I received a Parental Control Kit for 3DS to review from Bigben Interactive. My 13 year old son has a 3DS, but he does not generally need too many time limits set since he has other hobbies that take up a lot of his time. His biggest concern (and what made me want to try out this product with him) is that you can set an alarm so your child can’t hold it too close to their face. My son is precarious and had read an article stating that he could mess up his eyes or have seizures if he held the 3DS too close to his face. This product has just recently been put onto store shelves and it seemed like perfect timing. I have not heard of another product that does this, so I was intrigued. The warning distance can be set  between 20-35 cm. When your child’s face gets closer than the limit you set, a warning light flashes and it beeps with increasing intensity. If your child doesn’t move it back within about a half a minute, it takes the child to the home menu. We both really thought this was a great feature, but I was not too keen on the sound of the alarm. It reminds me of crickets. I am a person who really doesn’t like the sound of alarms anyway, so this shouldn’t be a diversion for most folks.

As a parent you can set the amount of time your child plays at any one time, as well as an overall amount of time for one day through a detachable key that they include. You can set the per-play timer at 20,30, 45, and 60 minutes. It alerts the child about 5 minutes before it is going to shut off, so your child can save his game. That’s a pretty cool feature, since everyone who hasn’t been able to save a game knows, that can be a real bummer. The daily limits can be set at 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours. When the child has reached his daily limit it will give a series of beeps before effectively shutting him out for the day. Then the 3DS won’t turn on again until after an “overnight” period which lasts about 8 hours. I would think for a parent who has a child addicted to playing on the 3DS this would be a great feature. We don’t really have that problem so never really had the chance to check it out after just 8 hours. My older son has an Xbox 360 and I know I would love to have some sort of Parental Control like this one for the 3DS for that gaming system!

The case that comes with the system is nice, as it allows you to to have an extra layer of protection on the outside from bumps and drops. That feature is a boon. The case itself also has an alarm that alerts you to any tampering the child might do in order to cheat his time limits. We found that at first to be a bit testy, but after my son learned where to hold his hands correctly it didn’t give us any false positives.

I found the manual that came with the product easy to understand and they even sent a special screwdriver to help me put it on my son’s handheld. All in all, it was easy to put together and I think most parents with video gaming children would find this product to be useful.

Well, even though they don’t carry these Parental Controls for the Xbox360 they DO carry a product for the PS3. The package contains a wireless controller that has the ability to set time on a digital screen. You can set the timing from 15 minutes to 3 hours. It also gives a beeping sound so that your child can save their game. Since it does not come with a detachable key, you can set a password on the digital screen to keep control. I was sent one of these for review also, but do not have a PS3 so was not able to try it out personally. I let my son’s girlfriend and her mother try it and they both seemed to like it with no complaints. The controller that comes with the package is slightly different than the traditional controller as it is more ergonomic and has non-slip buttons which she liked a lot.

You can find out more information about  Bigben Interactive and these products on their facebook and website.

Betty