Brightwheel: Child Care App App Reviews

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Great app. As a parent, I love getting updates throughout the day on my child. The ability to now get videos has been wonderful. There could be improvement in the lag time between when the teacher posts and when we get the notification. I would also suggest adding teacher profiles or pictures so that the parents can see which teacher is posting the updates. As someone who struggles with names, the faces would be extremely helpful.

Good start, some key features still needed. This app is fairly reliable, intuitive to navigate and has a clean, appealing UI. Adding a few key features for parents would take it to the next level: 1. Display who sent a message. Currently, I only know if a note is from my child’s teacher, preschool director or an assistant if she/he remembers to sign their name. 2. Allow message threads. I need to be able to reply back to a specific message (this is compounded by not knowing who wrote a message). 3. Badge notifications. I want to be able to see quickly whether there are new notifications without opening the app and scrolling. 4. Enable payments. I should be able to view and pay an invoice from within the app. With these 4 features, this app would be a solid five stars. A bonus feature would be the ability to customize notifications by child (e.g. I have two kids and want to receive food notifications for one child but not the other).

Couldn’t love this product more. A thoughtfully designed application for directors, teachers, and families. It is easy to use and intuitive. It helps solve the more complicated aspects of running a childcare center, teaching and tracking within the classroom, maintaining records and reports, and truly helps families and staff work together to help little ones develop and grow. On top of all of that their team listens to feedback in order to build new features that keep their platform evolving and relevant.

All-time favorite App!. Brightwheel is an amazing tool that allows parents to feel apart of their child’s day and alleviates some of the “working mom woes.” I love being able to open my app anytime and see what my son ate for lunch, how long he took a nap for, and most days a picture or video is waiting for me to show me his daily activities. I can easily pay tuition now as well instead of trying to remember to bring my checkbook once a week. No complaints! Id give it 6 stars if I could!

Amazing App. Brightwheel is a lifesaver! We have been using this app for our summer camp and I have to to say that it has truly been a gift from above. This app has not only enhanced our communication with parents but allowed them to be interactive and provides full transparency into their child’s day to day. Brightwheel is definitely a must have and favorite of all of our staff members as it has helped them with becoming super organized with their breakdown of the various groups, activities, child info, etc. All in all, we couldn’t be happier with our decision to integrate this amazing app to ensure a successful summer! A huge thank you goes to Jamie for your awesome customer service; you truly went above and beyond — thank you. Ashley

Revolutionary!. We have been one of Brightwheel’s longest customers. We started off when the app was small and had just a few features, and we stayed because of the product they have built and we fully believe In Brightwheel & their mission! They have proven over and over that they are listening to us as caregivers and parents as they add all of our requested features. When we were told we would need to move to a paid version earlier this year, there was no hesitation because this has revolutionized our work and our ability to communicate with families. This app helped us immediately contact a parent for a child that was having a seizure, helped us to identify food allergies through the daily food log (that didn’t get lost because it was paper!), and is a selling point for our school because everyone likes having access to know what their child is doing each day! It saves us money on paper, time it takes to write out each activity for each child, and our parents LOVE it! We love brightwheel and I will never have enough positive things to say. Thank you Dave, Jen and team! 💙

Badges would make this app 5 stars. Great app. Great for communication between childcare and parents. However, the no badges part is a bit frustrating. I know they show up on your Notification Center. However, I don’t always see them if a notification comes through and then I get a call or FaceTime shortly after or have to check an email/text. Once you go back to your Notification Center after checking something else, the notification won’t show up. I remember regularly to check anyways but a badge would be much better so I don’t have to rely upon memory. I think most agree 100% on this.

Small Iowa Center Loves Brightwheel. Brightwheel has been an amazing addition to the many tools we use throughout our center. Parent teacher communication is encouraged and has improved tremendously since we started using this app! We have been apart of the Brightwheel family for two years and we wouldn’t change it for the world! When asking our parents, they are huge fans of the app and the way it lets them see a glimpse of their child’s day when they are away! Highly recommend this system in every aspect!!! LHBD LOVES BRIGHTWHEEL! 💚💙❤️

Very Disappointed with this Co. We have been using the app regularly since our daughter joined daycare over a year ago. The school just informed us that the messaging function will no longer be available starting next week due to it becoming a ‘premium’ feature. This is horrible, taking something away that was included before and that as parents we rely on heavily on a daily basis when we need to communicate with the teacher. If you’re going to have a premium package, make it for new features coming out not for features that your customers have been using for years. I’m sure now other features will follow this path eventually making the whole app useless. Corporate greed at its finest, thanks a lot.

Great until recently. I have been using Brightwheel for my in home daycare since the very beginning when it first premiered on Shark Tank. It has always been a useful tool for me, and my daycare parents have enjoyed it too. Recently, however, the app itself has been extremely, painfully sluggish, making check-in very inconvenient for parents and activity updates throughout the day very burdensome for me. I emailed customer service about the issue and have received no response, which has added to my frustration. I hope this can be remedied so I can get back to loving this app as much as I used to!

Overall solid experience, just fix notifications. Overall this is a great tool for communicating with my child’s school staff and getting updates on their day. I only ask that you please fix the notifications. Right now if the school posts 10 pictures with my child tagged, I get 10 consecutive notifications back to back. It would be great if, before pushing the notifications, you were to consolidate them and just send one notification stating “You were tagged in X number of pictures”. It happens in the app as well, where I’ll open up brightwheel to look at the pictures, and then a few seconds later, I’ll get 10 in-app pop ups that I have to click “dismiss” on in order to continue scrolling and checking out the pics/updates. This is in desperate need of a fix, please.

