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Your kid has become a little too engrossed with Daniel Tiger videos on your computer, and you can see the tantrum brewing when screen time ends. So you pull out your smartphone, press a button, and the browser delivers the message for you: “Break Time: Come Play Again Later!”

Sure, it’s a little passive-aggressive, but every little trick helps.

That’s one of the features of the new PBS Kids “Super Vision” app, developed by the PBS Kids Digital team and released last week for iPhone.

The app works in conjunction with pbskids.org — allowing parents to see information about what their kids have been watching and doing on the site, set limits on their usage, and get suggestions for real-world activities related to the content they’ve been engaging with.

Listen to this week’s segment below, or via this MP3 file.

We’ve been testing the app in our home for the past week, and it’s good enough that I wish it worked across other sites, as well.

You connect the app by entering a simple code from the browser, giving you insights and parental controls on your phone. The underlying technology is a combination of HTML5 WebSockets, Node.js, and Apache Cordova.

One non-intuitive quirk that I discovered in the process: The app doesn’t work in conjunction with a pbskids.org login. When you make the connection, it’s tied to the computer and browser, not to the pbskids.org login. In other words, it works persistently when your child uses the same computer and browser over time, but it doesn’t follow your child across different machines and browsers.

This would be a great feature to add, and the PBS Kids team says feedback from users will help determine the app’s direction. In the meantime, the app is a nice addition for any parents’ toolbox, particularly if your kids are fans of Daniel Tiger, Dinosaur Train, Thomas, or any other popular franchise available on pbskids.org.

PBS Kids Super Vision is a free app for iPhone.

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