark will disable her text messaging app and only allow her to call emergency contacts. Her phone will also be turned to silent. There's lots of control options with the different routines.

The phone can be shut down directly from the app, which could be useful.

I've seen some negative reviews from teens and that's understandable. So far, we've communicated openly with our kiddo and it seems to work for us all. Her biggest thing is she wants apps and internet, so we've had open conversations about what the timeline looks like. Our concern is she'll spend too much time on her phone. Bark has screen time limits built in, but we want to teach her to self-manage her time on her phone, based on the situation and what else she has going on that day.

There is one login to your Bark account, but multiple users can have it downloaded. The credentials are shared, and I'd recommend only keeping them in your brains (or your locked phone, and don't let your child go on your phone). This can be super helpful for coparenting consistently.

This got a bit long, but wanted to leave a thorough review. We like it so far and it's worth considering! They also had a 60 day money back guarantee which is good to know. We gave it a shot knowing if it didn't work, we'd not be on the hook for the phone and all that. Looks up the details.

Edited to add a few things: The service is on the expensive side. It's a nice Samsung phone and is easy to use. We got a sturdier phone case at a big box store - the one Bark sells is cheap and not rugged at all. We live in an area with typically spottier service and haven't had issues with the Bark phone's service.

All I want to do is monitor my kids safari searches. But it blocks everything. So I try Chrome. but it blocks the download. So I try, so I try.... I have spent 20+ hours dealing with Bark and controls and chat and it is just such a freaking headache. It appears to be intuitive but if you try it you will learn it is all Ai and nothing works properly, leading it to be nothing but a passive aggressive system. It blocks everything or nothing. It is full of glitches, loops, bugs, and if you use Apple products, you will be right to feel like Bark was not built for you. They made it for Google and Windows and then Apple as an afterthought. I am trying Aura.

The alerta are ridiculously wrong every single time. My daughter can google a name of a person and I get an alert for sexual content. Every single song on you tube is mislabeled as sexual content, suicide or drug related and all wrong. Then her searches using meta AI only says she used it not was what was searched for but yet I get an alert! Then the app is horribly designed and impossible to navigate. I cannot change a single setting because I cannot find them! I am going back to Troomi if these issues are not resolved quickly.

I'm 16 and my parents have always been strict. Back in December of 2024, I got grounded because they found out I was talking bad about them to a friend. They found this out because they constantly checked my PC for messages. It sucked and they grounded me for almost an entire year. In the latest end of 2025, I got a phone (first time ever) since I got a job. Instead of just letting me have a phone like a normal person, they put Bark on my phone. I immediately realized that this thing was more than a normal parental control app. It has basic functions such as blocking websites, controlling apps, and controling when you can use the device. I have no issue with this BUT I have a HUGE issue with it's monitoring feature. It works by monitoring your screen 24/7 and using it's ai to scan every bit of text or picture. This was a huge issue because it's so sensitive. Curse words? Reports entire text convo. Make an edgy joke? Reported and probably comes with a conversation from your parents. Mention that your friend is sick with a cold? It reports that too! It reports much more than this too, and it's spyware.

One day I was texting a friend, and we were extra careful with our texts. It was to no use because even without cursing it still reports the messages. It will literally find one message it seems wrong, then uses that as an excuse to report the ENTIRE CONVERSATION! On that day, my parents sat me down for an hour and were highly stressed over our jokes. I was forced to block my good friend and many others, all because of this app sharing this information to my over strict parents.

You can't lower the sensitivity either. It is either on baby mode or not on at all. There should be a menu or something that has a list of what is reported and what isn't, along with a toggle button.

The worse part is what I mentioned a second ago: it reports one message THEN the rest of a conversation. I've even seen it do this one thing a couple of times where it stitches together random messages from all kinds of time spans together to form a bad looking conversation. I'm not making this stuff up, it's happened at least twice.

One more issue with this app is that it tends to say everything is said by your kid. Say there's a wild comment on Instagram or a message in a discord server, it's reported as if YOU typed it out. Don't even ask me how many times this got me in trouble.

Overall this app is garbage- and it doesn't even do its job properly! After a few months of continuous use it will randomly stop working. Good for me but bad for my parents because they then are paying for something that doesn't work. I overall hate this app and want it gone.

Good Concept, Limited iOS Functionality
Title: Decent Concept, Limited iOS Functionality

Bark is an okay monitoring tool in theory, but in practice it does not work well with iOS devices.

The setup process was more complicated than expected, and adding my child’s Mac did not work despite troubleshooting. The protection on iPhone and iPad felt limited, especially compared to what is implied in the marketing.

One major issue is that each time a scan occurs, your child must enter their device password. The alternative is removing the password from their device, which defeats the purpose of maintaining strong security. That creates an ongoing inconvenience and is not practical for everyday use.

The concept behind Bark is good, and I appreciate the intent of helping parents monitor potential risks. However, the iOS functionality feels restricted and not as seamless as it should be for the price.

Overall, it may work better for non-Apple devices, but for families primarily using iOS and Mac, expectations should be tempered.

