Exploring the Splento App for parents

There are already many apps allowing users to upload their photos or videos, for example, Instagram is probably the most popular – with more than 50 billion photos that have been uploaded since it started in 2010.

However, the Splento App hasn’t been created for billions of people to use, it is purely for parents and organisations that cater for children’s development, whether that is in education, or learning practical skills at a club or camp.

The Splento App has many features that will benefit you, as parents, to feel safe and content with uploading photos of your child.

In the world today, online safety is paramount, and this is especially true when it comes to our children. The Splento App has been built from the ground up with security at its core.

In this blog, we will explore:

- How to safely sign-up for the Splento App
- How the Splento App benefits parents
- How much the Splento App costs

How do you safely sign-up for the Splento App?

Living in a digital society makes us all knowledgeable on the importance of making sure that when we sign-up for a new app, we are protecting ourselves.

When parents sign-up for the Splento App they have to go through a highly secure triple authentication process:

- The first stage is for the parent to input their name, email address and password. Followed by their children’s names.
- After this, the parent will be asked to enter an invite code, received from the school, camp or other organisation. Having this invite code creates a second level of security.
- Finally, the parent will be asked to take a photo of their child (not supply an existing photo, or copy thereof); the child has to be physically in front of the camera and do a slight nod. This is the third layer of security and is designed to stop fake accounts being set up by someone unconnected to the family (eg. by copying a picture from Facebook).

This photo also helps the app to know which photos to send to parents from camps or extracurricular clubs. If the parents have more than one child, they can add their other children and repeat these stages.

Once this process has been completed, the parent is now logged into the app, and ready to receive or upload photos, keeping them all stored in one secure place.

How does the Splento App benefit parents?

Two-factor authentication

It is important for us to make sure that this app is secure and safe to use, this is why we have also included a two-factor authentication system. All a parent has to do is access their profile within the app, select security and then activate the option for two-factor authentication. This system is used when a parent logs onto a device that the app doesn’t recognise, for example, a new laptop. On top of using their password, the parent will then receive a code through text message for them to use when signing on to the app on a different device. This has been added to ensure no one is able to hack into a user account.

Uploading photos

There is always the question of whether or not to upload photos of children online; many parents who don’t do this feel they are missing out from all the other parents who are sharing memories on social media, such as Facebook. The reason many parents feel this way is due to the worry about who may end up seeing these photos.

Understanding this problem, the Splento App allows parents to upload photos of their children securely and privately. The only person who is able to see these photos is the parent who has created the account on the Splento App. No one else can see these photos, or have access in any way unless the parent grants permission for them to view and comment.

Inviting family members

Leading on from this point, the parent is in control of who can see the photos, and they are able to grant family members access to certain galleries if they choose to.

The parent accesses their profile, selects the relevant family member and then has the option to invite them.

After they have done this, they can select what this invited person is able to do. The options are:

- View only – this will only allow the invited member to view the photos.
- View, comment and like – this allows the invited member to respond in addition to viewing the photos.
- Collaborate – this gives the invited member the permissions to view, respond and add their own photos of the child.

Receiving photos

As a parent, you want the best for your child, you want to see them grow and develop – and recording all this through photos and video is an important part of keeping those memories. Life moves on fast; one second they are a newborn baby and the next – they are leaving for University. It can be hard for a parent to see their children growing, even harder to miss some key events (such as learning new skills at school, or camp, or an extracurricular club) while the parent is busy, at work or otherwise not able to be there ‘in the moment’.

In talks with many parents, we have learnt that often, they want to know what is happening ‘behind the gates’ or ‘on the field’. There are many reasons why a parent cannot always be around – and it’s often through no fault of their own.

This is why the Splento App allows schools and other approved organisations, to snap photos of their students and upload them to the app – for parents to see their children creating all of these amazing memories.

These photos will be sorted into specific albums; e.g. every photo that comes from the school will go to the school album, while everything arriving from the child’s football club will go in a separate album. Having all these photos in one safe place helps parents to be able to stay on top of the many wonderful experiences that their child is having. Not only does it help parents feel more connected with their children, but it also helps distance them from the trap of being a ‘helicopter parent’, which many millennial parents do not want to be.

Creating albums

In a child’s life, there will be many events that they will enjoy, for example, their birthday. If your child is going to celebrate their tenth birthday and they are having a party with friends, you could create an album that will capture this specific event.

You would then be able to share a link to friends whose children had also attended the event, where they would be able to see these photos. Parents no longer have to upload the photos to the cloud, to share with friends, or share them through less secure messenger apps. All the photos can stay in one place, safe and secure, without the worry of data leaks.

Printing photos

Right now, we are also working on a new feature to make the Splento App even better and help parents connect with family and friends. This is the ability to print photos.

Living in the digital age means it is easier to store everything in one place, however, most of us do like to be able to hold a physical photo and be able to frame and display it.

Additionally, with this feature, the parent will be able to print official school photos without the hassle of having to go through the school system to order them. This feature works for any photo, whether it is one that a parent has uploaded of their child, a photo that a Sensei has uploaded from Karate Club or even the official school portrait photos that come around every year – the school will be able to integrate those onto the platform too!

And being able to do this means parents will have the perfect present to send to those who really appreciate a printed photo – the grandparents.

How much does the Splento App cost?

There are four different plans on the Splento App.

The Free Plan. This gives parents 20GB of storage, all the app functions and download with high quality.
The Standard plan. At only £1.99 a month, parents will have all the functions of the Free Plan, plus 100GB and free printing delivery.
The Plus Plan is £2.49 per month, and includes 200GB photo storage, as well as all the benefits of Standard.
The Premium Plan is £7.99 per month. It offers the ability to download photos in original quality, all the elements from the plus plan, and a whopping 2TB of space for photos.

We understand the importance of being able to share photos in a secure and safe way, which is why we can promise we will never share data with 3rd parties.

Privacy is our top priority. We believe that everyone understands how precious life is, and we have learned this even more over the past year and more. Our journey through this pandemic has helped us all to learn that there needs to be a way to stay connected to each other in a safe and private way, even when we are hours or miles away from different family members.

The Splento App is a way to stay connected with family and experience the memories of your children together, even when you are apart.