Circle with Disney Parental Controls and Filters for Wireless Devices

Really impressed. Totally simple to use and great tool. Our children are pretty well behaved, do listen to rules, and don't abuse their internet - yet Circle gives me confidence I can protect them from accidentally seeing things that they shouldn't need to see at a young age. YouTube Restricted mode, Safe Search, and a heap of non-child friendly web filters incredibly easy to apply across the kids devices. As they get older it allows me to say to them - "I can see exactly what sites you have been on" - which is the kind of transparency I want to make them realise the internet is a public place not a private place. Some routers sort of do this, but not per person and never with such clear reporting from your iPhone. We don't need to use the more intrusive features to manage our children - like timed-allowance, or internet-time rewards, or god mode feature (pause all internet in the house) - but its quite nice to know its there in case any behaviours took a turn for the worse.

I'll tell you my experience and let you make up your own mind... Have been living with a 'smart' home for the last 18 months - lights / heating / alarm system / etc., and I'm like a 5-year old child with it... hours of entertainment knocking the lights off on the kids from my phone...never gets old that...(this is how exciting my life is)... anyway no real bother with anything. I'm pretty security aware so passwords are changed regularly. So, the Circle device arrived on Monday, and ashamed as I am to admit it, there was a slightly over stimulated Homer Simpson moment with an 'oooh-ooh-ooh' / jittery fingers / feet swapping actions etc. / with unboxing and un-packaging it. With the exception of some very small teething issues the device did really well on installation - it was pretty straight forward process. The UX is very VERY excellent and managing the family profiles is a doddle - obviously some effort has been put into this from the UI guys in Circle, I couldn't fault it. The on-boarding process contains a cautionary note indicating a 48 hours timeframe is required for the unit to recognise all devices in the home - so happy days... life is just soooooo good. So... Day 3 started at 5am in the morning when I woke to hear the heating boiler kick start.... (a "WTF??" moment if ever there was one)...who put the heating on in our bedroom at 5am????? The heating has been off all summer and the smart heating device has been in OFF mode since May (with a small passcode lock in case any of the little frosty-boned children I live with made a unilateral decision that everybody in the house was cold)... so crawled out of bed, knocked it off from the wall and went back to my lovely dream. Next morning, all good at home - kids having a bit of an allergic reaction to their new restrictions from Circle... but there ya go kids...when you're paying the bills you can watch what ya want, until then, soak it up. Went to leave the house and noticed the house alarm was off... another "WTF???" moment...definitely set that last night... how is it off? What the sh*t is going on...? Then, like slow-mo video reveal from my iPhone, it finally dawns on me that the only thing new / different the last couple of days was the Circle Device from Disney... what are the chances..? Hmmmmmmmmm. So, right away I got on the ole tin-ternet and searched the term under 'vulnerabilities Circle by Disney'... the Nov 2017 thread from ZDNet that caught my eye... "Circle with Disney web filter riddled with vulnerabilities / The kid-friendly Internet filter protects children but did not shield family privacy" and I read it thoroughly... what a 'come-to-Jesus' moment that was. As I read, it was like an out-of-body experience with a HD camera rapidly approaching my face as I was calculating just how much work it was going to be to put this right....and then set about the following tasks: > Factory reset on my service providers modem... a 90mins support awaiting new addressing. > Factory re-install on all android devices / phones / tablets / etc. > Factory re-install on smart heating device > 2 Hours on hold to house alarm security firm resetting the home security unit And as if all of that wasn't enough, just to top things off, I noticed 2 hours after unplugging it, that the wee little led light was still on and pulsing away and would not switch off (as if the little b#±t@rd white box was winking at me saying 'not dead yet'). So did a factory re-install yet again on the Circle unit but to be honest all trust had collapsed at this point and the pulsing light remained...so it was either a bucket of water, or jump in the car and run it over to my Mothers house (who has no internet) and leave it there until the battery died...(I opted for the later, which then led to a 30min unscheduled visit and a cup of tea with a nice rich-tea biscuit... nice visit.. but really hadn't got the time). All in, twas a total balls of a weekend - spent all Saturday / Sunday re-instating everything that little white box had any sort of dealings with, while getting mangled by 3 angry children and an understandably agitated wife (who's confidence in me is in a constant state of review)... oh yeah, and to top it off, I got to miss the Pope drive by the top of our road (not joking) – he was in Dublin the weekend first time in 40 years and drove by the top of our road and I missed it cause I was b@lls-deep in fixing the mess this box had made. Suffice to say, if you're bored and up for a challenge knock yourselves out... it's totally 'J-Awsome'... like 'Awesome'... but with really really REALLY sharp teeth.