Love!. My sons been sick the last few days. Congested, no fever. The daycare was able to keep me updated throughout the whole day. However, one feature this app needs, is the ability for parents to send the teachers pictures of their babies, when they are home sick! We decided to keep him home today and they asked how he was, and I would love to be able to send them pictures of him in better spirits today ❤️

Routine and consistency are so important along with learning adventures and La Petite is the best!. I’m so thankful we decided to try them and they had room for us. The staff are so good with Riley. He looks forward to going to his school every morning. They instill self confidence and independence. I absolutely love getting updates about his day. It makes being away from him much easier. And the photos of their activities are a bonus! I really appreciate them taking the time to share their activities with us.

Daycare now unable to accommodate schedule due to brightwheel. Noticed my bill for daughters daycare service was more money then usual. So I contacted the manager at children’s first and was told through the new app she would be unable to accommodate my wife and myself’s work schedule . Some weeks we need only part Time care, and other weeks we full time care. I would always be sure to give daycare our schedule months In advance. (Knowing how they are running a business and trying to maximize profits) We were told from the manager the app was to blame and furthermore we can only keep our daughter enrolled and was forced to choose to be “full time” or “part-time” with very very short notice to do so. We are cash paying parents with a 2nd child coming soon. So if I could give bright wheel “0” stars I would.

#1 parent approved app. This app has been a time saver for both staff and parents when communicating and sharing daily information about each child. SOOOOO MANY pics or videos that the teachers have uploaded have been saved by parents and then posted on parents Facebook page. ILOVE the lesson plan option. I can review from home when I want to remember what the upcoming lesson will be or to share w/others if I’m out sick or on vacation.

How could I go without ?. I can’t imagine having my kid at any other daycare that doesn’t have Brightwheel. This app makes me feel so much better because I can see the updates on him everyday. Pictures, notes, what he ate etc all important to keep up on his day to day milestones and well being. I love that I can pay right through the app as well. I wish you could do split payments like two cards or two accounts but I still love it.

Brightwheel. I have used Brightwheel since my daughter began attending La Petite Academy almost four months ago. Moreover, I have always been able to use the APP without any issues. The messages and other updates made by the educators are uploaded very quickly, and I am always up to speed with how my daughter is doing at school. Lastly, this APP has never malfunctioned since I began using it, and that gives me great peace of mind as it relates to my daughter’s well-being.

USED to LOVE brightwheel....... We used to LOVE brightwheel. We have been using it for almost 2 years now. It was free, and they priced themselves on ALWAYS being free, but that changed when they asked us to try the premium version, which had lots of cool new features, such as videos, or assessment tools! All awesome features, but the owner would not pay for prices they were asking for so we couldn’t use brightwheel premium anymore... When we went back to the free version.. so many of our beloved free features such as parent messaging, incident reports, name to face, etc. are no longer available for free users. :( We have worked so hard to get our parents on board, and they all LOVE brightwheel so much and how much we are able to communicate through it. Makes us sad we will no longer be able to use brightwheel anymore. It also brings a lot of confusion that we will have to explain to our parents. 😔

Default payment isn’t a default payment. If my daughter’s school didn’t require I use this app for payments, I wouldn’t. I had a temporary payment method set up when I first enrolled her. When I was able to set my actual bank account, I set it as the default method. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong. It kept charging my back up for three consecutive weeks. What the app does when this happens is it will “pay” her school automatically and I have to go in and pay them in cash or cashiers check PLUS an additional $20. I even tried deleting the secondary account myself but the app doesn’t allow me to. I had to have someone from the brightwheel app do it for me. Oh, and the whole “we’ll get back to you within 30 minutes thing... it took almost an hour and half for them to get back to me. So on top of the $2/month I pay in service fees, I’ve paid an additional $60 this month all because the app doesn’t actually acknowledge a default payment method as just that AND the fees my back up payment institution charged me for bouncing payments. So unfortunately, because I love my daughters teachers and school, I am forced to continue giving this company my money every month. Never mind how embarrassing it is to constantly have your payments bounce even though you have the money to cover it. I would give zero stars if I could.

App works well. I use this app for my two kids who attend daycare. It’s great to see real-time what they are up to during the day and to communicate with daycare. I love that photos and videos can be posted in here!! This really helps me to feel more connected to daycare, especially when pick up and drop off can be busy and doesn’t leave time for much discussion with the daycare staff. It’s also super convenient for making daycare payments. Improvement Ideas - 1) Can you add a lost & found section that all parents can have access to? We have lost clothes at daycare and also had clothes sent home with us that aren’t ours. It would be awesome to have a spot to post photos of lost items or ISO posts that can be seen by other parents. 2) When I’m messaging about vacation days, early pick ups, etc. it would be nice to have an area to do that for both kids instead of having to post twice under each child’s tab.

AWESOME!. My center has been using Brightwheel for almost 2 years. Parents LOVE the information and pictures of their child’s day that they get straight to their phones or computers. They no longer have to wait until they pick their child up to know how their day was. My staff and I love the ease in which we can do daily reports and the billing features save me tons of time and it is much easier to manage payments. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND BRIGHTWHEEL!!

Good info, but push notifications don’t work. My son is in preschool and they use this app for pretty much everything. I log into it every few days, and I see I have messages from days ago. The notification badge shows up in-app (next to “Messages” at the top of the page), but the push notifications for the app itself are not displaying. I have them all turned on in-app, as well as on my iPhone settings for the app, and no badge shows up for the app when there is account activity. When expecting invoices for payments due (for example), I need a push notification so I don’t have to log in every day for no reason. Please fix this.

