LimeTime: Screen Time Bank

LimeTime

In-app purchases

About this app

Screen time your kids earn — and a bank that actually enforces it.

LimeTime turns screen time into a currency. Kids earn minutes by doing chores, keeping daily routines and reaching milestones, then spend those minutes on the apps you choose. When the balance runs out, the apps lock again. No arguing, no nagging — the rules are the same for everyone, and everyone can see them.

It is a parental control app built around earning rather than punishing.

HOW IT WORKS
1. Set up your family bank and add each child.
2. Create contracts — chores, homework, reading — and what each one pays.
3. Your child does them, you approve, the minutes land in their balance.
4. They start a timer to spend time, and the blocked apps unlock.
5. Time runs out, the apps lock again.

PUT IT ON THEIR DEVICE WITH A CODE
No typing your own password into your child's phone. Settings gives you a six-character code that lasts fifteen minutes; they enter it on their own device and it pairs. Every paired device is listed, and unpairing takes effect immediately. Once paired, their device walks itself through the rest: notifications, app blocking, and a first timer actually running.

BLOCKING THAT HOLDS
• Choose exactly which apps on your child's device should cost time
• Android: LimeTime covers the chosen apps until a timer is running (needs Usage Access and Display over other apps, granted once)
• iPhone and iPad: built on Apple's own Screen Time
• Parent mode is never blocked
• A check card asks the phone whether the apps are blocked right now, instead of repeating what you set up — and on Android it catches the battery saver quietly killing the service, which is the usual reason blocking stops

THE DAILY PROMISE
The short list of things you simply expect every day: homework, teeth, the school bag. Until your child ticks it off and you approve it, the timer stays shut and even time already earned cannot be spent. Approving pays a bonus. Whether to use it at all, and what it pays, is yours to choose.

EARN, SAVE, SPEND
• Contracts — chores and habits, priced in minutes
• Milestones — longer goals, bigger rewards
• The grove — a tree that grows on each visit and drops golden limes for extra minutes
• Requests — your child asks, you approve or decline from your own phone
• Scheduled deposits — a regular allowance of time

EVERYONE CAN SEE WHERE THE TIME WENT
• A full statement: where every minute came from and where it went, the same ledger for parent and child
• A Sunday evening recap of the week, sent in your own timezone and skipped in a week when nothing happened
• Family chat, so the negotiating happens in one place

BUILT FOR FAMILIES
• Up to five children, each with their own avatar, colours and passcode
• Two children on the free plan
• One family across several devices, with parents managing from their own phones
• Parent controls behind a PIN
• English and 简体中文

For primary and middle-school children, and for families who would rather turn "limit screen time" into "learn to budget time".

What’s new

• Fixed notifications on Android — they now arrive, and appear on screen.
• Notifications keep working after you switch accounts on a device.
• Fixed the Plus screen showing a black background in dark mode.