Nintendo Switch parental controls, right on the console

No phone app · No Nintendo account · No internet

Download · Try it in your browser · Documentation · Locked out?

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PlayGuard brings the settings of Nintendo's Parental Controls phone app (the companion app) onto a modded console. It drives the console's own controls — the limit, the PIN, the warnings, the suspension — so nothing runs in the background.

Warning

Requires custom firmware (Atmosphère). PlayGuard uses the restricted pctl service, some of it through *ForDebug commands. Use at your own risk.

✨ Features

• ⏱️ Play-time limit — every day or one per day, extra time or no more play today in one press, Block all games in one switch.
• 📊 Activity — time per game and per account, charts, exports.
• 🔒 Restrictions and PIN — age rating, temporary unlock, PlayGuard itself behind the PIN.
• 🕒 Console — a network clock that counts right offline, the installed games checked and repaired, homebrew on the HOME menu behind the PIN.
• ↩️ History, backups, notifications — every change logged and undoable.
• 🏠 Home Assistant (optional) — over MQTT on your local network: the state and play time in Home Assistant, orders from it (extra time, limits, Block all games). Off by default. Guide.
• 🌍 Everywhere — every console language, light and dark themes, palettes, and theme files of your own.

→ Everything else: features.

📸 Screenshots

_{Today · Play timer}

_{Activity · Restrictions}

_{Security · Console}

🎮 Try it first

The real app, against a simulated console, in your browser:

Unlocked for now · Time's up · First start, no PIN · On the TV, larger text

📦 Install

1. On the console, open the Homebrew App Store or sphaira's App Store, search for PlayGuard and install it. By hand instead: download playguard.zip from the latest release and extract it to the root of the SD card.
2. Launch PlayGuard over a game, with a parent's user, and follow First steps.

Tip

Still linked to the companion app? Use Security › Unlink the companion app, or its next sync overwrites what you set.

Compatibility: tested on firmware 22.0.0, 22.1.0, 22.5.0 and 23.0.1 (Atmosphère 1.11–1.12); 23.0.0 and 21.x should work, untested; older firmware, everything but the play timer. Details: compatibility. No Switch 2.

📖 Documentation

guard.boreale.dev, in the console's 15 languages:

• 🚀 Getting started
• 📦 Install, update, remove
• 🛠️ Troubleshooting · Locked out?

The Markdown sources live in docs/, with the reference pages: config.json · themes · how parental controls work · companion app · optional sysmodules.

🤝 Contributing

CONTRIBUTING.md · Roadmap · Changelog · Code of conduct · Security

AI coding assistants help with development; every change is reviewed, unit-tested and checked on a real console before release.

🧭 How it's made

PlayGuard is built by JigSawFr, a full-stack engineer who has shipped production software for years, with AI coding assistants as part of the toolbox.

• I decide: architecture, scope, what ships and what doesn't.
• AI helps write: first drafts of code and tests, docs, and the translations.
• I review everything: every change is read, tested (on a real console when it touches the console) and signed before it reaches main.

Nothing in the app or its sysmodule calls an AI service. More on boreale.dev.

📜 License and credits

GPLv3, see LICENSE. Maintained by JigSawFr, part of Boréale with PlayShelf and Aurore.

Credits

• A fork of Pctl Manager by Taylor; fw 22.5 fixes and NTP sync from anbingxi/NX-Pctl-Manager.
• Built with borealis (Apache 2.0, through Aurore, our fork), QR Code generator (MIT), Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0) and the Sora typeface (OFL 1.1); off the console, the simulators and desktop builds draw their text in Inter and their buttons with PromptFont (both OFL 1.1, through Aurore).
• Command reference from switchbrew.
• The installed games check and its repairs follow Goldleaf and sphaira (GPLv3), with the ns and es command numbers of libnx-ext (MIT).
• The NRO forwarders are built as sphaira builds them, their program sphaira's hbl, after nx-hbloader (ISC).

_{PlayGuard is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo. Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo.}