Balanced Play Open the app →

Connect your kid's devices

Balanced Play pools game time from every console and PC into one daily budget. To do that, it connects to each platform's own parental controls — using your account, never your child's password.

You'll do this once per device, from the Devices screen in the app after you add your child. You sign in with the platform's official login — we never see or store your password.
What we actually hold, plainly. We don't get your password — but we do get a sign-in token from each platform, and while it lasts it acts on your behalf. So it's fair to ask what it can do. It can read play time and set that platform's own screen-time limits. It can't change your password, and we never read messages, voice, screenshots or anything inside a game. Tokens are encrypted at rest in AWS. You can disconnect any platform from your dashboard at any time, and you can also revoke us directly from the platform's own account page — Nintendo, Sony, Valve and Microsoft each let you do that without asking us. If we ever lose a token, we'll tell you.

Nintendo Switch

About 5–10 minutes the first time · have ready: your Nintendo parent account password

  1. Tap Connect a device → Nintendo Switch.
  2. Sign in to your Nintendo account — the grown-up account that manages the console, not your child's login. Don't have one, or your child set the Switch up themselves? That's common. Email info@getbalancedplay.com and we'll get you sorted — you don't need your child's password.
  3. Nintendo shows a red "Select this account" button. Don't tap it — it points somewhere your browser can't open, so tapping looks broken. Instead: press and hold it (right-click on a computer) and choose Copy link address. Then come back and paste. The link you want is long and contains session_token_code.
  4. Pick your child's Switch from the list. Done.

Sharing one Switch between kids? Nintendo reports play time per console, not per person, so that console's time lands on whichever child it's linked to. Steam splits cleanly per account. Tell us how your house is set up and we'll help you get the most honest numbers.

PlayStation

About 5 minutes · have ready: your own PlayStation Network sign-in

  1. Tap Connect a device → PlayStation.
  2. Sign in to your PlayStation (PSN) account.
  3. On a phone the app captures your sign-in automatically. In a browser, it opens Sony's page in a new tab — copy the code it shows (labeled npsso) and paste it back into Balanced Play.
  4. Choose your child's account. Done.

Steam (PC)

About 5 minutes · have ready: the Steam mobile app (or Steam on the PC), and a Steam Family View PIN

  1. Tap Connect a device → Steam. A QR code appears.
  2. Scan it with the Steam mobile app (or, on the same PC, click to open it in Steam) and approve the sign-in.
  3. Pick your child from your Steam Family list.
  4. Enter your Steam Family View PIN. Never set one up? It takes about 5 minutes in Steam → Settings → Family — worth doing first, because Steam ignores time limits without it.

Heads-up: Steam's own store page can play game trailers like a video site. Balanced Play counts and can limit game time, but a kid browsing trailers is worth a look now and then.

Xbox & Windows PC

About 5 minutes · have ready: the Microsoft account that is your family's organizer

  1. Tap Connect a device → Xbox & PC (Family Safety).
  2. Sign in as the family organizer on your Microsoft account. If your spouse set up the Xbox, the organizer is probably them, not you — you'll need them for this one step.
  3. Pick your child. This covers their Xbox console.

Your child needs to be in your Microsoft Family group with child safety turned on. If it says "no child accounts found," set that up at family.microsoft.com first — that's a separate job, budget another 10 minutes.

Windows PCs are separate. Games on a gaming PC need our small Windows app installed on that computer (you'll need admin rights). It recognises each game as a running program so it can count and stop it — it never reads your screen, your messages, or anything inside a game. Steam games are covered by the Steam link above instead.

Only see one device to link? That's fine — link what you have now, and add more anytime. Even one connected device gives you the daily budget and the game-content ratings.