Connect with us

Technologies

Best Streaming Services for Kids 2023

Your family can discover and enjoy content on these services — with a parent’s permission.

Streaming services may be your kids’ go-to source of TV entertainment aside from YouTube or Cartoon Network. Streamers such as Disney Plus and Netflix can offer something for the entire family to watch and are often the sole home of franchises you can’t find on YouTube. 

But as a parent, you probably want to keep an eye on their viewing habits, ensuring the content is fun and age-appropriate, whether it’s educational or entertainment. Fortunately, there’s more than one streamer that offers a mix of family-friendly content and parental controls. 

Each streaming service on this list is packed with great TV shows and films, with some acting as headquarters for your kids’ favorite characters. Here’s a guide for choosing which kids streaming service may be the best fit for your family.

Where do we begin? With a wealth of content rated PG-13 and below, Disney Plus has a large catalog of kid-friendly series and films. In addition to carrying Disney Junior, Disney Channel and everything else with the Disney stamp, you’ll find Pixar, National Geographic, Marvel and Star Wars titles on the platform. 

Keep toddlers occupied with animated and live-action versions of Disney classics, or binge on every title starring Bluey, Tinkerbell or all their other favorite characters. Tweens and teens can enjoy The Proud Family, Gravity Falls, Turning Red and Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and movies from the Disney Channel or the company’s blockbuster lineup are a click away. 

To navigate Disney Plus’s library, you can click on a designated tile for Pixar, Marvel, etc., or search by title, character, or genre. Kids and parents can scroll through the platform’s special collections, musicals, movies, and exclusive originals and shows from every decade of Disney.

Parental controls allow you to add a four-digit PIN and set ratings limits for each regular profile. But creating a kid’s profile automatically curates content that’s appropriate for all ages. To add an extra layer of security, toggle the Kid-Proof exit feature that prevents kids from switching profiles. If you opt for the $7 ad-supported version of Disney Plus, note that many kids’ titles contain commercials. But you can stream Disney Plus entirely ad-free for $8 a month.

Paramount Plus has its nice collection of iconic characters and series. It’s basically Nickelodeon central. SpongeBob, iCarly, Rugrats, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and other Nick superstars sit beside Paramount Plus originals Big Nate and Star Trek: Prodigy on the platform.

You’ll find a kids’ section on the menus for the shows or movies tabs, but you can also search for Noggin, Nick Jr. or other branded content on Paramount Plus. Additionally, there are five live channels that run content 24/7 for kids, including dedicated hubs for SpongeBob, Paw Patrol and «Kids and Family Fun.» 

Paramount Plus enables parents to create kids’ profiles by activating «Kids Mode.» Choose an avatar and specify whether it’s for older kids or younger kids, and the content will adjust ratings based on your selection. Subscriptions cost $5 for the ad-supported Essential version and $10 for ad-free Premium.

Netflix offers a range of kids’ titles in the realm of music, education and entertainment and the platform caters to every age and stage in your child’s life. Popular series include CoComelon, Octonauts and Ask the Storybots. The streamer routinely drops new originals including The Sea Beast and My Dad the Bounty Hunter, but there are plenty of Dreamworks titles on Netflix, too, such as Camp Cretaceous. 

Netflix’s search function allows you to drill for niche content like kiddo-friendly movie adaptations, cooking stuff or coming-of-age stories. Type in a specific term or a «hidden» code and you’re likely to find a match.

Where the streamer stands out is with its kids’ profile. While you can set up parental controls on each profile with ratings restrictions, the Netflix Kids Experience comes with a bright logo and a ready-made batch of content. No need to handpick shows and movies for young ones, because the streamer does it for you. If you select titles outside the ratings limits for Kids Experience, the logo is removed and the profile type is automatically changed.

To cap it off, the platform showcases a Top 10 row for kids’ programming and sends out biweekly emails to parents with recommendations and other child-centric tools. Last year, Netflix introduced a «Mystery Box» feature on kids’ profiles, which surprises them with a new title to check out. Go ad-free for $10 per month or try the ad-based plan at $7 a month. 

Don’t sleep on HBO Max. Not only is it the place to stream Cartoon Network favorites like We Bare Bears and Adventure Time, but also Sesame Street, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and animated DC superheroes. That includes the OG Teen Titans. 

HBO Max allows you to select Kids & Family from its menu and then you’ll be taken to its dedicated page. To make it easy to find content, you can click on a character’s icon — like Elmo, Scooby Doo and Batman — for a program lineup featuring said characters.

Prefer to search a different way? HBO Max divides content into categories for kiddos ages 2-5, 6-9, 10-12, and 13 and up. You can also browse titles from A-Z or search specifically for series or movies. The streamer also announced the addition of Lellobee City Farm, Blippi and Vlad & Niki for its preschool Cartoonito audience. But don’t forget there are plenty of movies available for teens who need a break from animation.