Best app for Childcare!. We aren’t currently using the app, only because my daughter isn’t in daycare at the moment. When she is in daycare again, we’re only choosing somewhere that uses this app! I can’t say enough good things about this. It made me feel so secure trusting a daycare with her. Getting cute little photos of her that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise was so wonderful. I loved that I could talk with her age group caregiver and send them notifications when I wasn’t feeling like I got enough updates on her. Just knowing that she’s eating and being notified how much made me feel so good. We just started potty training her at the time too so knowing when she went and when she got a diaper changed instead helped start up conversations.

Best. App. Ever!. 4 weeks ago I hadn’t heard of this app and now I love it. Check-in and check-out notifications give peace of mind. Activity updates confirm that all is well. And pictures taken by the staff let us see him having fun. I know the staff gets credit for the updates during the day, but Brightwheel helps us know that we chose a great pre-school with a terrific staff. I’ve thanked the staff for their use of brightwheel. Now I thank Brightwheel for a simple to use interface that was intuitive to set up and provides a great service that I hadn’t even thought about. You know it is a great app when it goes straight from “what’s this” to “indispensable”. Awesome!

Easy and informative!. Our daycare started using this app after the pandemic began - it’s an excellent way to keep parents informed while contact is limited. I love that all info is shared with my spouse, and cuts down on paper for the environment! We have switched classes and see that each teacher has flexibility to use as much or as little as they want. We love the updates throughout the day while working - one item I would mention as feedback is the notifications. I see the notification pop up but if I don’t look at it right away there is nothing on the app icon to alert that I have a notification. I’d love to see something similar to red dots with a number, like when you get a text message or email. I’d also love to be able to “like” an activity log or message item to quickly acknowledge that it was seen (both for parent and teacher). I feel sometimes a thumbs up can cover a response in the activity log that I wouldn’t need to go to the messages to reply.

Great communication. As a parent, this app has been easy to use and a great way to communicate with my child’s teachers, see exactly when his activities are happening etc. I loved the recent addition of being able to “like” or “heart” photos and videos but I would love to see the ability to add comments to any of the logged activities (feedings, diaper changes, photos/vids, etc), so that I don’t have to message the teachers with a question or comment about a specific event and a note or comment can be threaded to it instead. Otherwise, I’d readily recommend this to any of my friends whose childcare providers don’t have a good, automated way to communicate.

Best Ap ever. This is best ap EVER .I wish it was in all public schools as well . I feel very safe when my children are not with us because of this ap . 5 star review always . I recently met one of your employees, Brandon McKenna and I expressed my feelings and he stated what a great company you are to work for and how proud of the company he is as well . What a great thing for an employee to say !! Congratulations on being one the best in world where no one cares a lot hear days .

No Touch ID Support?. Overall, I like the Brightwheel app. It gets the job done and allows my wife and I to stay in touch with what’s going on during our son’s day at daycare. However, one thing that’s baffled me since we started using this app about a year ago is that it doesn’t support Touch ID or a passcode to access the app. If your phone is unlocked and someone picks it up, they can get right into this app. I keep thinking that Touch ID/passcode support will be incorporated in a future release, but after several releases now, I have yet to see the feature added.

This app has made my life as a teacher so much easier!. Where should I start? The instant messaging between my parents and I is the best thing ever! I don't have to call each Parent over simple questions throughout the day. I can address the parents questions or concerns about Anything and everything. I can even message back and fourth after school hours if needed to be helpful to my parents. When a child in my class seems sad or missing their parents I help them by posting a picture or video to their parents letting them feel connected in the child's time of need. I've just recently started using the lesson planning feature and it is so awesome! Especially because my plan can be shared with my Parents as a way for them to spark up conversation in the evening with their children instead of asking what they did at school and the child responding with "I don't know" everyday. I also love the note section so I can ask the parents to donate supplies or anything else needed for the classroom. Posting notes, pictures, videos and sending messages couldn't be any easier. I also participate in a health screening before entering the classroom to help my center stay open and safe for all the families.

Double view. I am both a staff member who uses this app as well as a parent of a child who uses the app. As I parent I like it. My son’s teacher is able to communicate with me and share stuff going on. As a staff member I hate that certain features are “premium only” especially the message feature. It doesn’t make sense that as a parent I can message in but as a staff member I can’t answer back on the same screen. Also would love the ability to tag certain pictures into categories to make finding them for NAEYC portfolio easier.

Checking In/Out. I’ve been advised by our daycare provider that Brightwheel no longer allows staff to check children in and out, only parents. The problem is, my dad drops my daughter off and isn’t tech savvy, so he’s not able to. I like to know when my daughter has been dropped off and picked up with the convenience of the app. He takes her because of my working hours, so calling him isn’t always convenient (or safe if he’s on the road). ***Also, this is an extra check during the summer months when children are left in hot cars accidentally. Why not make this feature available for providers and thwart any accidental occurrences? If a dad is used to seeing those notifications at work and doesn’t get one, he can text mom and a crisis can possibly be avoided early… just because of a simple check in notification. It also helps the daycare providers keep tabs on everyone. Please reconsider including this feature again!

Horrible. We have had brightwheel for 3 months. They have undercharged customers 2 out of 3 months and then sent an apology email both times asking for us to please bear with them. A business can not pay its bills on apologies. They also misrepresented the features of the billing section of this app, one can not send out an invoice immediately or go back and add late charges or extra day charges to customers. They again asked us to bear with them as they fix this glitch and promised a discount until it’s fixed.....no discount. The customers get confused because we have to tell them that brightwheel is undercharging them for some reason that we can’t explain because brightwheel has yet to explain the problem to us. Also customer service is nonexistent after the 1st month. We are currently looking for better quality services and there are many that do the same things and hopefully better!!!

