"SMS Remote Control" --- why won't it work????????

I have two ( 2 ) phones, wife’s and mine, running Android 4.4 or higher ( mine is 5.0 ), up to date on Avast Mobile security, Premium level, and every time a command like “lock” is sent I get a message that a thief can see the command and to “use the new SMS remote control” and “enable Android 4.4 mode within the installation”. I’ve tried and tried to do that ---- the reply is that my app is up to date. Why does this remote control not work??? What’s the point of “security” if the thief can see the pin code and just use it?

In order to use the full options of avast you will need to root the phone and install the root version of avast.