I’ve tried to do some internet researching but I’m at a loss of where to start. I’m looking for an MDM (or MDM-like) solution to deploy to my family (specifically my Apple Account family). On my Family account is myself, my wife, my daughter and my parents, so 5 people total.
My parents are getting old and are starting to forget their passcodes. They are in their golden years, and travel a lot. So if they forget their passcode and enter it too many times they end up getting locked out of their iPhones and iPads while away from home, end up wiping their devices and since they aren’t tech savvy enough to set it up again or restore from an iCloud backup (or they are in an area where iCloud access may be restricted, like China) they end up with a useless device while on their trip; until they can get home so I can reset and re-setup their device.
I’m hoping for a super inexpensive (or free) solution where I can setup some kind of MDM that I can install on my Family’s devices so that I can at least remotely remove or reset their passcodes. I have spoken to my family (specifically those that I plan on enrolling their devices to the MDM) at length, and they agree that it would be a good feature to have.
You probably need to be registered as a business or a sole trader to create an account, but if you or someone from the family meets the criteria, maybe Apple’s own Business Essentials would be worth a look.
The only MDM Solution, I can think of which you can also use as an individual is Filewave. If I remember correctly you can use it with macOS 10.13 & later.
Zoho’s Manage Engine Mobile Device Manager Plus (cloud edition) allows free management of up to 25 devices forever. From memory after the 30-day free trial it automatically went to the free tier.
No recommendation but sympathy for your situation!
Also, please change the setting on your parent’s devices that wipes it after the failed attempts. I doubt your parents need that and it sounds like it’s making things worse.
This is good advice, but there’s still an issue of the escalating lockout delays, which increase following each failed unlock attempt. At some point, only a restore makes sense.