Very easy to setup & manage. Steps were straight forward as follows :- 1. Connect to the Circle WiFi network that appears when you turn on the Circle. 2. Connect to the Circle's management console & set it to join it your existing WiFi (assuming you have a compatible router - check the list). The Circle WiFi network will then disappear 3. Connect to your original WiFi & open the Circle application on your phone 4. Create a profile for each family member, selecting their age category (eg. teen), total allowed usage time, bedtime, etc. 5. Within the app, assign the detected devices (they are assigned to the Home profile initially, which has no restrictions applied) to the relevant family member's profile. You can change the detected name to a friendlier one if you wish (eg. rename android_2345612_785 to Toms Phone). Multiple devices can be assigned to a single profile (eg. Toms Phone, Toms iPad, Toms Laptop) 6. Sit back & wait for the kids to complain. You receive alerts on your phone / pad, wherever you have the Circle app installed, as & when the Circle box disappears of the network / kids exceed time limits / new devices join your WiFi / etc.

I am on my second week using this device constantly and although it is quite good at what it advertises itself to be able to do, I have two major reservations and hence knocking two stars off my rating. The first and more important one is that it is quite flaky in terms of its operation. It frequently disconnects for no obvious reason which results in the whole internet to go down before needing to reboot it by performing a hardware power cycle. It also very frequently drops out of being able to picked up by the mobile app requiring re-registration of the device (although it shows up on my network, the circle app just cannot see it). There are other issues related to this like my inability to block DNS ports on my router for security as this seems to affect the device's performance even more adversely. The second significant issue is that when a malfunction occurs and I am away from home, I would not be able to access the device or my router remotely to be able to reboot it as the internet access to my home network will be completely broken. I am happy to persevere with these niggles just now as it is helping control the kids access and internet time but I really hope that these will be fixed with time. My last worry is that the company would eventually move into a subscription-based business model (yes, I have been bitten by the likes of Canary.is and Y-Cam...etc.) as they are already charging for their mobile service (Circle GO) making the whole idea much more over-priced than it is now.

Best purchase I have made for our family and the internet. I had to purchase a new router so I made sure I had one that was compatible, I would ensure your router is compatible before purchase. This device is extremely easy to use. Every person has a profile that you make that covers ALL of their devices. You can block apps per person or set a time limit per day that covers ALL of their devices. I like that I can see what our teenage is up to in the history portion. Our teenager tried to download Fortnite and it was destroying our data. This helped us catch it and block the malicious content. It was also amazing to show the teenager how much screen time they had actually used (it was a wake up call). I like the pre-made settings based off age. We have messed around with this quite a bit and were very impressed. It is a bit of ease as a parent. This thing is serious though. If you forget you've assigned a device (like an ipad) to a certain setting it can be quite frustrating to figure out what is wrong until you remember. It's that serious. Better than pre-set router parental control. It's not even comparable, at all. You can set certain devices to bypass this (tv, your own stuff). Have not noticed any slow down for the devices that go through this. The features to reward extra time are very easy and very neat to use. I cannot say how much of a game changer this is for family safety and peace of mind with a teenager. This actually works. I was sold on this by the end of the second day that I had it. This is worth every penny and more.

Me lo recomendo un amigo, muy facil de usar. Tienes control de todo a lo que se conectan a tu WiFi. Mis hijos lo odian, ya que les control las redes sociales, veo a que paginas se meten, etc. Tengo hijos de 7 15 años. Lo he recomendado y ya van 2 amigos que lo compran.

Absolument génial. J’ai essayé plusieurs contrôles parentaux jamais bien. Celui-ci est tellement facile à utiliser. Un clic suffit pour mettre internet en « pause »...et votre ado arrive pour dîner ..sans son téléphone !! Vous et votre ado aussi pouvez voir le temps passé sur chaque appli, mettre l’heure pour qu’il dorme ou qu’il travaille. Un forfait à 20mo et il ne pourra pas utiliser sa 4g sinon il faut intégrer le système pour bloquer la 4g Je suis étonnée que cette application ne soit pas si connue des parents car, quelle sérénité maintenant !

Keeps disconnecting from the network. The product as such is very effective but what's the use if it is not connected. Badly in need of a good firmware update.

