BOB - Screen Time Manager - Manage Your TV Time & Video Game Time

I Love BOB. I researched all the time management devices and chose BOB. I've owned and used BOB for 8 months now and am very happy with the purchase. It does everything it says it does. It also helps the kid organize their time better. We only give each child 1 hour and 4 minutes and it makes them plan and organize and be aware of their television viewing, especially if there is a show on that they really want to watch. There is never any arguing anymore and we don't have to constantly check up on the kids every half hour (they are 10 and 11) and tell them to play outside or go to bed. It is really useful on the weekends when the kids are allowed to stay up later and we go to bed early. We can be assured they are not on the television all night and still get our rest. It also helps us during summer days when we are outside doing yardwork, BOB insures that the kids aren't coming back in the back door and watching t.v. instead of getting exercise by playing in the sun (kids can be sneaky). It is very sturdy and works well PLUS BOB IS THE ONLY TIME MANAGEMENT DEVICE THAT WILL WORK ON LARGE TV'S OR BIG FLATSCREENS. We have it hooked up to a 42 inch Samsung Flat Panel and it works flawlessly. I have it connected just to the tv because as long as the tv is under control, it controls the Nintendo Wii, tv viewing and DVD instead of having it control all. This also insures that my TIVO still is on and records my shows but turns off the t.v so the kids can't watch anything once they use up their time. You can also get reports from it and analyze the tv viewing and it lets you know when the kids are trying to break into it by attempted hacking. I haven't found any complaints. I lost the master code once and called customer service and they were really helpful and courteous. They solved my problem quickly. This is a great product and worth every penny (even though I got it on sale for nearly half off! yay me.)

I don't write many product reviews but thought that if maybe--maybe--I could just help just one family stop a son or daughter from turning into a zombie-fied version of his/her former self, drawn to the TV like a moth to a porch light at night, sapped of all energy as though they just raced the Tour de France--then my good deed for the day has been done. These symptoms of which I speak, I know them well for my children are former sufferers of TV addiction. By the way, the Comcast set top box used to have a built in version of BOB in my area until they performed the Xfinity upgrade a few months ago, now that went away (curse you Comcast). But about the BOB: We were tired of the constant whining about TV watching. We ordered 2 of these a few weeks ago, one for upstairs, one for downstairs. Coming out of the package, they are fairly substantial in weight and appear to be well built with quality components. At least, you are not going to comment on it's lack of quality. There are apparently 2 builds, the USA and China (I have the Chinese manufactured build, more on that in a moment). The rear access door has a lock with 2 keys and appears to lock tightly and doesn't look like it can be easily defeated, although I guess if you took a screwdriver and hammer...or blowtorch to it...but then you would have bigger issues than simple TV discipline in your house. The set up took about 5 minutes. The hardest part was disconnecting the proper cords from the mess of spaghetti behind the entertainment systems and then figuring out which would be controlled by BOB. Upstairs unit controls a receiver into which is plugged an LCD TV. Downstairs was trickier. The large plasma TV plug was not so handy. I had read that BOB did not react well to new plasma tvs. I set the unit up the same way as in the upstairs unit, but it didn't work well; because of the way the AV guys connected everything when they set up our system, when the receiver is off, the TV can still come on, it just can't play sound...through the stereo system, that is. But it can still play sound through the TVs speakers. The enemy is crafty and cunning; it would only be weeks before it would discover this. One other problem: After 30 minutes, the BOB would say that no activity had been detected and it was powering off. Then we would have to turn it on again, and in 30 minutes it would shut off again, ad nauseum. My hopes for BOB were fading. I didn't mention it but there is a setup book with a customer service number and email address. I sent them an email about the problem. The next morning I received a very detailed reply back stating how to change the 'standby threshold' for the unit, and it involves pressing combinations of keys in sequence so it is not something that you are going to see on your own. With this information in my hands, the enemy was going to be crushed. Regarding the USA vs. China model--the threshold reset only works with the China make, she said that she would swap out a USA model if I had one, which I did not. My resolution--I spent the extra time and plugged the TV directly into BOB. Since I did that, the unit has not timed out at all so I did not perform the reset. The TV is a Panasonic Viera. The cord is really large and is tight in the lock box but it just fits. If I have one point of constructive criticism for BOB it would be that the lock box could be deeper to allow more space for the cord to fit inside--it has really close tolerances for a large 3 pronged cord like my Panasonic; the cord is as thick as my index finger. So what is the outcome after 1 week of BOB use? Well, it really has been amazing. I haven't heard,"Can I watch TV", since we got BOB. They know that they get 1 hour per day, they can use it however they like, whenever they like. We don't question them on it, they know that they have to budget and ration because BOB is cold, impartial, prompt and he will cut you off when he says he will. We have blocks set up for early weekends since my son tends to wake us up too so that we can all 'enjoy' Scooby doo. Blocks are easy to set up, it takes 20 seconds. Now the kids get extra TV time for good behavior, e.g., 30 mins at night for no fighting with each other, cleaning up their rooms, etc., and we tend to make that time a family show that we all watch. But they really have to work for it and they don't get it every night. They are playing outside more and reading more. We are criticizing less often and frustrated less often. By the way, I think I read on here that power outages cause a reset of your BOB, but I have found this to be untrue from what is in the manual and from my own testing, for what it is worth. Full disclaimer: not a BOB employee, not an investor, the only time I have talked to the BOB company was by email once. I am just a dad who has seen home life get much easier since this product arrived.

