LivingRoom vs Canopy on iPhone

If you are a parent trying to ensure a child is using an iPhone safely, or an accountability partner helping an adult with addiction, you might have considered using an app to monitor and block adult content on iOS. We've closely examined alternatives to LivingRoom on iPhone in an effort to help you decide which solution is the right fit for you. In this comparison, we'll focus on the Canopy iPhone app.

About Canopy on iOS

Canopy on iPhone focuses on proactive blocking with basic monitoring. If you've read a Canopy iPhone review, you'll see that this app uses a VPN connection to block adult websites.

Compared to other apps, Canopy's most unique feature is dynamic blocking. Canopy attempts to filter out inappropriate images and videos on webpages that aren't completely blocked. The reason for this approach is clear: inappropriate content isn't always accessed on websites that are categorized as adult content. Canopy's approach attempts to be more comprehensive than the standard DNS-based blocking approach.

Overall, Canopy has one of the more feature-rich solutions available, between proactive blocking, alerts, and removal protection.

Why was LivingRoom created when there are apps like Canopy?

You might be wondering, why even bother creating an alternative to Canopy on iPhone?

As parents ourselves, we realized that many of these apps don't provide a clear picture of what kids are actually seeing and proactive blocking features can't be relied on. Furthermore, parental monitoring and accountability apps for iOS are notorious for having numerous monitoring gaps and ways to be bypassed (without a parent or accountability partner detecting anything is wrong).

For Canopy on iPhone, these are our main concerns with the app:

Significant gaps with monitoring

Canopy's approach to monitoring a child's iPhone activity is similar to what a parent can get with Apple Screen Time. A parent can see what apps are being used, time spent on each app, and notifications of potential bypass techniques (like disabling the VPN). Canopy also provides location monitoring, but location tracking is already provided for free through Apple Family.

Canopy's website mentions that their goal is not to be intrusive with monitoring, but rather to focus on blocking harmful content instead. While this goal is understandable, parents are ultimately left without a clear picture of what a child is actually doing on their iPhone or iPad.

We firmly believe that LivingRoom's screenshot-based monitoring is the best approach since it takes the guess-work out of understanding a child's iPhone activity. Parents receive alerts when explicit or suggestive content is detected in activity screenshots, which reduces the monitoring burden.

Real-time blocking is far from perfect

Canopy's unique approach to dynamic filtering, where images and videos are blocked on a webpage, is a notably innovative approach. This dynamic filtering is supported in some apps like Safari, but notably, most apps on an iPhone cannot benefit from the dynamic filtering.

Furthermore, in our own testing, we found that this dynamic filtering was far from perfect. Some images and videos would inevitably slip through the dynamic filter. In this case, it would be useful for Canopy to have a screenshot-based monitoring approach as a fallback so that a parent knows that a child circumvented content controls.

LivingRoom detects and blocks nudity in real-time, no matter what app is used to access it. If a child attempts to access sexually explicit or suggestive content, a parent is immediately notified with screenshot context. LivingRoom will shield the screen if nudity is detected.

Why LivingRoom?

The LivingRoom app has a simple, but incredibly effective design: all apps (other than always allowed apps) are blocked until the LivingRoom screen recorder is started. Then, the LivingRoom app records the entire screen and periodically takes screenshots of what is being looked at, no matter what app is being used. Simultaneously, the LivingRoom app detects any nudity on the screen and shields the screen. Parents are quickly alerted when explicit or suggestive content has been viewed.

We believe that this is the most comprehensive and reliable approach to making an iPhone or iPad safe for a child.