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Getting started

PEP is for parents and PEP Kids is for kids. Start on your own iPhone or iPad:

1. Get PEP and create an account with Sign in with Apple or an email address.
2. Name your family and type your first name. Your kids see this name when you answer them.
3. Tap Add Child, type your kid's first name, and set a daily step goal and the most screen time it can earn. The defaults are 8,000 steps and 60 minutes.

You can pair your kid's iPhone straight away or tap Pair Later. Hand Over works without pairing.

Pairing a kid's iPhone

1. On your kid's iPhone, get PEP Kids.
2. In PEP on your phone, open your kid and tap Pair iPhone. A code appears.
3. In PEP Kids, tap Scan Code and point the camera at it. No camera? Type the six-character code instead.

Then PEP Kids walks you both through setup. A grown-up turns on Screen Time access and picks the Limited Apps; your kid allows Steps and Notifications. Pairing codes expire after a short while, so make a new one if it stops working.

Earning and limits

Steps turn into minutes in proportion to the goal. With 8,000 steps and 60 minutes, every 134 steps earns a minute, and reaching the goal earns all 60. Minutes start again from zero each day.

Only the Limited Apps count. When earned time runs out they lock, and everything else, like Phone and Messages, keeps working. Once your kid has walked their step goal and used all of today's time, the steps they walked past the goal can be cashed in for more minutes, at the same rate they earn them. They pick how many, from PEP Kids or the locked app's screen, and can cash in more than once a day. You get a notification and can approve or decline right from it, or open PEP to approve a different amount. Extra steps that aren't cashed in expire at midnight.

Handing over your iPhone

No phone for your kid, or a quick game on yours? In PEP, tap Hand Over, pick the apps and how long. Your iPhone locks every other app until the time is up and you unlock it with your grown-up PIN or passcode.

A hand-over uses the time your kid has earned today, including any steps they've cashed in, so you can't pick more time than they have left.

Sharing with another parent

In PEP, open Settings and tap Invite a Parent, then share the link. It opens PEP for them, or this site if PEP isn't installed yet, where they can get the app and enter the code. Invites last 7 days and only one can be open at a time. Both parents see every kid and can answer requests and change rules.

Your account and data

• Remove a kid: open your kid in PEP and tap Remove. Their record, requests and pairing codes are deleted, and their iPhone is unpaired.
• Leave a family: if there's another parent, open Settings and tap Leave.
• Delete your account: open Settings and tap Delete Account. If you're the only parent, this deletes the whole family, including every kid's record. It can't be undone.

The privacy policy explains what PEP stores and why.