I will add that they are very timely and professional with their responses. They handled my cancellation request quickly and seamlessly.

about 5 years ago my dad heard about this app from the dad of a girl who i was friends with at the time-- who later turned out to be emotionally abusing her, which should have been the first red flag about this software. he put my dad on this app that would keep me from doing anything that could be even slightly questionable, and as soon as he heard about it he put it on my phone. i spent six months having it alert for literally nothing-- completely benign art projects I was turning in for school that were harmless and had no harmful content, but i have a theory that whatever software this app uses to scan images couldnt make sense of them so they flagged anyways, ANYTIME i listened to music even if it was harmless because i was listening on YouTube which had access to other less harmless stuff, anytime i tried to text anyone if they were sick, because it flagged for any discussion of illness, for some reason? it was literally just nonstop worrying anytime I opened my phone because i had no control over what might or might not get flagged, and anytime it flagged i would have to have a whole sit-down with my parents about what i was and wasn't allowed to do. thankfully, the software is so jacked up it disconnected from my phone on its own in like six months (not that the app terminated itself or anything, it just "lost access to monitoring"), and obviously I never alerted my dad to it-- but now he's going to get my sister a phone and put the app on her phone as well, and all the horror of it is coming back to me because i'm probably going to get it back on me aswell. i turn 18 in less than six months and I've done extensive research into this and have no assurance i can get the monitoring off myself when i'm a legal adult. this is pure and unadulterated spyware and a tool of helicopter parents who want to stifle any chance their kid has to reach out, move beyond the sphere of parental influence even at an appropriate age, and find a support system beyond their own home. my digital social life has been the only thing that's supported me through being in the closet in a repressive household and this app has only been used to keep me living in more fear than i already was. it is really important to me that whoever designed this software knows it is being used for evil.

Not good , company claims to be about child safety ,but if payment fails@9am phone location and dashboard is disabled by 11 am . I had an issue with my bank and payment failed to process at 9 am ,by 11 am phone was on a lock out status I could no longer see my childs location and she couldn't text me ,
Spoke to representative I was informed that a ticket would have to be submitted and there was nothing that could be done at the time going to buy out phone and cancel

i hate it. i come from the kids side and if you are a parent considering this, don't. if your child plays any game that requires text chat, or is in a friend group that swears a lot, expect to get about 500+ notifications a day (not really but still). it's so sensitive, like if i say "stupid" it's like "ALERT, CHILD IS BULLYING" and there's no way to turn the controls down, it's either 5 year old mode or off, no in-between. i'll bet my parents just got 3 notifications from this review alone. just get a normal android and download some other parental control app.

edit: here is everything i (and bark) forgot to include:

the subscription is so overpriced, basically i get 4 GB for the same price as unlimited at T-Mobile lmao

amd the starter plan 🤣🤣 if you were thinking about buying that then just buy a flip phone and stick a tracker on the back of it, it's the same thing basically. and advanced content monitoring alert? what content, it literally says at the top "no apps, no browser, no social media" like what?

new slogan alert: Bark, thousands of happy, satisfied parents (and even more unhappy, dissatisfied ones, and children). even their own reviews that they put on the site are agreeing. helen c. says “(some other stuff), It monitors EVERYTHING" which isn't far from the truth, except she put "monitors" instead of "flags". (this part was mainly a joke, only take the last part seriously)

honestly, i would call roblox's ai moderation more accurate than this clanker that belongs in the scrap pile. (for those of you who don't know, roblox's ai moderation is terrible XD)

why would you want to prevent your child from deleting texts, that seems like such a random thing to add. "driving mode" quite literally BRICKS your phone while it thinks you're driving, so your child can't play on those long road trips. thanks bark, this is what everyone wanted. and then "add more GB with the tap of a button"? this is the full sentence: "add more GB with the tap of a button (and your credit card).

to summarize, basically bark sucks and you shouldn't give these corporate businessmen your money because 9 times out of 10, it will disappoint you. as for the kids, PLEASE SPECIFY THAT YOU DON'T WANT A BARK PHONE WHEN YOU ASK FOR A PHONE or you'll end up like me and thousands of other kids who made that mistake 😮‍💨

Big change of heart. Just had a conversation with Hanna who went so far above and beyond to make this right. This is how it should have been handled from the get go, but she made it all right, more than right. Great company.!!

The device and plan worked great. However, I paid for the protection plan, and when the phone was damaged, they were unable to get it repaired or get a new one sent to me. I had to pay the repair shop anyway out of my pocket, which they did not reimburse, even though they told me it was approved to go there, and then I had to pay the broken phone off before canceleing my account.
Response to Bark:
I've read your response, and I don't have any issue with your customer service team. They were friendly and I could tell they were doing all in their power to help. My problem was their inability to do so. I kept getting pawned off to a third party, who was unable to fix the problem. When this was brought up to your team, instead of enabling them to be able to fix the issue, I was told that wasn't anything that could be done. I ended up having to buy a new phone out of my own pocket when I claimed had been filed, paying for repairs out of my own pocket as well. I feel strongly that if you contract a service out to a third party, and they're unable to get the job done, it is the responsibility of the business to make things right. I followed their instructions to the letter, and ended up with a phone that didn't work, and again having to pay for things out of my own pocket because no instruction were given on how to redeem the repair. Eventually they did get back to me, but it was much too late.

