Tubik
For parents of young children

You choose.
They watch.

Tubik plays videos from YouTube channels you approve, sorted into categories you make yourself — each with its own time budget. Your child gets a calm shelf of big picture tiles. You get the evening back.

Coming soon to the App Store How it works

For iPhone and iPad. A personal project — no accounts, no tracking, no ads of our own.

The child's home in Tubik: a slim glass bar with the child's avatar and a sun timer showing 8 minutes, above rows of videos grouped by category.

There's good stuff on YouTube. The trouble is everything around it.

Most parents know a handful of channels they're happy with. Getting from there to a calm half hour is the hard part.

One video leads to ten

Autoplay and recommendations pull a small child from the episode you picked to things you never would have.

The end is always a fight

"Five more minutes" lands in the middle of a video. A hard cut-off mid-scene feels unfair to a five-year-old — and it shows.

Filters decide for you

Existing kids modes let an algorithm sort the world. You can't say "cars and space on weekdays, nature films before bed."

What Tubik does

Everything here is in the first version. Nothing is sold around playback — the play button is never behind a paywall.

Your own categories

Make "Learning", "Cars" or "Quiet before bed" from the channels you trust, pick a colour and an icon, and give each category its own daily time budget.

Only channels you approve

Paste a channel or video link to add it. Hide single videos you'd rather skip, or limit a category to titles with words like "tractor". Nothing else shows up.

"Stop after this video"

A big timer ring your child can read without numbers. One tap ends the session when the current video finishes — no cut-off mid-scene.

Gentle dimming

In the last few minutes the screen slowly gets darker, like the light at the end of the day. Brightness comes back as soon as the session ends.

A shelf without reading

Big picture tiles, no text to decode, no search box, no related videos to wander into. A pre-reader can choose on their own.

Short tasks between videos

Instead of the next video starting by itself: a 15-second puzzle — count, colours, shapes, bigger or smaller — read aloud. Always skippable, never a gate.

Calm on both sides of the screen

Parent screens behind a PIN, a child side with nothing to get lost in. Hold the owl for 2 seconds to open parent settings (PIN required).

Parent screen: creating a new category with a name, an icon, a colour, a daily time budget and a list of channels to choose from.
Build a category in a minute
Parent screen: the channel list with an Add channel button.
Add channels by link
A short task between videos: a question card and three big answer buttons with a heart, a circle and a star.
A short task between videos
Parent mode PIN pad.
Parent mode behind a PIN

How it works

Ten minutes of setup, then it runs on its own.

  1. Pick the channels

    In parent mode, paste links to the channels you already like. Tubik fetches their videos; you can hide any single one.

  2. Make the categories

    Group channels into categories for your child's profile and set how long each may run per day, plus a daily total.

  3. Hand over the device

    Start child mode. Your child picks from the shelf; the timer, the dimming and "stop after this video" handle the ending.

The child's home on iPad: rows of videos grouped by category under a slim glass bar with the avatar and the sun timer.

Nothing about your child leaves the device

No account to create, no server of ours, no analytics. Profiles are a picture, an age band and a few interests — never a name, a birthday or a photo.

Read the privacy policy

  • Settings, history and the weekly report stay on your device.
  • No accounts, no sign-in — for you or your child.
  • No analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs in the app.
  • Videos play in YouTube's own embedded player in privacy-enhanced mode. YouTube's privacy policy applies to that player.

Questions

Is Tubik made by YouTube?

No. Tubik is an independent app by a single developer. It plays videos from YouTube channels you approve using YouTube's official embedded player. It is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by YouTube or Google.

Who is it for?

For parents of young children — roughly ages 3 to 9 — who already watch some YouTube together and want the parent, not an algorithm, to decide what's on the shelf and when it ends.

Can my child find other videos?

The child side has no search, no recommendations and no comments. It only shows videos from the channels in your categories, minus the ones you've hidden. Tubik moves to its own screen the moment a video ends, so YouTube's end-screen suggestions aren't something to tap.

Are there ads?

Tubik itself shows no ads and contains no advertising SDKs. YouTube may show its own ads inside its player on some videos; Tubik can't change the player, so it can't remove them.

What will it cost?

Tubik will be free to download. Pricing for optional extras for parents (for example more profiles) isn't final yet. Watching, the timer and child mode will never be behind a paywall.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no Tubik account and you don't sign in to YouTube. Because nothing is stored on a server, a forgotten parent PIN means resetting the app on that device.

Which devices and languages?

iPhone and iPad, iOS 26 or later. The app is in English and German.

More answers and contact

Coming soon to the App Store

Tubik is in development for iPhone and iPad.

Not available yet