Review. We use this app for my daughter‘s daycare. I really like it it’s very helpful I can login anytime and as long as the daycare updates everything with her day I can know restrooms breaks what she had for snack and lunch. You can also make your payments online I really like that. However I do not like that when you bring Brightwheel up online on my computer you cannot send or receive the messages. That really needs to be updated some people are not allowed to have their cell phones and you need to be able to communicate about your child through the Internet as well.

Lags severely. It works well when it decides to work. However, when it doesn’t, it’s incredibly frustrating. Several parents, my coworkers, and I have encountered issues with the app freezing, lagging, and forced logouts. When you restart the app after force quitting, it gets stuck on the loading page with the Brightwheel logo. It’s really disappointing because when it works, it’s fantastic and is a great way to streamline communication with the families of children in our care. But when it doesn’t work, it’s like being thrown back 20 years back technologically speaking.

Preschool Necessity!. I own and operate a small preschool in South Carolina. From our opening 5 years ago, we incorporated many different apps and ideas in order to communicate with our parents and keep them connected to their children. Brightwheel by far has been the best tool for this! We have never had an issue using Brightwheel in our three years of use. Parents rave about this app and many have actually said they chose our preschool over others because of the app. The value it adds to our staff’s day (making communication a breeze) and to our parents’ days (seeing their little ones when they can’t be with them) is priceless.

#1 App for Providers and Schools. I’m a daycare and preschool owner and also have a child in grade school (which uses a different app). I LOVE Brightwheel and wish my daughters school will switch over. Brightwheel is a time-saver on the admin side, an added bonus on the parent-side, and great tool for the teacher side. Teachers use it to update parents and track children’s progress. Parents rave about it and are always “in the know” of their child’s day, making pick up seamless. When we give tours, we always mention that we use Brightwheel and potential clients are in awe when they learn about what this app can do. I also have a little one at my preschool and use this app on the Parent-end. Look no further... coming from someone that uses it on back and front end, and also have experience with other school apps, this is it!!

Love it!. I am a daycare provider and this app is absolutely amazing! Not only can I let parents know what’s happening throughout the day but it also allows us to communicate with one another through the messaging feature. I also love that parents can pay me and that I am able to generate reports, through the app! This is my favorite app; it is everything you need wrapped it one pretty bow. Every parent at my childcare has complimented the app and how much they love it! If you are a childcare provider, I highly recommend this app. You will not be disappointed!

AWFUL Update. I’ve never felt so strongly about any app to leave a review but this new update is absolutely horrendous. Paying ahead of time is a super long process that unless you ask their support, you will never figure out. You cannot pay more than the current invoice unless it’s two separate payments which in turn has two separate fees from this company. If you’re going to make updates, maybe it should be to better the app not to make it extremely frustrating. Or at least provide instructions/help without the need to wait for support to answer in 3-5 business days. You need a new developer. Update - the instructions the company sent back in their reply below NO LONGER WORKS. You described how it used to work, not how it does now. It used to work great. Now you click make a payment now and if there is no balance due, it doesn’t let you click or pay anything. The fees aren’t the issue, the issue is your update has taken the app backwards and made it more difficult and less convenient.

Love getting real time updates and photos. As a parent I love that my child’s daycare uses this app. It allows me to know how much he ate, what he ate, when his diaper was changed, what activities they have been doing as well as getting pictures. I do wish there was a way to “like” the pictures so that I could let the teachers know that I appreciated getting the picture without having to send them a message, which is another awesome feature of the app. I would and have recommended this app to friends who have their kids in daycares that are not yet using brightwheel.

Recent changes - boooooo. Recently - within the last week or so - Brightwheel eliminated the check in and check out notifications in this app. We have been using this app with our daycare for nearly four years and have LOVED IT, but this particular change drops it from 5 stars to 3 stars. As my husband and I sometimes have to trade off drop off and pick up at the last minute, having that drop off/pick up notification really gave us both peace of mind that the kids were safe and where they were supposed to be. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK.

Bad for teachers! Bad for kids!. Would you rather your child’s teacher have their focus on a tablet, entering information, or would you rather they were with your children, 100% focused, playing and giving them learning experiences? The problem with this app, and similar apps, is that it pulls too much of a teacher’s focus. As a former teacher and current administrator, I have seen how much of a distraction and interruption Brighthwheel is. I get that parents, especially new parents, like to stay informed, but part of sending your child to daycare is learning how to let go. Brightwheel implies no trust between parents and teachers, and it’s insulting. It doesn’t surprise me that a parent, not a teacher, developed this app. Bottom line- a teacher texting their friend vs a teacher entering in what the kids are for lunch; to the children it’s all the same! Their teacher is looking at a screen, not them, and what kind of lesson does that teach?

Absolutely love this app. My father in law referred me to this app and it has been one of the best decisions I’ve made for my business. I used to have a family journal for each family that I wrote in everyday which took up so much time but now that I have brightwheel I can keep my parents in touch throughout the day. It’s so easy to use I even use it for my toddler so his grandparents get to see him daily. I tell anybody who asks about this app because it’s amazing!!

LOVE IT & SO CONVENIENT!!!!. Brightwheel is so ridiculously easy to use & a great way to update & communicate with parents throughout the day about what’s going on with their little ones. For example the other day one of my little toddlers in my class had a couple of red marks on her cheek...she hadn’t gotten hurt or anything & I was concerned & messaged mom right away & sent her a picture. The parents love the fact that we’re able update them throughout the day & it makes it easier at pick up time to talk to them about how their child’s day had been.

