Screens that read themselves
A child who cannot read yet taps a tile and hears its name; screens are read aloud once.
Everything BioKids does
From the child's screen to the parent panel, from time rules to an AI that runs on the computer: every BioKids feature, in plain words. All free, all on this computer.
For the child
Big tiles instead of a desktop
The child taps their own picture on the login screen and lands in a full-screen launcher of the apps and sites you chose.
- Picture login: no password; every child has their own account and picture.
- Two looks: bigger tiles and read-aloud for ages 4–7; a clock, the date and "My files" for 8–10.
- A time-left ring: green, then amber, then red; for the youngest, a sun rides the end of it.
The same bar on every app
Home, the minutes left, the app's own volume, fill the screen, and a Close button that stops even an app that won't close.
Switch without starting over
Open apps wait at the bottom: pause a video, play a game, go back to the video where it was.
English corner
12 units, 98 words, a five-minute lesson a day and a word of the day; with the assistant, simple English chat with Sio.
Reading corner
Turkish reading for ages 5–8, letters to sentences, in the order first grade teaches them.
Today's surprise
A card a day: did you know, a riddle, the animal of the day, the word of the day. 223 cards in 15 weekly themes.
Sticker album
Fifteen minutes of learning earns the day's sticker; there are 64 to collect.
My voice
The child records clips of up to 40 seconds and can send one to you with "Send to a grown-up".
Ask a grown-up
More time, a site or an app: the request comes to you, and your answer is shown and spoken to the child.
Some of the apps and sites that come ready
- GCompris
- Tux Paint
- TuxMath
- Klavaro
- KolourPaint
- SuperTux
- Frozen Bubble
- Marble
- KGeography
- KBruch
- Blinken
- KTuberling
- GNOME Chess
- Scratch
- Code.org
- Chrome Music Lab
- PBS KIDS
- LearnEnglish Kids
- StoryWeaver
- YouTube Kids
- Wikipedia
Time and breaks
Time that can't be fooled, but isn't harsh either
You choose the daily minutes and the hours the computer can be used; BioKids counts, warns, and when time is up does what you chose.
- Weekdays, weekends or a rule for any single day; up to two windows of allowed hours.
- Changing the clock does nothing: time is counted on the kernel's boot-time clock, and sleep is not charged.
- When time runs out: a 2-minute countdown, then lock the screen, log out or shut the computer down.
Spoken warnings
Zio or Sio says so at 10, 5 and 1 minutes left; the launcher comes to the front for a few seconds.
The last round
Once a day the child can ask for a 2–5 minute last round to finish what they are doing.
Breaks and eye exercises
If you like, a 5-minute break every 40 minutes, with a few moves and a far-away look for the eyes.
Time earned by learning
Minutes in learning apps earn game time (1 for 1, up to +60 minutes a day).
Learn first
Games can wait until the day's learning minutes are done.
Time by kind of app
Separate daily limits for Games, Learning, Web and Free.
Special days
Holiday rules for up to 100 days; "Is today a special day?" gives +1 or +2 hours with a tap.
Good night
When the day ends in the evening, the screen dims gently over the last 10 minutes and Zio says good night.
We're together
Playing together? For 30 minutes, 1 or 2 hours, nothing is counted.
Live view
See the screen now, and your child knows
In the panel: Children → See their screen → Watch live. At the computer or on your phone, about one picture a second.
- The child's screen says "👁 … can see your screen now"; that sign cannot be turned off.
- No picture is saved; the latest one lives only in memory. It ends when you press Stop or leave the page.
- Every time watching starts, it is written in the audit log.
- There is also a Screen preview: how your rules make the child's screen look.
Safe browsing
Harmful sites closed, requests a tap away
The filter runs on the computer itself, affects only the children's accounts, and works without the internet.
- About 291,000 adult, gambling, malware and scam domains are always blocked.
- SafeSearch is enforced on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo; YouTube is in restricted mode.
- Two modes: "Open internet, harmful sites closed" or "Only the sites I choose".
- Words that cannot be searched: add your own to the 89 built-in ones. A blocked search is never sent.
- If the filter fails, the internet closes entirely; there is no unprotected internet.
Ask Me · on-device AI
An AI assistant with no cloud
The child types, or holds the button and speaks; the answer is short, right for their age, in the language they asked in (English or Turkish), and Zio reads it aloud.
- Fully offline: Gemma through llama.cpp, Whisper for speech, and an offline Wikipedia to check the answers.
- You see what it refused (on Today and, if you like, by email); ordinary questions are not kept.
