Lock apps behind a PIN, set a bedtime for the whole TV, and give each app its own daily limit — all from your phone. No account. No cloud. Everything stays on your home Wi-Fi.
What your kids see when bedtime hits. Entered with the D-pad — no keyboard needed.
TVGuard splits in half on purpose. The TV app does the enforcing — it sees which app is in the foreground and puts up the PIN screen when a rule says it should. The phone app is your remote control for all of it.
Where you lock apps, build bedtime schedules, set daily limits and read usage reports. Free to install, and home to the Pro upgrade.
Get the phone appInstalled on the television itself. Shows the pairing code, enforces every rule, and displays the remote-friendly PIN screen. No ads, nothing to buy.
Get the TV appBuilt around the arguments families already have — not a list of settings nobody opens twice.
YouTube, games, streaming apps, the Play Store, TV settings. Ask for the parent PIN — or block the app outright so it won't open at all.
A bedtime window locks the television, not just one app. On Pro you can run different schedules for weekdays and weekends.
Give each app its own allowance. When it runs out, that app locks for the rest of the day — the rest of the TV keeps working.
Screen-time reports by app, so "just one more episode" becomes a number you can point at. Pro keeps week and month history.
Live controls let you unlock the TV, grant extra time for one app, then re-lock it — without rewriting a schedule you spent ten minutes building.
Guard Settings and the Play Store so nobody walks into Android settings to switch it off — or installs something new to get around it.
The ordinary case — one family, one TV, one home network — needs no account and no cloud at all.
Most parental control apps want an account, a child profile, and a copy of your family's viewing history on their servers. TVGuard was built the other way round: the phone and the TV talk to each other directly, and that's the whole system.
Do these in order. Before you start, put the TV and your phone on the same Wi-Fi network and grab the TV remote — you'll need it for a few permission screens.
Get the parent app from Google Play. It's free, and there's no sign-up screen — no email, no password, no parent account to create. Open it and leave it running; it'll wait for a TV to pair with.
TVGuard on Google PlayTwo ways to do it, whichever is easier with your remote:
The TV app walks you through the three permissions it needs to enforce anything. Each opens an Android settings screen — say yes, then use Back to return to the checklist. Then set your parent PIN.
Pick a PIN your kids won't guess — not a birthday, and not the same code as the TV's own lock. It's stored on the TV only as a salted hash, so keep a copy somewhere safe for yourself.
The TV shows a pairing code. Open TVGuard on your phone, start pairing, and scan it. Your TV should now appear as a paired device with a live status.
These three are requested on the TV, not on your phone. They're what make enforcement possible — a parental control app that can't see which app is open can't block it.
Reads the name of the app currently in the foreground, solely to decide whether a lock should appear. No screen content, text or personal data is collected.
Measures how long each app is used so daily limits can be enforced and screen-time reports stay accurate. Usage is shown by app name only.
Protects TVGuard on the TV so the rules can't be trivially removed. Without it, uninstalling the app would be an easy way around every limit you set.
The free plan is a complete, working setup for one television. Pro removes the caps, adds the deeper controls, and is where online access lives.
Supported by a small banner ad in the phone app. The TV app never shows ads.
Upgrade from inside the phone app. Current pricing is shown on the Google Play listing.
The things families ask most often when setting TVGuard up for the first time.
Grab the phone app first, then send the TV app to your Android TV. Stuck anywhere in the setup? Email us — a real person reads it.