Tl;dr - this product is AMAZING and the best technology product I have purchased in a year. It does something that is important to me that I've struggled to find an effective solution for years. Pros: - Sufficiently powerful - Does not create a performance impact if properly configured - Easy to monitor remotely - Works across multiple devices - Provides both insight on technology use and control - Allows you to set service level restrictions (e.g. limit Fortnite to 1 hour/day) - Great price point. Cons: - It can cause your network to break in ways that are not obvious - A bit complex to set up - The service groupings (e.g. “Email” or “Online Gaming”) are not customizable - Mobile only administration Overall a solid product and well worth the cost. Detailed Review - A bit of background - I'm technically adept and understand my way around my own network. As my kids have become teenagers, my struggle has been to effectively parent their online behavior. On the one hand, their devices and technology are an important part of their school, social lives, and even part of our family connectedness. On the other, I've been concerned about how much time my son spends on Fortnite and Youtube, and about my daughter's technology use late at night. Our solutions to this have largely been ineffective. We’ve tried having the kids leave their phones downstairs when they go to bed, but that doesn't address what they do during the day, and it has been a source of conflict. I've tried controls using my router, but they haven't been time based, nor sufficiently granular - e.g. I couldn't easily stop face time on my daughter's computer without affecting her ability to do homework. iOS 12's Screen Time feature has been helpful, but that only provides data for a single device and it is somewhat unreliable. The big problem is that we can’t easily know exactly what they are doing without policing them, let alone come up with effective constraints. I finally found a review online for the Circle. It seemed good, but I was concerned that 1) it might not work with my router (I use an ASUS AC5300), that it would create performance issues, and that it would not provide sufficient control to deal with the issues that we care about. However, I figured I would give it a try. The key to how this product works is that it uses some obscure aspects of how networks work to give the circle the ability to see the network traffic that goes into and out of your house for any device or collection of devices (the technical term here is ARP Spoofing). Without getting into the technical details, if you connect the Circle via the ethernet cable, it does not create a performance issue. Moreover, any device configured as “unmanaged” is left alone. This is something I was particularly happy about as my home network has a lot of devices on it and I like the control. Installation: Installation was a bit obtuse. Despite being connected via ethernet to my router, I still had to use the WiFi network to setup the circle. Moreover, the Circle only understands how to talk to 2.4Ghz networks. That said, once everything was done, the wireless network was not an issue. Setup: Once setup I created a test profile for myself to see how well the device worked. I was pretty amazed at how easy and powerful it is. Profiles allow you to connect multiple devices, define specific constraints on a service level (e.g. Youtube), and these constraints work across all of the devices on the profile. Moreover, everything else is left alone. Once active, I immediately got what I was looking for: - Time spent on a variety of different services (YouTube, Fortnite, Gmail) - Identification and monitoring explicit content sites - Ability to set constraints, as either hours (bedtime and blocked time) - Ability to set time limits (yeah!!!!) I found the monitoring/time calculations to be pretty accurate. The only limit is that they are limited to 5 minute granularity - which is fine for me. Once the Circle chooses to block a service, it happens pretty immediately. Some things like youtube take a bit before the block is noticeable, but everything else is immediate. Restoring service is also immediate, though there can be some problems (see issues below) What I LOVE: - This device allows for granular control over services. Meaning, you can allow for web browsing and email, while blocking video games and netflix. You can block one device but not another. - You can set up profiles for your family that work across multiple devices. No more temptation to cheat by moving consumption from one device to another - For my network, the device even worked on the guest network which means my kids couldn’t get around it that way. It did not seem to affect our AT&T Micro-cell traffic however - The device provides both monitoring and prevention. This allows me to have conversation with my kids where we now have an objective definition of time spent. Moreover, it allows them to see how much time they are spending so THEY can set the limits - Now I get to parent as a coach instead of as a policeman. - There is no noticeable impact to my network performance. I have a 400mb/s connection to the internet and have noticed no impact to my network latency or performance from the Circle. - It is pretty easy to use once it is set up. Issues: - It’s not perfect however and there are some things to be aware of: - I can’t easily customize what Circle monitors/blocks. Circle’s pre-defined categories are pretty good, but if you want to change something it is not easy - and in some cases not possible. I would prefer to have more flexibility than the device provides, but given the ease of use it provides in other ways I can live with this constraint. - Networking problems - the way the circle work can create compatibility issues with your router. Circle has put a pretty good compatibility chart on their website you can check - strongly recommended that you do this before buying this device - The Circle can cause your network to break - in my case, if I make a change on my router, it can cause my entire network to freeze until I reset things using some fairly technical commands. This may be somewhat specific to my router, but when it happens, it is not something that the layperson could easily fix. I suspect that the routers that are marked as fully compatible (mine is not) don’t have this issue, but I was unable to test this. - The Circle is hard to reboot - it has an internal battery which I suppose is nice for power outages - though seems unnecessary to me. However, when something goes wrong, you can’t power cycle it easily. - When the Circle unblocks a service, sometimes it takes a while for the service to be restored. There are multiple reasons for this. In one case, I had to reboot the router my son’s Xbox was connected to to restore service. When I tried to reproduce this it didn’t happen again, but I’m suspicious that this isn’t the only time I’ll have this problem (for those who are technical, clearing the arp cache tends to clear these issues). - When the Circle blocks a service, it routes the blocked user to a web page full of Disney content. Not the worst problem in the world, and this is the only time that “Disney” shows up in the product. I’m sure some VP is very proud of this. There is no web console. I would prefer not to manage this just from my phone. In the end, this device does way more than I had hoped - esp. For the price. It has brought me a solution to a problem I have struggled with for years. I’m a very happy user and feel that the benefits of this product fully outweigh the costs. Moreover, I like that it is something I can use to have a better dialogue with my kids about their technology use. It enables both “trust but verify” type monitoring, as well as specific and detailed constraints. Great job!