Screen-time management for the PlayStation 4

Situation. Daily screen time on the kids’ PlayStation 4 needed to be tracked and capped: a warning before the limit, a notification when it is reached — for the parents through the app and for the player without one. The counter has to reset to zero every night.

Approach. Screen time is derived from the console’s state — playing, paused or idle — over a window that restarts automatically at midnight. One automation sends a warning when a quarter of an hour is left and a second notification when the limit is reached: to the parents’ phones via the home notification service, and as a pop-up on the television for the player. Optionally, the console powers itself off at the limit. The daily limit, the automatic power-off and both notification channels are each configurable separately. Underneath, two bugs in the PlayStation integration were fixed so the status sensor no longer gets stuck on “unavailable” and the measurement stays reliable.

Result. Manually tracking screen time and arguing about it are gone: the daily limit is enforced and reported without intervention, with an optional automatic power-off. The measurement stays reliable now that the status sensor no longer gets stuck on “unavailable”. Screen time is recorded automatically per activity; a dashboard shows today’s screen time and a chart over the past few days.