Genius App!. This app is pure genius. My toddlers daycare recently started using it and I feel so much more connected to her. I know what she has had to eat and how much, her nap schedule, and any “incidents” that may have occurred. I can message her teachers to check in or ask questions anytime and they always get right back to me and this app also allows daycare payments to be automatically debited from my account. This app has made my busy Mom life just a little bit easier and that means so so much to me. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

Nice app butttttt. Definitely room for improvement. As a mom obsessed with my kid I demand 1. Bulk-save option for parents to download photos at least on the web ( currently we have to download each picture everyday or you may forget a day and lose those precious memories) 2. Downloading photo from app should be easier 3. Your most recent update should have always existed because it doesn’t the entire daycare doesn’t need to know about conversations you have with directors and admins regarding your child’s development or account/billing

Best TikTok Ad. I began using Brightwheel for my in-home daycare after seeing it on a TikTok ad by another provider. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but it has been life changing! Okay, okay, at least business changing. It is so easy to set up and use. The mobile app means I can keep track of what’s going on every minute of my very hectic day and keep families in the know. The families in my care love it too and that it gives them the ability to see pictures and updates all day long. I also love being able to utilize the messaging on the app because it keeps business with business instead of using regular texts which doesn’t seem (to me) as professional. Brightwheel has thought of everything you could want as an administrator (things I didn’t even think about, that I’m now implementing!). And their customer service? TOP NOTCH! There was an issue with my account and they caught it before I did and fixed it with a few simple questions. Brandon in payments - literally the best. I cannot rave about this app enough. Save yourself the hassle and download it today!

This app is really bad.. I have a lot of complaints with this app! 1. It looks bad to parents. It is set up so that categories can only be entered weekly, not monthly. This means that on the daily plans, if you use different days for different target areas like we do, it looks to parents like there’s lots of missing areas each day. 2. No sense of community. There is no place for posts to the whole school, or the whole class. Parent engagement with pictures and lesson plans has dropped to almost nothing since we switched to this app. Disappointing! 3. Pictures are incredibly difficult to post, and the appearances of the posts are messy. You must tag each child in the picture, which takes a very long time. The pictures are posted to the child’s profile as an individual post each. This means that the caption you put is repeatedly posted with each photo. It looks so awful and unprofessional! 4. You can’t enter lesson plans from your phone. This is so inconvenient! Additionally, the entire system of entering lesson plans takes so long. My prep time isn’t enough anymore because of all the hoops you have to jump through just to post an activity. TL;DR I sincerely recommend choosing a different platform if you care about professionalism, parent engagement, or completing lesson plans efficiently.

Updated! (Lack of) Notifications. Update! They finally, finally, finally added badge notifications for messages! It has been so amazingly helpful. Badge notifications helped me know that there was a big fire next door to the childcare center, that there was no danger to the center, but to seek an alternate route at pick up time. Now I won’t miss messages. If you don’t have them turned on, do it now! ——————————————————————- I am so over this app not having badge notifications. I’ve missed some important information from my provider, because there are only banner notifications. I’ve emailed customer support twice, about 6 months apart, and they say they will ‘pass on’ the request. I feel like badge notifications is app writing 101. If you can auto debit my credit card to pay tuition, you can surely figure out how to put a number in a red circle. Other than that, the app is great.

Confusing to use. As a teacher, I am saddened my work switched to Brightwheel. First of all, when you are posting or messaging someone, the send button is right above the keyboard. I type fast and amounts of times I have accidentally pressed the send button half way through my message is ridiculous. It wouldn’t be half as bad if you could edit or delete, but to edit or delete the post you have to manually do it for EACH child, you can’t even select multiple kids. There’s no such a thing as a timeline for the whole class, each kid has its own profile that you have to edit. Horrible interface needs major work.

Badges do not work. I've had multiple conversations with the developers and they have "taken feedback" and yet no one had addressed the badge issue. "That's the way it works" unfortunately does not work for users of this application. In case developers need clarification: "The iPhone uses badges to indicate that a new message, email, push notification, or voicemail is waiting. Each app with new unread information has a white number with a red background in the upper right hand corner of the appicon. This is a badge." This IS NOT how Brightwheel (looking more like ReinventingWheel) works.. The technicians say that the push notifications on lock screen are the only notification you get and that's the way it is. Once this app comes into some recent century and starts using badges correctly this app would be amazing. But for now it just sits unused and not letting me know about my child so it's a waste of funding and developers time.

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Why. Lol this is bad

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Why is there no batch download?. As a parent, it’s a wonderful app to have to keep updated with your child. However, the app has been around for many years and they still have not added a feature to batch download photos or video. What’s up with that?!

Hate everything about this. Great, yet another way for daycare to bother me. Why don’t parents understand that it’s ok to leave your children at school without knowing what is happening every second of the day? The teachers now have to spend all day writing updates for this stupid app instead of just playing with the kids. I don’t need to know how many fishes the kids counted, I’m in a goddam business meeting! I don’t even understand the point of this. I can see how much they ate when you send the lunchbox home. I don’t need them to write it down if they ate or not. And this app does nothing else but make you obsess over how much your kid is eating and sleeping and learning. It’s not healthy! Holy cow its a whole new level of clingy obnoxiousness that doesn’t let parents or kids get a two minute break from each other.

Game Changer. I’ve been running a dayhome for over 5 years and have tested many forms of communication, reporting and recording information in that time. I’ve used paid apps, paper, emails, Facebook and texts. I love that this app has everything you could ever need and that you can personalize it. I’ve added foods we eat regularly and it minimizes my time in the app. I like how quick it can be when it’s running properly. My parents love that they can keep up throughout the day. They love the accountability it creates and the communication it offers, so they know what’s happening in their child’s 10 hours away from them. ❤️ I do, however, hope they can add a minor adjustment. In other apps, they enable you to check multiple children in and adjust the time they arrived rather than putting the current time stamp. I run a full dayhome and sometimes am not able to update things immediately, so if I would be able to check in my set of siblings registering at 7:23 when it’s currently 7:35, that would make the app so much faster for me. Otherwise I check them in, and then need to edit each check in on each profile, and it wastes time.