While you can watch TV with your children, you can also just give them their own kid profile on HBO Max. The service requires adults to log a four-digit PIN in order to create it, and then provide birthdate information so the system can customize age-appropriate content. Subscribe to HBO Max for $10 a month with ads or $16 for the ad-free version. 

For decades, PBS Kids has been the destination for Sesame Street and other childhood favorites. Elmo, Arthur, Daniel the Tiger and Curious George are among the characters who entertain while teaching lessons. While SpongeBob and Disney get a lot of love, it’s noteworthy that Arthur was the longest-running animated kids’ show in history. The 8-year-old aardvark is a PBS rock star. And though Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO own Sesame Street, new episodes are still available to watch on PBS Kids.

PBS Kids is available to Prime Video subscribers for free, and kids can access it 24/7 on The Roku Channel. But parents, you can also download the stand-alone PBS Kids video app for free on your mobile device or TV. That means your children can stream Elmo or Wild Kratts when you’re on a road trip or visiting family. 

Like PBS Kids, Kidoodle TV offers free entertainment that’s geared toward younger children up to age 12. Some of the content is educational, and some is purely recreational. The app features licensed TV shows and movies from properties such as Lego, My Little Pony, SpongeBob, Pokemon and Baby Shark.

But there are also videos from the Dodo about nature and animals, game-themed content with Mario, Minecraft and Roblox, and a host of crafting tutorials. YouTube favorites like Ryan’s World are nestled in with picks that focus on learning. Kidoodle also has a set of originals that launched in 2020, including StoryRaps from Wes Tank. Another plus is that parents can choose videos from Little Pim that teach five different foreign languages: French, German, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin.

You can watch for free as a guest on Kidoodle without registering. But if you sign up, you’re able to create accounts for kid or parent users. Everything on the app is age-appropriate, vetted by Kidoodle parents and staff. The Freemium account includes family-friendly ads, but if you want to skip the commercials, you can get the Premium version for $5 per month.

PIN-enabled parental controls enable you to set screen time limits, choose titles or set curfews with the option to automatically turn the app off. And the analytics feature gives you a glimpse at viewing habits. Kidoodle is available on Roku, FireTV, smart TVs and other devices.

Kids streaming services FAQ

Are Hulu and Amazon’s Prime Video great for kids too?

We considered both streaming services for this list but examined content offerings as well as user-friendly interfaces. While Prime Video has some original content, it gleans much of its kids’ programming from Nickelodeon, PBS Kids and other Viacom properties. The same holds true for Hulu. It’s easier to access these shows and movies directly through Paramount Plus or PBS. 

What if you don’t want your kids watching ads while streaming?

We know that screen time is not the only area of concern, because advertising impacts kids, too. Disney Plus has an ad-supported plan that includes commercials in its kid-friendly content. But Netflix’s ad-based plan keeps ads out of children’s titles. Both services — in addition to HBO Max, Kidoodle and Paramount Plus — offer more expensive plans if you want to watch all content without commercials. The PBS Kids app is ad-free.

 

Which streaming service has the best parental controls?

While you can set parental controls on streaming devices from providers like Amazon, Roku and Apple, you can also monitor and restrict what your kids watch directly on the services. Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max have the best features for allowing you to set maturity ratings and PINs for kids’ profiles.

Technologies

Why Are Switch 2 Games So Expensive? Trump’s Tariffs May Not Be Sole Factor

It still comes down to money.

Wednesday’s reveal of the Switch 2 had a lot of buzz from Nintendo surrounding its successor to the Switch. One shocking bit, though, was the high price of its games. There’s a lot of confusion, especially with news of President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on many trading partners, including Japan. 

After the Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo released the full details of the upcoming console and games on its website. The price of Mario Kart World shocked gamers and led to some disdain, as the $80 MSRP was $10 more than what most new games cost today. This led many to wonder if this would be a new normal for game prices due to Trump’s tariffs or if Nintendo was just being greedy. The answer, however, might be something completely different. 

Are Nintendo Switch 2 game prices hiking?

To start, some details need to be cleared up. Some people have posted on social media that the price of Nintendo’s Switch 2 games, at least in the US, will be $90. That is incorrect, as of right now. 

One X user posted Switch 2 EU prices for Mario Kart World, which start at 80 euros for a digital version and 90 euros for the physical copy. Typically, US and EU games match in price, which caused some to assume that this pricing would be the case for the US. 

US retailers, however, already posted their Switch 2 game prices, and Nintendo-published games are listed at $80.

Will Trump’s tariffs cause the Switch 2 to cost more?

As for Trump’s tariffs, that is unlikely to be a driver of this price bump. Tariffs are not applied to digital goods, and when the prices were published, there were no tariffs on Japan. Plus, games are similarly expensive in other countries like Canada and the UK.

With that cleared up, why are Nintendo games on the Switch 2 so expensive? One likely reason is game storage. 

