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Digital assistants are all the rage at the moment. Apple has SIRI, Microsoft has Cortana, and Amazon
has Alexa, but this was the first time I heard of Belinda, a digital assistant dedicated to the art of
parenting. The service is provided by ParentoScope. It's funny how all digital assistants have girl
names, but I digress. Belinda claims to offer an assistant to help parents understand their kids and
focus on areas that require assistance. It's targeted at parents with kids in the 8 year to 16 year old
range. The premise is good, as kids grow up, they are less likely to open up to us, and we are
therefore prone to missing areas that require our attention, until possibly too late.


We downloaded the app from Google Play, although I understand the app is also available from the
Amazon App Store. Once installed, Belinda the robot will guide you to perform a relatively easy
setup, and will then start to give you relevant feedback on your kids. We have two kids, Daniel and
Melissa, and we are lucky that they both have android devices. Why? Basic setup is fine, but the real
benefit of this app can best be appreciated when the 'Deep Insight' feature is enabled. This required
us to download an app onto kid's device, and I must admit that this was also a relatively easy
process, with plenty of help from Belinda.

Our son Daniel is 14, and our older daughter Melissa has just turned 16. Our experience with this
ParentoScope app has been amazing. Within two days, I discovered that my daughter was speeding
at over 90mph down the highway leading to the mall. This is of concern, especially when you keep in
mind that there are more than 30,000 deaths occurring on our US roads every year. What's worse,
Melissa our daughter doesn't drive. We had a tactful discussion on the subject, and the long-and-
short of the story is that she promised us to avoid taking rides with her 'superhero' friend.

The range of abilities that Belinda has been given is nothing short of amazing. The robot can also
monitor sleep patterns, and this led to the next surprise, as Belinda told us that our son Daniel was
having his average 8 hour sleep interrupted 3 or 4 times each night, with him getting no more than
4.8 hours of sleep on average. For a 14 year old boy, that is a serious issue indeed. We have learnt to
approach Daniel differently to his sister, as they do not respond to our guidance in the same way.
Some prodding by the wife, and Daniel confessed to using Facebook and snapchat to keep in touch
with his friends several times after bedtime. We knew he was telling the truth, as ParentoScope also
gives us information on app usage, and we knew that these were the apps being used at this late
time of the day. Whilst these social apps are great, kids sometimes find it difficult to switch off, and
this lack of sleep perfectly explained Daniel's less than stellar moods and difficulties dealing with
school stuff. I ended up implementing parental controls on our home wi-fi router, and now Daniel
can use the internet only up to 10pm at night. He wasn't too happy with this at first, but for us it did
the trick. Daniel is getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep, and things are overall improving.

The ParentoScope app has other excellent parental control features. We can check in to find the
location of our kids on demand. This is especially useful for my wife, who is worried that our son
Daniel and his friends frequent some less than favourable neighbourhoods near where we live. The
kids also know that they can use the Parento app on their device to request us to pick them up, and I
am happy the app provides me with their location on a map when they do this. Our daughter is very
outgoing and is often making new friends, and I hate asking her to describe her location each time
she asks me to pick her up, several hours after going somewhere with a friend after school.

The ParentoScope parental control app also monitors physical activities, and Belinda the robot keeps
track of the time kids spend walking, running or cycling. We didn't need Belinda to tell us that our
son is the most active of the two, but it was nice to see that Melissa did more than 30 minutes of
walking every day during school, despite her predominantly sedentary lifestyle at home.

Overall, the ParentoScope parental control app has provided us with a great experience. Belinda the
robot is different to SIRI, Cortana or Alexa. To date she does not understand voice, but she does her
job well. The www.parentoscope.com website says that Belinda learns every day, and from our
experience, this robot delivers admirably. Most of the features I wrote about today are offered
through their free and exceptionally useful entry package. Not only that, but the more advanced
features offered through the 'Deep Insight' service are some of the cheapest amongst parental
control apps of this kind. I am hooked,

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