Great app. Excellent platform regardless the size of your setting. Very easy to use and saves a lot of time. Parents loves being able to see all updates right away especially pictures or videos. All van be done from your phone, ipad or a computer. I absolutely love it.

Not getting push notifications despite it being turned on. Not happy at all with this app that I’m missing getting notifications right away from the app. Dont like that i have to login to see anything. Push notifications settings are turned on in both the app & my phone’s settings. Hoping an in person tech will be of help as for now I was chatting with a chatbox. Great service to talk to a bot.

Brightwheel. Great program! But sadly when signing up for invoices and payments it is only set up for US no option for Canada....

Mom and Working Professional. My daycare uses Bright Wheel to keep us updated live throughout the the day. I now know what my kids are learning, how much they've eaten, how long their naps are and more. But the best part of my day is seeing pictures of them learning, playing and having fun. Bright Wheel has made our lives better. I can rest assured that we've made the best childcare choices for our family. Thank you Bright Wheel!

No access. The only thing on this app is a signup page, and they never let you access it. Looks like a great app but they don't let anyone use it. Stay away!

Perfect for Dayhome.. Love it!

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Love this - just wish messaging was better. I love that my daycare uses this app! The info is all very useful and helps me to plan my pickup time easily. Only 4 stars because I don’t like how the messaging system doesn’t link together. It should be like an email or text format. This would allow multiple users (ex parents) to be able to follow the feed easier.

Push notifications could be better. As a parent, when I receive a push notification about a new message, I have to open the app and wait for the message to load. Instead, the message should be displayed in the push notification like literally every other app on the iOS. If this is a trick to get people to open the app for DAUs, it’s perverse, creates friction, and contributes to a poor user experience. Do better.

Too many clicks to check-in a kid. I think the app does so much wonderfully, but the one area that drives me nuts is you have so many extra steps and unnecessary clicking to check in your kid. And checking in the one thing you have to do in the app every day twice a day (for me 3x kids). Everything else you do in the app is once a month or one time, so any extra steps don’t really matter. I hope the developers take care to optimize and reduce the friction.

Enjoying this app. Update- I really like the app. Makes communication easier, and we enjoy the pics and updates. Thank you to their customer service for commenting and letting me know that you can edit which notifications you get by clicking edit profile.

Love this app!. I really love this app. I’m a first time mom and my daycare send me photos, updates, videos of my baby and I am so glad because I hate being apart from her. I would suggest to make it apple watch friendly...maybe someday???😁 I would even appreciate this app more if the messages were accessible on a desktop and not just the app. Love it though!!!

Traveling Dad. Brightwheel is a great app our babysitter uses to keep us up to date w our son’s day! I travel for work and feel like I’m still a part of my son’s day and growth! Our babysitter normally loads two photos a day which is awesome! If you’re in this field I highly recommend it as a tool to keep your parents included.

Super helpful!. Intuitive and helpful! My only complaint is about notifications. I’d love to be able to filter which ones I get right away. I am a floater at our center and am assigned to multiple rooms but I don’t need to see all the rooms’ notifications each shift — and time settings so I didn’t have to keep getting messages or manually have to silence the app after my shift!

Can’t imagine a better app !!. It’s an incredibly well designed app for preschools/daycares ! Everything is so cool about ! Information of check-ins and check-outs, real-time pictures of your kiddo !! I’m simply grateful to those who created this app which makes my child’s daycare preschool experience so much more exciting !!

Every early child professional needs Brightwheel. Brightwheel is an efficient way to manage every aspect of your childcare business. Parents love catching a glimpse of their child’s day, messaging teachers and the easy of paying tuition. Staff members record their time worked, message parents, build lesson plans and document attendance. This time saving, convenient app is an administrators dream come true! Download it today.

It’s a great easy to use app but. I have a feature request - I wish there was an easy and fast way to enter drop off notes, ie woke time, food, naps if any, etc. our last daycare used Tadpoles and their drop off note feature is super simple and convenient. With Brightwheel, we have a note in the cloud that we update every morning which then we copy/paste it into the messages. A fine workaround but not as convenient.

Awesome app for new parents.. I have two kids and my youngest (6mo) just started at a daycare that uses the brightwheel app and I LOVE IT. It’s an easy way for the daycare to communicate with parents about their kids. I’m switching daycares for my other child to this one that uses the brightwheel app because it gives me a sense of security and reassurance. Definitely a must for any daycare!

Great, but missing one piece. This app has SO MUCH to offer! Seems to have everything the parents would need. However, I am hoping they will add a staffing calendar to the app. It’s great for parents, and can improve by being great for staff once adding a staffing calendar to the app to have everything in one place so employees know when their shift is and can easily switch shifts if needed with another employee.

Can’t use the app. I created an account but for some reason I’m not receiving anything from my daughters daycare. My sister receives everything. Because of her I know I have two different profiles somehow. Both use my email, but I only have access to the one not connected with the school. I’d rather just have a sign in/out sheet when I pick up and drop off my daughter. I would rather talk to her teacher than have to rely on this app for updates on my daughter. I don’t see how teachers have time to update parents and guardians on 20+ toddlers and still engage with them, but I guess that’s beside the point. My daughter had been in school almost a week and I haven’t been able to use this app at all. How do I get access to the right profile? The school said they can’t fix it on their end and I have to call customer support. Anyone know the number? Cause I can’t find that either. More than a little annoyed.

