Google TV Kids Profiles get ‘real YouTube’, content recommendations, and more

My son really doesn’t use his Google TV Kids Profile all that much and that’s for a few specific reasons. First, and most importantly, it doesn’t have “real YouTube”. I know that it’s a funny term, but today’s kiddos usually refer to the full YouTube experience in this way since they’ve been restricted to YouTube Kids for so long. It has much better content, a wider breadth of selection, and more, but it also opens them up to seeing a lot more than they ought to at their age.

Still, “Real YouTube” is important, and Google has been working quite a bit on a supervised version of that experience for the young ones. Now that it’s officially a thing, bright minds can be entertained and educated by the full range on offer via the world’s largest video sharing platform on the planet.

Today, Google announced that this Supervised YouTube app will begin rolling out to Google TV Kids Profiles, giving your kids the ability to use it on the largest screen in your house – the living room television!

Another significant change to the Kids Profile is the introduction of personalized content recommendations. I’m wary of this one because Google’s machine learning algorithms tend to suggest crap that I really don’t want my son seeing, and that makes it a little tricky until the AI is trained.

Still, it’s nice to know that your child’s home screen can show off more interesting things to explore than ever before. These “Google-powered recommendations” will be tailored to the content ratings you’ve set and they can also be hidden individually. Here’s to hoping there’s an off switch for the entire thing as well.

Lastly, your son’s or daughter’s watchlist will be both visible and editable via your standard profile, which makes it much easier to add things you think they may be interested in as you browse. All you need to do is press and hold the center remote button on a show or movie and press “Watchlist”. Then, instead of it being added automatically to your watchlist, you can choose between yours and any child’s profile that also exists on the device.

If you don’t see these changes right away, don’t sweat it – Google states that while they are beginning this rollout today, all of the updates may take a few weeks to complete. Those with devices other than Chromecast with Google TV – like Google TV devices from Hisense, Philips, Sony, and TCL – will be happy to learn that they will also get these features.