- At most 5 sentences for ages 4–7 and 7 for 8–10; up to 20 questions every 10 minutes.
- Optional, and turned on for each child separately.
| Computer's memory | Language model | Speech | Total download |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 7 GB | No assistant; the rest of BioKids works fully. | ||
| 7–12 GB | Gemma 4 E2B (3.35 GB) | Whisper small | ≈ 4.0 GB |
| 12 GB or more | Gemma 4 E4B (5.15 GB) | Whisper large-v3-turbo | ≈ 6.2 GB |
Both come with offline Wikipedia packs in English and Turkish (297 MB + 138 MB), and every file is checked against a fixed SHA-256. How to set up Ask Me
Zio and Sio
A mother's voice and a father's
Zio and Sio are two friends who tell the child what is happening: welcome, time left, a break, time's up, the answer to a request, well done…
- Out of the box they speak with espeak-ng.
- Natural voice: one button downloads Piper's natural voice (about 153 MB with its Turkish and English voices).
- Your own voice: record seven short lines yourself, and your child hears the warnings in your voice. Recordings stay on the computer.
- If the voice service fails, the child reads the warning on screen instead.
Brightness, sound and display
A screen that suits the eyes and the reader
Brightness and volume are always at the child's fingertips; text size and colours are set for each child.
Brightness slider
Always at the bottom of the launcher; the screen goes down to 20% and never fully dark.
Evening dimming
When the day ends after 7 pm, the screen dims step by step to 60% over the last 10 minutes, then goes back.
Sound
A volume bar at the top, and each app's own volume on its bar; Zio can always be heard.
Text size
Normal, Large or Extra large; one setting for the child, another for your panel.
Easy-reading typeface
OpenDyslexic, for children who find reading hard.
High contrast and calm screen
Sharper colours, and a "Calm screen" with no motion.
History, insights and reports
Where the time went, at a glance
Today shows the moment, History the past year, and Insights tells the story of the week.
- Today: a card per child with the time left, what is on screen, +10 min, +30 min, lock, shut down.
- History: a year-long heatmap, the last 14 days, and every day in detail: apps, sites opened, requests.
- Insights: this week, last week or the last 30 days; highlights, time by kind of app, hours of the day, blocked searches.
- Audit log: every rule change, PIN attempt, time given and clock change; it cannot be deleted and is kept for a year.
Phone and notifications
The remote in your pocket, the news in your inbox
The panel runs on the computer at 127.0.0.1:7878, and reaches your phone only over your own private network.
Phone access
Four steps with Tailscale and a QR code. No port forwarding, no BioKids server. Guide
Add to Home Screen
The panel opens on your phone like an app.
Told at once
A protection problem, a request from your child, a question the assistant refused: from your own mail server, batched once a minute.
Weekly summary
On Sunday evening, each child's time per day and three highlights. Emails never contain what a child typed or searched.
The warm side
Not only supervision: connection too
Some of what BioKids does exists only for you and your child.
Well done!
One tap sends "Well done!" or a note of up to 140 characters to your child's screen; Zio reads it aloud.
What shall we talk about today?
Up to three things from your child's day to talk about in the evening: the day's card, new words, a favourite app.
Birthday
If you like, Zio says happy birthday and a cake appears on the screen.
Your child's voice
Recordings sent from My voice can be played on your Today screen for 7 days.
Safety and resilience
If something breaks, the child is not left unprotected
BioKids' rule is "fail safe, not silent": if protection is not working, the session locks and you are told.
Fail safe
If the background service stops, the filter fails or a lock does not take, the child's session locks.
PIN, passphrase, recovery code
A 6-digit PIN (stored with argon2, slowed down after 5 wrong tries), a family passphrase for the big things, and an 8-word recovery code.
Up to four parents
Each with their own name, PIN and recovery code; the log says who did what.
Protection checklist
Filter, browser rules, backup, disk, clock: a list of what is in place, and what to do about what isn't.
Encrypted backup
One file, sealed with the family passphrase, to move everything to a new computer.
Children can't install software
No terminal, no settings and no software installs on children's accounts; no guest account.
Being honest
What BioKids doesn't do
We would rather be clear about the limits than let a parent feel safer than they are.
- No covert monitoring: no hidden screenshots, no keylogging, no location tracking.
- No AI watching the screen, and no "risk score".
- No decrypting traffic: there is no proxy in the middle.
- No phones or tablets; it manages only the computer it is installed on.
- It doesn't stop a determined adult: booting from a USB stick, removing the disk or someone helping the child are out of scope.
- It doesn't supervise Windows: on a dual-boot computer, give the Windows account a password your child doesn't know.
