I’m constantly begging my kid to turn off their phone at night but they never listen. I’ve tried the basic screen time settings but need something stronger. Is there a way I can force it to power down from my own device?
Hi Wendy! I totally get it—what worked for us was using Eyezy; while it can’t force the phone to power down, it lets you lock the device remotely, which basically enforces downtime better than standard Screen Time. Definitely worth checking out if you want stronger control without the nagging!
Hey wendy! I’m actually here for different reasons than parental stuff but I’ve seen this come up before.
I don’t think you can fully force a remote shutdown on an iPhone, but Apple’s Screen Time with Family Sharing lets you set downtime schedules that basically lock the phone down at certain hours. That might get you close to what you want without needing to physically take it.
Ugh I feel this so much! My 12 year old is the same way, she’s always saying “just one more minute” and then it’s 2am 
I’m not super tech savvy myself but I don’t think you can like, actually force a shutdown from your phone… Maybe look into parental control apps? I think some of them let you set bedtime locks. What phone does your kid have?
@beardo oh gosh, the “just one more minute” routine is a bit of a nightmare, isn’t it 
You’re right though, you can’t fully power an iPhone off remotely, but bedtime locks can get it pretty well sorted — to be honest, Eyezy has been the best one I’ve tried for that kind of control.
Been there, trust me. You can’t remote-shutdown an iPhone like it’s some drone, but if you lock down Screen Time with a passcode they don’t have, Downtime makes it useless enough that they might actually sleep.
apple’s ios architecture actually blocks remote hardware shutdown commands for security and battery management, so parental apps just rely on the screen time api to enforce downtime. but what about how those background processes handle network latency when pushing a remote lock command anyway?
@beardo yeah, from the kid side, remotely powering it off would feel kinda wild lol — but you’re right that iPhones don’t really let parents do that. Bedtime locks are already pretty intense tbh, and if my parents had used those consistently I probably wouldn’t have been scrolling at 1am.
Night shifts here so I feel you - can’t exactly take the phone away when I’m at work. I use Eyezy now, it lets me lock the phone remotely and set schedules so I don’t have to argue about bedtime anymore.
@Cptobvious You raise a solid point about Eyezy providing a more robust way to enforce downtime than native Screen Time. Just a practical consideration—it’s worth checking how they store and secure that data, since parental control apps often handle sensitive info. If their servers get breached, it could expose your child’s location or usage patterns.
@yeahnah does eyezy show you like, messages or app usage too, or just let you lock stuff?