Read More: All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free

The Switch 2 uses what Nintendo calls game-key cards, which are Switch 2 cartridges that don’t have all the game data on the cartridge itself. This helps save on production costs as storage is expensive. The original Switch cartridges went up to 32GB of storage, which doesn’t seem like a lot these days, with some games taking up 100GB or more of storage, but this is for the original Switch. Only a few games, like The Witcher 3, went above 32GB because the graphics for the Switch weren’t on the high end like with a PC, PS5 or Xbox Series console, where a Witcher 3 install size starts at 50GB

Switch 2 games are going to be bigger in size — there is little doubt about it. CD Projekt Red confirmed it would put its Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on one 64GB cartridge, and there will likely be other games to surpass that 64GB. With the max size of the cartridge doubling in size, it adds to the price of the physical card, as not only does storage have to be bigger, but they will need to transfer data faster. That can get more expensive for physical copies, unlike optical discs, which are still the same price whether it has 20GB or 100GB on the disc. 

What does all this mean for gamers?

This leads to a dilemma for publishers: Put the entire game on the physical card and sell it at a loss, increase the price of the physical copy with the full game on it or use the game-key card to have a card with minimal storage, requiring gamers to download the entire game.

Read More: The 17 Best Nintendo Switch Games Right Now

It appears that Nintendo went with door No. 2. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, knowing the company. Anyone who wants to save money on games knows that Nintendo will seldom bring the price down of its own games. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for example, is 8 years old and is still full price on Nintendo’s website

According to an industry analysis from Niko Partners, this new pricing could become the new normal in a couple of years when it comes to physical cartridges.

«While there has been some sticker shock regarding the price of games increasing from $60 to $70 or $80, these price points are set to become industry standard over the next two years, especially so for Nintendo first-party games,» Niko Partners said in a statement Wednesday. «One reason for the higher price is the increased cost of the new and faster Game Cards themselves, with higher capacities being more expensive to manufacture than a PS5 Blu-ray disc.»

Nintendo didn’t respond to a request for comment about the higher price of its games. 

That said, this doesn’t explain the lower price of Donkey Kong Bananza, which comes out in July; that’s listed on Nintendo’s site for $70. This could mean the game isn’t using a larger storage card, but that can’t be said for sure until the game comes out. It’s unclear how things will change in the future.

Continue Reading

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Pre-orders in US Delayed Due to Trump’s Tariffs

The Switch 2 launch is still happening on June 5, and preorders outside the US seem unchanged.

Nintendo Switch 2 preorders in the US were to start April 9, but it appears those plans have changed due to the new tariffs imposed this week by President Donald Trump. It’s unclear if this means Nintendo will also have to increase the price of the Switch successor, which currently starts at $450. 

Nintendo said Friday that it’s delaying Switch 2 preorders in the US, but its June release date is unaffected. 

«Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,» the company said in a statement. «Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.»

Nintendo didn’t indicate if preorder dates outside the US would change, but Eurogamer reports that preorders are live at various retailers in the UK.

A tariff of 24% has been applied by the US to goods from Japan. Were that rate to be applied directly to the Switch 2’s announced price, it would rise to $558, but it would be up to Nintendo how much of the tariff it will pass on to consumers.

This is a developing story.

Continue Reading

Technologies

Twelve South’s Foldable Wireless Charger for iPhone and Apple Watch Is Up to 27% Off at Amazon

This handy accessory makes it easier to travel with your Apple gear and stay charged wherever you go.

Whether you’re traveling for business or off on a wonderful family vacation, charging your stuff shouldn’t be something you have to worry about. Taking extra chargers and cables can be a pain, and they all take up space in your bag. But the handy Twelve South Butterfly SE charger is a compact alternative that can wirelessly charge an iPhone and an Apple Watch at the same time. And it’s available with up to 27% off right now at Amazon.

That top line discount applies to the pink version, though the white model is only $7 more and other colors are seeing 15% off the usual $100 price tag if you have a strong preference. It’s not clear how long the discounts will last, though. 

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

The charger itself offers a way to wirelessly charge a iPhone and Apple Watch from a single AC outlet, and you can even charge your AirPods when your phone is done, too. And because this is a Qi2 charger you’ll get a full 15 watts of wireless charging for compatible devices — including the best iPhones.

When you’re not using the Butterfly SE, it folds up so it can be slid into a pocket, bag or luggage without taking up too much space. It really is the perfect partner for people who like to travel light.

Unfortunately, this charger doesn’t come with an AC adapter in the box, so you’ll need to provide your own. Make sure it’s rated for 20 watts or more. If you need to buy one, Apple’s 20-watt USB-C charger is just $15 right now.

Why this deal matters

We all carry multiple devices around with us these days. Anything that can make charging them more convenient is a win in our books, especially when you’re traveling. This charger takes up little space when it isn’t being used and charges quickly when it is.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Verum World Media