Circle - Home Plus - Parental Controls - Internet & Mobile Devices - Wifi, Android & iOS - Limit Screen Time - 1-Yr Subscription - White
Model: CIR2001
SKU: 6332928
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Customers love the Home Plus parental control app for its easy setup, user-friendly interface, and ability to set time limits for device use. They appreciate the rewards feature and find it to be a great value for the price. However, some customers have experienced connection issues, particularly with AT&T fiber, and have had difficulty getting the app to work with Amazon tablets.
This review will cover two things: The Circle Home Plus (white cube-looking device) and the Premium Membership. ---SETUP--- The Circle Home Plus (CHP) is a white cube-looking device that connects to your router initially for setup via an included ethernet cable. During my setup, I struggled to get the device recognized by the CIRCLE app even though my phone was connected to the same network that the CHP was connected to. I closed and reopened the app 5 times and on the 5th try, it recognized the CHP. After it recognizes the network, you will see in the APP all connected devices to that network, whether it is by WiFi or by ethernet to your router. Afterwords, I strongly recommend that you switch all devices to the HOME profile, as everyone in my household lost internet use during setup until I switched all devices to HOME profile and set the filter level of HOME to NONE. From there, you can proceed to identify the devices that need their individual filters. ---FEATURES--- The key feature of the CHP are that it will allow you to control all devices connected to your home network from one phone remotely, can work connected to the router with an ethernet cable or via WiFi, and has a backup battery that will last up to 2 hours if people in your home disconnect it, whether intentionally or not. ---PERFORMANCE--- The performance of the CHP was great, other than the initial setup hiccup. After the first stages of setup, you can then connect it to your WiFi network and can change the location of the CHP to a place out of reach of children. Should prying fingers make their way to the CHP and disconnect it, the backup battery will kick in and your admin phone device will get a notification that the CHP has been disconnected, giving you up to 2 hours to reconnect it. I plugged it in and made my personal Xbox One X as a HOME device with no filter and was able to game online with no issues. I then restricted it by giving myself a bedtime restriction and it worked as it should, not allowing me to game while the device was on bedtime. Pausing of the internet worked great as well, as it allowed me to pause the internet on any device in my WiFi network. As new devices were coming into the home (say, your children haven’t arrived from school after you set up the CHP), your phone gets a notification that a new device has connected to the network, allowing you to open your app and apply the restrictions as needed. What really surprised me was that if your children decide to simply turn off the WiFi and use their own phone data, you can install the free CIRCLE app to their mobile device (Android or iPhone) and set their device as a child device. This will initiate a local VPN install to their device and that is what allows you to also control and filter what they do on the phone even if they are not on your home WiFi. The CIRCLE app gives you instructions on how to prevent your children from simply deleting the CIRCLE app. After you install their app, your admin profile will show you their device and you can activate additional features available only with the premium membership, such as showing you their location via GPS. ---PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP--- With the purchase of a Circle Home Plus, you will get a 1 year premium membership, which activates when you scan a QR code located on your device. It took me some digging up on their website to find out what the actual price of the membership is, but I found it. After the free year is over, you can continue the premium membership for 9.99 a month, as of the writing of this review. You won’t automatically get charged at the end of the year, as you need to add a credit card on the profile that you create in setup in order for that to happen. Once a child device has been added, it was easier to manage bedtime on a child phone, disable specific apps either completely or for a specific time, and allow you to restrict search engines for clean websites such as Google Safe Search or YouTube Restricted. ---EXPECTATIONS--- The product exceeds my expectations in terms of what it can do but there are some caveats. For starters, with a little know-how or YouTube video searches, one can figure out that most of these settings that the CHP can do, your router can too without the cost. Of course, if you are not tech savvy, the CHP will save you plenty of trouble and headaches of figuring out exactly how your router can do all of these things, because routers don’t exactly have the most user friendly menus. Additionally, I wish that Circle was more up-front of the pricing of the membership without having to dig too much. I’m sure that’s part of the marketing as to not dissuade potential customers from buying the product, but it should be noted that you don’t even need to buy the Circle Home Plus (white cube-like device) to use the mobile features. If all you want to do is monitor what your children are doing on their phones, you can simply pay the month to month fee of 9.99 without ever installing or buying the CHP. That service alone is definitely worth the price for peace of mind and security of your children’s browsing habits. ---VALUE--- The price for the Circle Home Plus in terms of value is great considering that if you pay full price for the Circle Home Plus device, you are essentially paying upfront for a full year and getting the CHP for 9.99 before tax. ---APPROVAL--- I highly recommend this product for people who want to monitor their children’s internet surfing habits, phone usage, and app access remotely from anywhere in the world. I would even recommend school superintendents and principals to look into getting something like this for their district, as I can see educators not having to worry about picking up cell-phones.
Posted by Trobadour
I tried for two days to setup this device and could never get it working. During my dozens of attempts, the app would lose connection to the Circle unit and enter a “No connection, try again” loop. I rebooted my Netgear R7000 router and everything connected to my router. I disconnected everything from my router via WiFi AND physical cable. I did a factory reset of my router. I power cycled the Circle a dozen times. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app a dozen times. Nothing I did had any impact, it was the same thing over and over again.. Setup your new Circle Connect to the Circle WiFi hootspot Tap continue Choose your home WiFi network Create a new account During my two dozen plus install attempts the Circle could stop working at any of the points above. Creating a new account was as far as I was able to get, as depicted by the attached screen shot. This product is a complete waste of money.
Posted by Garrick
Circle Home Plus setup is quick and easy. It came with Circle Home Plus, Ethernet cable, USB cable and power adapter. I have downloaded the iOS app and completed the registration. I have followed step by step instructions in Cirlce app and configured everything. I have created profiles for myself and kids. Profiles can be configured as Adult, Teen and Child. After linking with router, it was showing all devices connected in the network. I have downloaded the app and configured in kids phones as well. VPN will be used to control the kids phone when they are outside of home network. It came with 1 year membership included for all premium features. It has option to connect with WiFi so that it can be controlled even if the network cable is disconnected. It has battery backup as well. Circle Home Plus have lot of features like Location, Devices, Usage, Filter, Bed Time, Time Limits, Off Time and History. It has option to pause internet to all devices based on the devices linked to each profile. I have configured the Time Limits for each activity like Chat & Forums, Videos etc. and it worked flawlessly. My teen kid is very much disappointed now due to the fact that he can use only 1 hour every day on Instagram and Facebook instead of 3 hours per day. It automatically disconnected the internet and he was not able to access the apps in his phone even in 4G LTE. It is really cool feature. I have configured Bed Time for all profiles so that it will shut off the internet for all devices between 10 PM to 6 AM. We are really impressed with Circle Home Plus and it is greatly reducing the amount of time we are in electronic devices. If you are looking for great product to control internet activities for your kids and yourself, Circle Home Plus is one of the best product available in the market.
Posted by Selva
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