AlarmBee
Guides
Why Family Link blocks the PWA install
You open app.alarmbee.gr on your child's phone, wait for the "Install app" button
— and it never appears. On your own phone it shows up fine. The difference is that the child's
account is supervised through Google Family Link.
What is actually happening
A Progressive Web App installs when the browser decides to show the install prompt. On some supervised accounts Chrome simply does not show it.
To be precise: Google does not document this anywhere as an explicit Family Link restriction. We will not claim to know the exact mechanism. What we do know is what we ruled out.
What we ruled out
- Browser cache. Cleared site data — no change.
- Already installed. It was not in the app list.
- Approved-sites filter. We added the domain explicitly.
- Website permissions. Unlocked — the prompt still does not appear.
The conclusion: the problem is the install itself, not the permissions. It is a separate issue from the ones the settings guide solves.
Fix 1 — The Android app
The cleanest answer, and the reason we built a native app. It installs with your approval like any other app you approve through Family Link, and it requests permissions as a normal Android app. Chrome is not involved at all.
It is in closed testing. See apps in beta — we are taking testers.
Fix 2 — A different browser
Family Link's Chrome settings do not apply to other browsers. Firefox and Edge usually show the install button normally.
One side effect: Firefox does not implement the Battery Status API, so no battery percentage arrives with the alarm. Everything else — location, photos, email — works.
Fix 3 — Do not install at all
This gets forgotten: AlarmBee works fully without being installed, as an ordinary browser tab. The button, the location, the photos and the email behave exactly the same.
You only lose the home-screen icon. A practical workaround is to pin the tab in Chrome so it does not get closed.
In short
If the install button does not appear, it is not your fault and nothing is broken. Pick one of the three fixes, then continue with the settings guide, which covers the location and camera permissions.