Xbox Dad:

Xbox Live Vision Camera and Kids

One of the best new products for Xbox 360™ this season is the Xbox Live Vision Camera. If you haven't tried it, you're missing out. The camera allows you to play motion-based games via the camera like TotemBall, create photos to send to your friends, make a custom Gamer Pic for yourself, see the other players in games like UNO® and it even lets you video conference with your friends on Xbox Live®.

Wait a Second!
One of the first things you may have thought about with a product like this, especially if you have kids, is its potential for abuse. Someone could send out an inappropriate picture, they could have a Gamer Pic you don't approve of, or they could go online in the middle of the night wearing something that you just don't want to see. That's what could happen. But your kids have Child Profiles, right? Great! This means that as a parent you can control the communication that your child receives on Xbox Live.

The Xbox Live Vision Camera.

Let's look at how you can what you can do to a child's Xbox Live account in order to block certain kinds of communication:

Setting up a Child Account
The camera works just like any other communication feature on your Xbox 360. That means you don't need to make specific changes to the camera's settings to control how it works. Rather, when you make changes to the communication settings on your child's profile, they will be applied to the camera.

Before we look at those settings, however, let's quickly review what you need to do to create a child profile. There are four simple steps to follow, but if you take any short cuts, you can wind up with an adult profile that you can't make any changes to. To create an Xbox Live child account, simply do the following:

1. Sign out any active profiles.
2. Under the Xbox Live blade, create a new profile by selecting Join Xbox Live.
3. Follow the steps on the screen to create a new profile.
4. This is key: Use your child's date of birth when you create the new profile and the new associated Windows Live account.

This last step is vital. By supplying a date of birth, you indicate you are registering a child's account and not an adult's. After you do this, you'll be prompted for your Xbox Live credentials in order to complete the creation of the account. If you are not prompted to enter your own information, back up a step and make sure you put in the date of birth.

To communicate using the Xbox Live Vision Camera on Xbox Live, the child will need an Xbox Live Gold account. Specify this when you create the account and set the payment options.

Account Preferences
Assuming you set up the account with Xbox Live Gold, you will be prompted to set the communications preferences for the child account. These settings are fairly strict by default. Your child will need your permission to add friends, and you need to specify what kind of content communication your child is allowed.

This father told me how much more engaging
communicating with them on Xbox Live was
than just talking on the phone.

You can also specify whether they can only communicate with friends, or whether non-friends can send friend requests. These settings are mostly pretty straightforward and I'll go into more detail in a minute. After the initial setup, you can always return to the settings from the Dashboard. Go to the System Blade and select Family Settings.

To change the settings, select Xbox Live Controls and press A. You will be prompted to choose a profile to edit. Select it and press A again. Enter your password. After you sign in, you have three options: Online Gameplay, Privacy and Friends, and Content. Choose Privacy and Friends to adjust the current account settings. These settings include:

• New Online Friends
• Communication
• Gamer Profile Sharing
• Gamer Profile Viewing
• Online Status

All of these settings are important, but for the purposes of the camera, the only ones we'll touch on will be New Online Friends, Communications, and Gamer Profile Viewing settings.

Go online with UNO and the Xbox Live Vision Camera!

Making Choices
The New Online Friends setting determines whether or not you need to approve new friend requests. If you set it to Require Approval, only those people you approve of will be allowed to communicate with your child. If you don't require approval then they will be able to add any new friend they want to their buddy list, so you should leave it set to Require Approval.

Under the Communication page, there are three options: Everyone, Friends Only, and Blocked. If you select Blocked, then no communications are allowed. The Everyone setting will allow your child to talk to anyone on Xbox Live, and Friends Only will only allow your child to talk to people on their friends list. If you want to control their communications without cutting them off, then you'll want to select Friends Only. If you have approval over their friends list, then you'll never have to worry about your kids talking to strangers on Xbox Live.

Finally, the Gamer Profile Viewing option lets you control whether your child can view the online profiles of others. You will find the same three options here, Blocked, Friends Only, or Everyone. People are free to write personal descriptions on their profiles, so there is potential for abuse. I personally chose Friends Only for my kids' profiles, because I keep track of who their friends are, and I can call their parents if there's any nonsense going on.

Back on the Xbox Live Controls screen, the Content option allows you to choose whether Member Content is allowed to be viewed with your child's account. Member created content includes images, text in games, and gamer profiles. Setting this to Friends Only will let your child see stuff from their buddies, but will block content from others.

Be sure to check the communications options for Video Chat.

Take Your Time
Of course there's a lot more to these settings than just the communication features described here. Plan on spending some time understanding these settings and adjusting them to suit your preferences. There will be a bit of a learning curve, of course. Remember that the default settings are fairly restricted, so be careful in your choices and it should be easy to keep your child protected in the way you prefer.

In closing, I wanted to mention a note I got from a dad who's been using Xbox Live to keep in contact with his kids, who are in another part of the country. He plays games with his kids and they chat about school and what's going on with their lives. This father told me how much more engaging communicating with them on Xbox Live was than just talking on the phone. They all look forward to their time together on Xbox Live, and that interaction lets them bond and also learn concepts like sportsmanship and teamwork.

I would imagine using a camera will make their time together even better. I'm going to test this out by sending an Xbox Live Vision Camera to my cousins in Florida for a Christmas present so we can all play UNO together. I'll let you know how that works out.

Article by Brian "Brize" Johnson