Before you spend a single dollar on Aura’s parental control app, I break down four things you need to know so you don’t make a costly mistake. I tested Aura for a couple weeks, dug through user experiences, and then stress-tested the big promises: content filtering, screen time controls, and what it can (and can’t) do for different ages. Aura gives you 25+ filter categories and a simple dashboard where you can toggle explicit content or wipe out social media with a click. But in my testing, content filtering isn’t airtight—like when I blocked Facebook and a tagged post still popped up, and when Spotify explicit content still played because Spotify has its own rules. On screen time, Aura keeps it simple: set limits, allow more on weekends, and use the instant internet “kill switch” to pause a device (perfect for dinner). You can also award bonus time, which is a nice parenting lever. The catch is you can’t lock down specific hours, so a kid can burn the whole daily allowance at 7am. I also cover Aura’s “silent guardian” approach (best for younger kids, trickier for teens without a conversation), the standout Safe Gaming feature that monitors 200+ PC games and Discord chats for cyberbullying/predators, and pricing: about $8/month for parental controls only, or roughly $32/month when bundled with identity theft protection (VPN, antivirus, dark web + 3-bureau credit monitoring, and $1M insurance).