I bought a watch for my youngest and a phone for my oldest, and absolutely nothing has functioned properly. I've spent HOURS on chat and on the phone with support, and it's still buggy and doesn't work. The phone location is currently not working, showing my daughter's location on the interstate for the last 5 hours while she's sitting right in front of me at my office (not on the interstate). The location tracking was one of the main reasons we purchased, so this is obviously not ideal. The watch for my youngest has been an absolute disaster, not working until I called support and performed a hard reset and several other manual overrides, and now it's shutting off instead of going to sleep, so it needs to be fully powered on every time she wants to use it, which takes over a minute? So it's of absolutely no use to us in an emergency whatsoever. I'd give this company zero stars if I could, I've been so fruatrated for over a month with no meaningful support. Now, if I cancel the watch, I'll be charged $126 for a device that doesn't work. I may still be within the cancellation window for the phone, but it was a Christmas gift that my daughter was so excited about, so it feels awful. Please do better, Bark.

When exploring our options we were told bark had wonderful coverage for our area. This is simply not the case. Which honestly wouldn't be much of an issue phones use wifi back up now for low service areas. Not bark. No Wi-Fi calling or messaging. Kids need to get ahold of you in an emergency? Forget that. Get with the program bark. There isn't any monitoring you shouldn't be able to see with WiFi functionality on the phones.

Thought the setup was gonna be daunting but it was rather easy. Some of the alerts are silly (mild name-calling, hypothetical violence) but it checks all the boxes for monitoring it for what I need it to ... bullying, hate speech, inappropriate comments, etc.

If you're thinking "not my kid, they would never," you might be right, but it might be the company your kid keeps.

And open conversation between parent + child is super important, so go ahead and reassure them of your trust of them but there are guardrails, Bark provides the guardrails.

A little peace of mind goes a long way, when parenting sometimes seems impossible.

Terrible product, very difficult to set-up, support is an AI Chat bot that will ask you to confirm your name and email over an over when you actually need a human.

Regarding their reply, "we don't see any additional requests" I was emailed this:

"I'm Carrie, the Technical Manager for Bark Phone & Watch, and I want to sincerely apologize for the frustrating experience you've had trying to reach our team.

You're absolutely right - our chat system failed you. We've identified a technical issue on our end that prevented chats from routing to our human agents properly, and I'm truly sorry you spent two days trying to get help that should have been immediately available."

The product is not useful, the kids can turn it on and off and obviously most kids will turn it off.

Update: Barks customer service yeah was great and did assist as much as they could, but there are limitations with iOS that are not their fault. Thanks.

This app is not good. It constantly stops working after a heavy config process. It's also relatively easy for kids to circumvent on iOS. Been trying to dial it in for nearly two years and it's been a horrible experience. Look for other solutions.

my parents installed this app on my phone which led to a big decline on my mental health. this app is a big invasion of privacy, i get using it on kids up to 12 years old but it's way too much for a teenager. Discuss apps and online safety with your kid instead. If you think you need to get bark for your kid to have a phone, don't give them a phone. This app would be considered abuse if you put it on your partners phone. This app could also be used as spyware. Do not put this on your kids phone unless you want mess up your relationship with them.

If you want a watch that has spotty/major delayed gps tracking sometimes hours between refreshing location. Battery that dies before your kid is out of school, then get the bark watch. First week of my daughter starting middle school. Not ready for a phone yet, but with it being her first year bussing to and from school arriving home an hour before us we wanted a way to contact her. I just rushed my butt across town left work early because I called to check in that she made it home safe, she said "what the heck" then all contact with her dropped. Assuming the worst I rushed to make sure she was okay. Her watch died. When it comes to your kids safety you need reliability. This is not that

We downloaded the app. First off it was very hard to understand, no clear directions on set up what so ever. We ended up googleing on how to do it. There is NO ONE to speak to, only by chat which is an AI bot or by via email. I have gone back and forth via email and still no resolve. I was constantly told my daugher had a Snapchat act and in fact did not and was just told via email it was sent in error! What am I paying all this money for if things are sent in error. My parent app apparently never worked correctly. I could not access any part of my account at all and had to use the AI chat to cancel my free trial. There were alerts I was receiveing that were just ridiculous. I was told I could go in and manage the settings, well it was either on or off. No need to pay for something that's going to be off.

We purchased a bark phone for my son, we highly recommend it. I love that I can see his location and that we can monitor and control anything we need to.

We purchased the app about 2 years ago and downloaded it on ALL our kids devices (phones and iPads). The alerts to email regarding possible content concerns were great. What really put Bark over the top for us was when we purchased our 13 year old sons both phones for Christmas. Being able to decide who can contact them, get alerted to concerning texts and knowing they cannot access online apps or sites gives us such peace of mind. We can’t recommend bark enough!