Install Family Fair Play on your phone (iPhone and Android)

You don't download Family Fair Play from the App Store or Google Play. It's a web app — you add it to your home screen right from the browser, and from then on it behaves like a normal app: its own icon, full screen, notifications. Here's exactly how, on both systems.

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A phone with the Family Fair Play icon on the home screen next to other apps

Most apps install from a store. Family Fair Play takes a different route — it's a Progressive Web App (PWA). That means the same address you open in your desktop browser can be "pinned" to your phone's home screen and run as its own standalone app.

The upside for you is simple: nothing to download, nothing to update by hand, it takes almost no storage, and you always have the latest version. The one condition — you have to add it to your home screen once. Here's how.

iPhone and iPad (Safari)

On iPhone it must be the Safari browser (not Chrome or others — adding to the home screen only works reliably there):

  1. Open app.familyfairplay.com in Safari and sign in.
  2. Tap the Share icon at the bottom center (a square with an up arrow).
  3. Scroll the list and choose "Add to Home Screen".
  4. Confirm "Add" in the top right. The icon appears on your home screen.

From now on you open the app by tapping its icon — it launches full screen, with no browser bar.

Android (Chrome)

On Android it's even easier — usually the browser offers it on its own:

  1. Open app.familyfairplay.com in Chrome and sign in.
  2. If a bar saying "Install app" appears at the bottom, tap it and confirm.
  3. If it doesn't, tap the three dots in the top right → "Install app" (or "Add to Home screen").
  4. The icon is added to your home screen and your app drawer.
notifications_active

Notifications on iPhone: home screen first

This is the most common surprise. On iPhone (since iOS 16.4) push notifications work only when the app is added to the home screen and you open it from that icon — not from Safari. If notifications "don't work," it's almost always because the app isn't on the home screen yet. Add it using the steps above, open it from the icon, and enable notifications in the app's settings. Android has no such restriction.

What you get

The home-screen icon isn't just cosmetic. You get push notifications (task reminders, approval requests), a faster full-screen launch, and a badge number on the icon when something needs your attention. The app stays web-based the whole time — no store, no tap-to-update.

If you're still setting things up, adding it to the home screen is the first step we recommend on every phone in the family. After that you just sign the members in and split up the tasks.

Open the app and add it

Sign in from your phone's browser and follow the steps above to add the app to your home screen. It takes a few seconds, and after that it's right there like any other app.

Open Family Fair Play