How to Make Google Smart Speakers Safer for Kids

Follow these tips to help make your Google speaker safer to use by children.

To harness the full potential of your Google Home device, you need to connect it to the internet. This, however, comes with inherent risks.

If you still want your kids to use Google Home, you should take precautions to keep them safe while doing so. Unfortunately, Google Home's safety features are limited, but here are four things you can do to protect younger users.

1. Set Up Family Link

When using Google Home in a family setting, it's recommended to set up multiple users to get the most out of your device. ​This will personalize your kids' experience as Google Assistant can identify each user's voice and respond to their requests accordingly.

It also guarantees that your device recognizes the filters you specify for your children. For instance, if they ask Google Home to play an explicit song, their request will automatically be denied.

Thankfully, you can find virtually everything you need to set up and manage Google Assistant for your kids under Family Link. This app is designed to help you in creating a healthy digital environment for the whole family.

How to Connect Your Child’s Voice to Google Home via Family Link

Open the Family Link app on your Android or iOS device and add a child by tapping on the plus icon in the top-right corner. On the next screen, you can either add your child's Google account or create a new one for them.

Once you finish adding their account to Family Link, tap on the child's icon on the home screen. Go to Manage settings > Google Assistant > Add [child's name] to new devices. Choose the devices you want to link it to.

Google Home will then walk you through the setup process. By the end, you will hand your phone and speaker to your child. They need to go through the voice recognition prompts and repeat the phrases appearing on your phone, like "Hey Google, set a timer for five minutes" and "OK Google, remind me to water my plants every Monday."

To check if the setup is successful, have your child say, "Hey Google, who am I?" Google Assistant should respond with their name.

In addition to Google Home recognizing their voice and filtering content, you can use Family Link to protect your kids’ Android phones.

2. Enable Digital Wellbeing

Google's Digital Wellbeing is developed to restrict how and when your family members, especially kids, use your Google Home devices. The idea behind this tool is to help you take necessary breaks from the digital world and focus on being in the moment.

Currently, Digital Wellbeing comes with two features: Filters and Downtime. Filters let you customize how your Google Home devices will be used. You can apply the Filters to everyone using your device or limit them to kids with a Family Link account and guests.

With Filters, you can set up the following restrictions on a specific device or all connected devices.

• Block potentially mature music and videos. You most likely don't want to expose your kids to obscenity-laced songs or adult video content. Thankfully, Filters will allow you to play only filtered videos and non-explicit music. If you think your kids are still too young for this, you can completely block all videos and/or music from playing.
• Limit answers. You already know how crazy kids' questions can get. To prevent them from hearing unnecessary answers from Google Home, you can restrict Google Assistant's response. With this, your device will only answer basic questions like "What time is it?" and "Will it rain today?"
• Block calls. After blocking calls on Google Home, your device will no longer be able to place voice or video calls. This does not, however, prevent you from using the Broadcast feature to send voice messages to your family.
• Block news and podcasts. For news and podcasts, you can only choose between Allow and Block. Unfortunately, these two services don't have filtered content, unlike music and videos.

Related: How to Personalize Your Google News Feed

Meanwhile, Downtime is somewhat similar to Do Not Disturb Mode. This prevents you from interacting with the Google Assistant at certain times and days, depending on the schedule you set. If you want to disable Downtime, you need to turn it off from the Google Home app on your Android or iOS device, not by voice command.

When you put your speakers or displays in Downtime, they will not respond to most questions and commands. You also won't get any alerts from your devices.

However, this doesn't mean that your Google Home will be completely useless during Downtime. You can still set a timer and alarm and ask for the time. Additionally, voice commands for controlling your smart home devices—like switching on the lights or turning on the fan—will still be available.

3. Turn Off Pay Through Your Assistant

Google has made shopping easier with its Pay with Assistant feature. Using only your voice, you can buy products from affiliated Google Express retailers in your area.

However, while this can be super useful, it's also super risky when you have youngsters roaming around and treating Google Home as their personal Santa Claus. If you don't want to wake up to a giant dollhouse on your front porch, you should consider turning off this feature in your Google Home app.

To do this, open the Google Home app on your device and tap on your profile picture in the top-right corner. Click on Assistant settings. Scroll down until you see Payments, then tap it. You can now toggle Pay through your Assistant off.

4. Switch on YouTube Restricted Mode

Having access to YouTube opens up the potential for youngsters to play DJ with a broad range of music, some of which may include explicit material that you don't want them to hear. If you have already set up Family Link but still want to make YouTube safer for your kids, its Restricted Mode feature is a great extra precaution.

Restricted Mode is an optional feature that YouTube offers. This helps filter out potentially mature music and videos to prevent you or others who use your device from exposure to such content.

To identify and screen out these contents, YouTube uses several factors like the video's title, description, and metadata, as well as age limits and Community Guidelines reviews.

Although Google can not promise to filter out all explicit material, this should help lessen the chances of any unwanted content ending up in your kid's ears.

Here's how to turn on Restricted Mode for your Google Home speakers.

1. Open the Google Home app from your child's phone.
2. Tap the device you want to restrict YouTube on.
3. Tap the gear icon in the top-right corner and then Notifications & digital wellbeing > YouTube Settings.
4. Under Use Restricted Mode, toggle the Restrict for me or Restrict when someone isn't recognized.

Stay Safe While Using Google Home

Google Home, like any other internet-connected device, poses potential risks for youngsters. Although setting up these parental controls is an excellent first step toward keeping them safe, remember that none of these safeguards is 100 percent effective.

That said, it's always highly recommended to remain vigilant, educate your children about safe online activity, and keep an eye on them regularly.

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