Canopy

Don't use this app.

Rating: 1/5

I was looking forward to testing Canopy because of their technical marketing jargon. Long story short, we couldn't get any device to stay connected to their protect platform. So the child devices we wanted to monitor failed to join to the parental control dashboard. This is a major issue that basically makes everything else they may or may not be able to do entirely irrelevant.

Experimental Setup

Shoutout to my little sister, Sarah (11 yo), for being an absolute champ. I created an account at https://app.canopy.us/c/services/?env=beta and signed up for their free trial. I added the device I was on (Adult), my iPhone.

Assessing app performance from a smart phone is important for (1) individuals who don't have laptops, and (2) for those who want a quick and simple solution.

From there, I copied the "Share install link" and sent it to Sarah. She opened it on her iPad and was met with:

The add a device links you to this page where you are instructed to Install Canopy Shield.

This downloaded never happened. Upon clicking "Install Canopy Shield" at the top of the page, their loading icon (green and purple dots circling each other) loaded forever. We waited 5 minutes the first time, then tried a new invite link. We waited 10+ minutes the second time. We tried the next day, and failed again.

The Unclear Secondary App

So Canopy Shield is the app that does the heavy lifting of protections and controls while the baseline app, which I had on my iPhone and opened in my laptop browser (web version), is the controller.

I'm not totally against this, but because Canopy Shield is not available on the app store (it's a direct download from their share link), it's just an unnecessary hassle. And in reading up about their app on their site, it was not obvious this required two application.

For reference, Aura, the app I prefer to this, has one app, from the app store, where you select the type of account upon login. That flow is simpler, which makes implementation more streamlined.

Uncultivated Good Ideas

The web app for controlling canopy shield is a strong point for them. I can certainly nitpick about the interface design from an aesthetics standpoint; however, the dashboard layout was very decent.

Return to The Parent's Technical Handbook to continue through the series.