Response status for pics, videos and messages. The app works fine for the most part. Pictures and Videos can be downloaded only with phone or iPad, but not with computer. Messages are only able to send with phone or iPad, again not computer. Wish they would add feature to respond under the picture or video to let teachers know that parents are seeing an appreciate their posts. Like Facebook or Instagram.

Great communication app. I love getting updates all day. As a parent it’s hard to leave your child but when you get photos and notes all day it puts your mind at ease. Plus it’s great to use the pictures with my son at night to go through his day and talk about all the things he did with his teachers and friends.

New to the app. I have used many programs for daily sheets, billing and over all running of a childcare center. It is so nice to have all of it wrapped into one!!! The app is very easy to use. If I have any questions regarding what is to come and how to use the program, the response is immediate. One of the things I love seeing is the effort for state standards to be followed. I am very excited for the lessons section to be introduced.

Recent update has poor usability. In general I love this app, however a recent update made scrolling a feed very difficult because one can no longer swipe/scroll when a picture is touched first. It is as if the app can’t tell the difference between swipe and tap actions. When a photo takes up a large portion of the screen, as it often does, users must find that sliver of header to scroll. Rapid scrolling near impossible because you are bound to touch a picture which then halts the scrolling. Please fix.

Just some ideas. Hi I work as a teacher in a day care that uses brightwheels. These are some ideas that I thought would make it easer as a teacher! When marking the kid out when they go home it would be nice to have it say Mom/Dad/ grandparent/or Guardian! The parents names being in the info button, and for there age to be made clear also in the info. Thank you for taking these into consideration when you updated the app next time!

Not Great. Very glitchy, often doesn’t load. Doesn’t send alerts about check in or check out. No way to receive the daily summary in an email or message. The teachers don’t see notes until much later in the day. Also, weird use of third person pronouns that can’t be changed.

Latest update. Since the last update I have not been able to edit my profile photo. I am also unable to add a profile photo for my child. I am a parent using this app and my coparent is wanting to upload a photo rather than taking a photo in the moment. He’s unable to do either.

Highly recommend. I love the brightwheel app! I find myself checking it every lunch and break at work. I was very nervous to send my child, as she is my first born, to daycare but the app gives me peace of mind. Her teachers are able to update me on everything that she does and they send pictures of activities that they have done. I would recommend the app to anyone with children!

Easy to use and visually appealing. We love brightwheel! Our daycare center briefly switched to a different one that was terrible and gave me a newfound appreciation for how easy to use and visually organized Brightwheel is. The messaging feature is especially great and I love getting photos and even videos throughout the day!

Need improvement for photos & videos. Hi Team, Whenever schools are posting photos and videos. Once we click on it we can see photo/video. No problem with this. If we just slide our finger to left/right then it should show previous/next photo or video. Please see if we can accommodate this. It will make more convenient like social media apps. :)

Not a good app. 1) Only have one child? It still makes you click on their name first before seeing updates. 2) Messaging System? Can see a potential lawsuit or class action suit forming from this part of the app. It makes it APPEAR like you are only messaging the child’s teacher. Wrong. EVERY teacher in the center has access to these messages. It is equal to sending a private message in a group chat. Horrible implementation that can lead to seriously awkward situations and even privacy concerns. Highly suggest parents to stay away from this part of the app. Would not recommend.

No payment confirmation prompt!?. Every other app I’ve ever made a payment through has a confirmation prompt when you go to pay. This app just sends it through the moment you hit the button. I hit the “pay” button expecting a prompt that would let me add a new payment method. It just sent it through on the account I did NOT want to use. When I reached out to the school, they said this happens and there is nothing that they can do. So I reached out to brightwheel support. They were also not helpful.

Review coming from a parent and teacher. I’m enjoying the brightwheel app, but being a parent and a teacher in the same school I really wish there was some way to be able to join the accounts together. It’s difficult to be able to check in on my son and update/ be available for my student’s families at the same time. Signing in and out of accounts all day isn’t ideal. I do enjoy the learning portion of the app, the lesson plans have been great.

Director. I love this app and would highly recommend for any daycare. It's everything you need and more. As a director of a very busy daycare I could not survive without it. The invoicing and payment part of this app has saved me hours and hours of time. They make improvements regularly and it just keeps getting better. You will not be disappointed!

Amazing app!!!!. This app is such an amazing product and allows us to be much more involved in our son’s day! We get updates and pictures throughout his day and can engage him better at home since we know what they are learning about at school. The teachers all say how much they love the functionality and ease of getting us info. I love this so much; it makes our lives as working-parents so much more fulfilling.

Good overall. I enjoy being able to get real time updates of my child, and especially love being able to see pictures of her! I do wish I could "like" the pictures they send. I also wish there was a Reply button for the messages so that I'm not generating a new message each time to communicate back and forth.

Does what it needs to. Provides a good way to see what my son is doing throughout the day. A couple feature requests though. 1) Use a standard avplayerviewcontroller to have native player controls to pan through the videos and easily airplay. 2) append the date the photo was taken (or preserve it) in the EXIF data. Going back and saving them at a later date messes up my photo library since the date is whatever date I saved it.

A MUST HAVE!!!!. I can’t say enough to explain how incredible this app is. You know exactly what’s going on and where you kid is at all times. You can send messages which makes it even better. Best app ever, makes my life so much easier. I’m sure it does the same for teachers and daycare providers. A MUST HAVE!!!!

So unreliable. * Once a week the daycare cannot enter their data and they have to resort to paper * I cannot see the messages about my kid in the app (only my partner can) - even though my kid is correctly tagged in my app and I receive everything except the messages. The only difference is that I have iOS 11 and the newest all version, while my partner has iOS 10 and an old app version. * The data refresh is very clunky and unreliable. Often times I have to exit my kids view into the "my children [view]" and go back to my child for the data to refresh.