In theory this is a fantastic idea to limit TV or video game time and my kids now get mad at Bob and not me. The problem is that it shuts off randomly while watching or when I've tried to use it with a PS4. After reading reviews I found that some energy efficient TVs don’t draw enough power to make Bob realize they are still on and it automatically shuts off. Super annoying!! I hope their customer support will have a solution or Bob is going back. I also found that it reverts to factory settings for time and you can’t use it until you reprogram the time and day. This happens without a loss of power in the house. UPDATE: I've reached out to customer support multiple times with no response. I'm extremely disappointed in the product AND customer support (or lack thereof).

The 2nd day it was in use, and that evening he says "i don't like this thing. I played my PS4 for a bit, than watched a movie and it turned off 10 mins before the move was over" LIKES - Seems that it worked just perfect. It does the job very well for allocated time. I like that you can set total time per day or per week and still define blocks of time. So you can set 3 hours every day, between 9 and 5 for example. Simple to setup and use, and can have multiple accounts, so one for each of the kids. Teaches teamwork for sure to share/save their individual times. Really easy to add or remove time to the kids account, or login as the Master account and watch uninterrupted. Tracks usage of time on and if you shut the TV off, the timer stops... (Sort of, see dislikes) We ended up using it to power off the TV when the time was up, so far seems to work. DISLIKES - This is a bit more expensive than some other units, however with plugging our flat screen TV into the box, it did not recognize the TV as turned off. We had to set the box to power off when the time was up, rather than alert and give the kiddo a chance to turn off the TV before. Plugging the entire power strip for the DVD, TV, AMP, etc did register, however the TV alone pulled less power than the TV and PS4, so it did not track correct. Also, the locking plug area did not accommodate a power strip plug very well. Was able to plug the TV alone in just fine. In the end, it works well, easy to setup and use, wish it was a little more sensitive for devices like newer TV's with a lower power draw, but a solid 4 stars for sure.

This is a capital idea...in theory. It has all the functionality one could ask for in a device meant to automatically control the amount of TV time the child unit gets and stop the arguments. It was easy to setup. Unfortunately, it is overly sensitive to low current draw, so it can -- and does -- turn off the TV without notice. Even my 60" flat screen doesn't draw enough current to keep the BOB from triggering a shutting down. There is an ALWAYS ON option, but that requires child-unit to enter someone else's PIN when they're done watching so that BOB stops counting their time. If there is a future version, it needs to have an smartphone app for programming and be less sensitive to low current draw. It would be better if this technology was built-in to the TV itself.

I would love to have something that would effectively control a video game console without risking cutting the power to a unit that needs time to power down. My kids are very self-regulating when it comes to TV, but on the games, they lose all sense of reality and could play 24x7 if I didn't stop them. It comes down to me standing by the console counting down the seconds until I hit the power button. Also, while they are aware that "life is not fair," they are continually doing the "he got more playing time than me, so kick him off" thing. And if we're not on top of them with a stopwatch, I'll hear it. I don't have the time or the inclination to constantly be accurately timing their usage. I figured BOB was about as close as I could get, so I gave it a whirl. If you are really controlling a TV, BOB works very well. It will control power to any type of TV, so long as the plug fits in the lock box, which I can't see being a problem. Setting the time limits for the kids was effective, and when I had it hooked to the TV, it worked well. This is why it got three stars. The problems arise when you connect BOB to a game console, especially any modern game console that has a hard drive in it (PS3, Xbox, etc). These things are essentially purpose-built computers with operating systems that control the interaction with the hardware. You can't just kill the power to them without risking the filesystem integrity, and possibly a lengthy recovery. So I initially tried to use BOB with the "projector" mode, which offered a "cool-down" period following the timer ending. This would allow for the old "projector" TVs to cool down before being shut off. This worked until the first time that someone didn't get his game saved before BOB killed the power (which I certainly warned them of), and then that plan was going to have to change. So I tried the third mode of operation, "ALWAYS ON" which, in theory, should never actually kill the power. It should just act as a timer detecting when the unit is on, and when it is off. However, since most modern game consoles have a "standby" mode instead of on/off, they still draw power, and BOB can't detect the difference correctly. So many times, BOB detected that the unit was off when it was actually still on. AND THEN PROCEEDED TO KILL THE POWER, which it's not supposed to do in "ALWAYS ON" mode! I think, for my purposes, ALWAYS ON would have been the best choice. It would have acted as a game timer, so each player would only use his allotted time, and the "he-got-more-time-than-me" arguments become a thing of the past. However, BOB simply can't properly detect the difference in current draw between "on" and "standby," and so since I can't use any mode successfully, I'm afraid I will have to return BOB, and continue my search for a viable game timer. I'm kinda at a loss; BOB was my best option. It allowed me to allot time to each player, add or subtract time on the fly, and had logging and reporting capability. It would have been perfect, had it worked correctly. BOB could be improved with a few software updates. Until then, if you're looking for something to control game time, keep looking.