Love watching my grandson at daycare. So comforting watching him play & eat at daycare. He looks forward to seeing his friends & teachers each day. He runs in & somedays doesn’t want to leave. Sleeps well at school, so I knows he’s happy & comfortable there. Sleeps well at night too, after his busy day with friends & his teachers.

Mostly good- lacking two way communication. As a parent using the app, I love getting the real time notifications regarding my child’s day. I do wish there was a way for me to like or acknowledge that I’ve seen the posted pics or notes without writing them a message. The teachers have no way of knowing that their hard work posting everything is actually getting checked by the parents. Big issue for me. Fix that and my rating moves to a 5.

Won’t let me delete my own credit card!. App won’t let me delete my own credit card. The school “requires” auto pay, so I can’t un-check that, to delete my card. Worst part is my child never went to the school! We were going to go to the school that used Brightwheel, but then changed schools. So I got charged $1200 for nothing! Now they are going to charge me another $1200 for a second month! ALL BC THIS APP IS SCAMMY AND WONT ALLOW ME TO TO DELETE A CARD ON FILE. That card is my card and $$, not the schools or Brighthwheel’s. This might actually be breaking a credit card law. Change this feature ASAP Brightwheel. To top it off, the school said they asked brightwheel to refund the first payment, but we never got a credit to our card, so looks like Brightwheel dropped the ball AGAIN. Tell your school to use a competitor app where you can control your payment method.

Great app. I am a parent, my child just started daycare and this app is wonderful tool to stay in touch and get updates on my little one. One issue that I am having is that, although all my notification settings are turned on - I do not see the nofifications on the app icon itself, so if for some reason I dont hear or see the badge pop up- I might miss a message from daycare which is not ideal.

Needs to be tweaked. Documents section: ~The document list gets very long and things get mashed together. There is no chronological order or filter to change it either. ~There are no timestamps on documents or messages. Making it confusing when something was posted or sent. ~I wish there were a way to have the option of having everything in one continous feed rather than all the separate tabs and folders. ~There’s no return key option on the keyboard within messages.

Great app with one suggestion. Thank you for making life so much easier with kids attending daycare! Recently the teachers are posting some videos of the kids playing, which is super nice, but we found we were not able to download them to our phone. Not sure if this is for some reason or it is a bug. Please improve this and we will be super happy with Brightwheel!

Was slow at first but was corrected quickly!. Was very slow at first but since has been corrected and works well! Looks like They are constantly evaluating the performance of the app. I enjoy the video and picture features especially. The only feature I would like to see added would be a "like or love it" response to updates.

Not divorce family friendly. I wish our preschool did NOT use this app. It’s lacks security and privacy for divorced families. I can currently change mine and my ex’s profile photos. Another user should not be able to make changes to my profile. It would also be helpful to create an owner and approved add-on’s, instead of allowing all “parents” full access to make changes to the child’s profile. Again, in a divorce situation this can be extremely difficult to manage. Lastly, the payment method is also not set up for a set of divorced parents. I would encourage the owner of this app to consider making this app user secure.

Game changer. As a child care director We have been using brightwheel for two years now and it has been a godsend! It helps communication with our families and has made our families feel more connected to the center and their children’s childcare experience. I highly recommend this app!

Love it!. I love this app as a parent. It is so user friendly and convenient. The ability to see when my child ate, napped, or see pictures/videos throughout the day is awesome! I wish I could see which teacher was plugging in the updates for the day. My child has 4 teachers so it would be nice to be able to see who was in there in case I have any questions.

Love it, just a few wishes. I do really like brightwheel for keeping tabs on my kids during the day. I wish there were more options to respond to pictures. Also I wish that me and my husband could see what the other person said bc it gets confusing when I send a note and the teachers respond and he isn’t sure if it’s something he needs to respond to.

It works well, but...... It’s missing the basic function of notification badge app icon to display how many notifications are awaiting you. I’ve missing many messages after seeing the pop up and then forgetting to go back and look at it. The app icon would be very helpful. My other complaint is if I get a motivation about a note I click on it and it takes me to a menu where I now have to choose which child the note is for. This should be done automatically without me guessing.

Too much information is not a good thing. Until this app allows us to select which childcare events we need to be alerted for I am put in a position of either turning off notifications because 90% of the time they worthless (yay my toddler peed. Again.) and miss the important communications that matter or I look keep them on and have my phone/watch going off every time some meaningless thing happens that we don’t need to track. I will update this review if and when the ability to select which notifications are important to each user is implemented.

Great App - Notifications Separated. I love this app! The only feedback I have is that it would be awesome if the food, nap, potty notifications were separated. I would love to be able to get notifications for some of those options, but not all. And getting all the notifications drains my battery. Thanks!

Simple. I like everything except the fact that I have to pay fees on top of the large sum of money I pay for my child care and this was the only option given for payment when I used to pay with check.

Amazing. I absolutely love what it has done for my preschool. I currently use the check in feature, daily report, billing and photo/video updates. Many of my parents have recently relocated so it allows family from back home to be updated on their child. I love the message all parent feature which has allowed me to go GREEN and save paper.

Love the app, notifications don’t work. This app is great except that I have all notifications turned on and they never work. I never get messages from my sons teacher in real time. Unless I go looking for them or happen to see the the split second they come through I don’t see them. There is no notification on the actual app like other message apps and they disappear from my Notification Center.

Image attach to message, please!. Thank you for this app! I love the way my daycare uses it, and I can look at photos of my preschool twins with them and talk about the day when we’re home together! Please add image attachments to messages. I would love to be able to include visuals with some of my communication with the classroom teacher, notes to the director regarding future schedule, etc.