We have gotten a TON of use out of this product. I thought when we first set it up, there would be a revolt. However, it worked out well having an impartial "3rd party" (BOB) tell our electronic junkie son his time was up. If we told him to get off the TV, he would get huffy, however he can't get huffy with BOB, because BOB doesn't care if he's not done playing or not. It can be set up with multiple accounts, so we set up 2 accounts for our son, one with only a little time on school nights, and one with a little more time for weekends. If he was grounded, we could easily change the time allowed to "0" which wouldn't allow him any access until he was ungrounded. Only problem we have was if there is a power surge, the clock on the BOB would reset, and the unit won't work until the master user resets the clock on it. This just means no access to the TV until the master user resets the clock, but often meant our son would call my husband asking for the master code after school because he couldn't get on the TV. This unit works but cutting the power to the TV, so make sure you don't have any other TVs available (we are a one TV household). This does mean it works to control TV access for TV watching and for video gaming. The computer is a separate issue! I also noticed this exacerbated our son's sense of "entitlement" in some ways. Meaning if he was playing video games on our one TV, and we told him to get off so we could watch TV, he would say, "Why do you give me time if I can't even use it?!?" or, "I have a right to the TV too!" This was quickly alleviated by a lesson in the difference between "rights" and "privileges" and a reminder how quickly "privileges" may be revoked if need be.

The BOB has saved me from certain death due to fatal yelling-induced laryngitis. I never have to nag my kids to stop playing video games or watching movies any more. Set-up was simple. You just have each user select a 4-digit PIN, then, as the master user, set up parameters for their use of the device to which you've connected the BOB (in our case, we connected it to the TV - that way it controls the XBOX, Wii, BluRays, Apple TV and cable). If you choose to set it up this way, just keep in mind that it won't control use of the Wii-U game pad, since it doesn't require use of the TV screen. You can set an amount of time for each user on either a daily or weekly basis. Then you select the hours during which the time can be used (this solved our problem of tweens getting out of bed to play late at night). A warning tone sounds when there is 1 minute of time remaining, so they are easily able to save a game before the power turns off. The BOB allows you to set up 1 master user, and up to 6 additional users. We gave each child an account, then also set up a "babysitter" PIN with a longer time limit, which we give to the sitter to use for movie night when we're out. Tips: #1 Don't lose the keys!! The way the BOB works requires that you plug the power supply of the TV (or whatever device you're controlling) into the back of the unit, under a locking cover. If the physical key is lost, you have no ability to remove the BOB. Replacement keys can be ordered online. #2 The BOB can occasionally malfunction due to interference if it is placed too close to the controlled device. I thought my husband was going to lose it when he moved the unit over a bit closer to the TV during his preparations to watch the "big game". A few minutes after kick-off, the TV started randomly turning off. And, of course, he couldn't find the key to remove the BOB. Luckily, I read the instruction manual that suggested moving the unit farther away in case of interference. We're still married. In summary, this is a great way to allocate screen time and to make sure that kids don't spend all day gaming or watching TV. They've adjusted well, and I'm nagging way less.

J'ai acheté cet appareil parce que mon fils de 7 ans piquait des crises lorsqu'on lui demandais de fermer la télévision. Cela est totalement terminé puisqu'il ne peut pas l'ouvrir seul. Bonus : Je me sers de la télé comme motivation aux études. Mon garçon est un maitre du pouvoir de l'inertie. Sa capacité de rester immobile assis à la table pendant une heure au lieu de faire 20 minutes de leçon était en train de nous rendre fous! Dorénavant 20 minutes de devoir efficaces = 30 minutes de télé! Résultats? Meilleures notes, Diminution des bouderies, des cris. Fini le bâtard de niaisage et une maison nettement plus sereine. BOB est un des meilleurs gadget que j'ai acheté dans ma vie !

Does not work in Australia, I even contacted first to check and was still sent the US version. There is not enough room within the unit to use an adaptor. Still don't have my refund either.

Helped get my family on a chore schedule. It's working great 3 weeks in. Took a little bit of figuring out at first as it would shut down my TV mid viewing with time left still, I had to change the Bob's energy codes to 1000. I have a Samsung led smart TV. Despite this hiccup I have had no further problems and its simple enough for my 7 year old to use.

Bob rocks! Oldish GUI, but it does exactly what it needs to do — limit tv watching without burdening parents with the task of “the enforcers”.