Customer Ratings & Reviews

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.

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.

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.

This review was for the Circle Home Plus being setup and managed from and Galaxy S8+. This had me stumped for a bit. It is not so plug and play and takes some understanding of what you are getting into and what it can do. Basic physical installation out of the box can be done in a matter of minutes. And in all fairness, it can be setup “relatively” quickly if you knew what you were doing. You’d have to have the right app for your phone, plug in the device to a spare Ethernet port on your router and power the device via the included 5v adapter or a spare USB power in the installation area. You have to register your device via the app and then follow the setup to walk you through the most basic things. You will need to add and test the devices you want to control. The circle will sniff the network and list the devices and for some devices a mac ID or "Android device" is about all the description your going to get. In lieu of specific match or if you knew how it works, you would only turn on the device when you are ready to add it and a Circle-App pop-up will tell you that "generic" device was added to the network. Another example of what is not so basic is if you have any problems with other devices on your network, there is a “router compatible” setting. Again, take the time and get through the nuisances. The Good: For me the Cirlce Home Plus came at a good time to a house with two pre-teen girls who love their tablet time. This is beyond the simple schedule in the router being able to just turn on or off their Wi-Fi on a schedule. Yes, there are monitoring apps and discussions and many pieces to the puzzle to try to keep ahead of your kids in this scary world of online dos and don’ts. As a parent, you just can’t simply rely on “Trust” or think they are your friend and will no go or do what you tell them. It is what it is. Basically, they can use a limited version of their YouTube and search web for their homework but they are now going through the circle service and it is blocking things like adult content, Mail, chat and a few specific programs. To me, this is money well spent. At least the first year is included and we’ll revisit this next year when the subscription comes do. If it is working like it is today, it will get continued. Again, I had frustrations getting familiar and then everything completely setup. Expect to be frustrated, take a break for a day or two and then get back at it. Some of the filters were not so straight forward and I had to have the girl’s tablets in front of me to test to make sure specific programs weren’t getting through. An example was Snap Chat. There wasn’t a button for it and I had to play with the filter buttons to find which one it was that was actually blocking it. Ultimately, I was able to and it just wasn’t straight forward as one would think. You’re paying for a service upfront. In that service you are expecting the company to be updating their filters of adult content and keep kids safe. With that said, there is no 100% anything, but this is pretty close. I would not recommend this to people who have never setup something like a basic router - type level of experience. I would recommend this to people who are basic to intermediate tech savvy and don’t mind getting App dirty. Or if you are just willing to do the work and grind it out to figure it all out, read online and make it work. You have to dive right in, figure it out, test it and actively set it up to see the results and enable it If you can do that then I think its well worth the price to protect our kids.

I couldn't give this 5 stars, but it might be more of 4.5 than 4 stars. I need more time with it. It's a great idea, good product, but I had a little difficulty with it. It's still very new, and I feel like it will continue to have updates to the software that will improve functionality, particularly with the app. I followed the steps to get started, going from the website to Google Play to install the app on my phone, then adding the app to two devices to start with, planning to add additional devices over time. It allows the main user to set up profiles and add devices to that profile. It could be one individual, or maybe apply to all of the kids, and a different profile for teens or adults. Devices connecting to the home network will be recognized by the Circle Home Plus, and it will identify them, but will leave them as unmanaged until they are designated in some other way, such as adding to a profile. There isn't much as far as instructions, but most devices these days just give you basic instructions, and expect you to visit the website or install an app to assist with the rest of setup and use. The Circle is the same way, and it requires the app on at least one device to get started. I had no problems adding the app to Android devices or the iPad, and they worked fine the first day. Part of setup includes plugging the Circle into the router via ethernet cable, but then the app has you set it up to connect using WiFi, so it's capable of using either source to connect. The second day, I was working on setting some limits, and paused two devices to see how that part works. Then the app crashed on my phone, and would not work even after clearing cache, or clearing data after that. I just would not work; I had to uninstall, and reinstall using mobile date, because the wifi wouldn't work either, not for the two devices that were paused, or other devices that I had not paused, like my phone. I had to go back in and set the app back up, unpause the devices, and then the internet worked for all devices again. This was a problem! I didn't realize it would prevent devices connected to the device from accessing the internet, even when not actually paused. I think that as they apply updates to the app, and work out some bugs, this is a great way to set limits for device usage, and even certain websites or apps, such as social media. Profiles can be set up for children, teens, adults or no restrictions at all. For adults, it can be a reminder of a preferred 'bedtime', and it can be used to reward kids by giving extra time. It allows the 'parent' to set a time for internet to end for a device, or for daily limits. These can easily be changed through the app, which worked fine again once reinstalled. In spite of the issue I had with the app, I would recommend this device. It was a nuisance for a short while, as I reinstalled the app. There were no issues with setup or with any of the hardware. It's still new, and I've only been using it a few days, so it will be an adjustment for our household. I really like the options it provides. If I continue to have other problems, I'll update the review, but for now I recommend the Circle Home Plus device.

The Circle Home Plus, a cube shape, is simple to install and for the most part simple to manage through the mobile app, which is the only way to manage it. It allows some control over most network connected devices, such as application filters and time limits. With the tap of the pause button you can prevent most items from connecting to the internet, but it seems hit or miss at times on when and what is paused. It can also provide history of some internet activity of connected devices, but not all. The only way it will get full control and all history is if you install the Circle app on an Android or iOS device as a kid device and let it use the background VPN. If you want the most control over your child's cell phone or tablet, the circle app will do it without even needing the Circle Home Plus. At first, when following the simple directions, I didn’t even know what the home device was for, as everything seemed focused on the app and mobile devices. However, once you add the Home to the Circle app is when you get access to your other network connected devices. Unlike some other parental control and network protection devices, like on many routers, this attaches to the network and is not in line with the network, but an extension of. Like some, the parental control devices are the router or between the router and modem, this is just another device, which I found odd and I think is the source of some of the issues I have with it. Some issues included a long delay in deactivating and activating devices whether it was for bedtimes, granting extended rewards, or just pausing. When pausing the internet, it wasn’t like router controls and stop actual network activity, so some activities, like watching Youtube would continue until the page was refreshed or a new video selected. This wasn’t just buffered video either. There was also no warning page, like other parental control devices have, showing that they were blocked or to ask for permission, it just wouldn’t load. The biggest issue I had was that my mobile device, which was added to a profile and controlled the Circle Home, couldn’t unpause the network because it lost connection to the Circle Home. I would have to disconnect from my WiFi and use mobile data to unpause my internal paused network. As with router parental controls you are still connected to the internal network, just not to the internet. The Circle Home just attempts to interrupt everything. The premium features of the Circle app are included for one year and for a fee per month after that. These features include bedtime, time limits, off time, location, rewards and pause. It is reduced to filter, history and usage if you don’t subscribe after 12 months. Which seems odd to pause your own internal network for that much per month. With the app and the background VPN I found that network speeds were reduced drastically. We were getting about 25Mbps on the 100Mbps connection and latency was a major issue. This is a constant background application as well and has some impact on battery life as it requires to bypass power management. Some additional features of the Circle Home Plus include battery backup and the ability to connect to the network using 2.4Ghz WiFi. This is good if your kids think simply unplugging the Circle Home Plus will bypass their interrupted connection. If not connected using the ethernet cable, the Circle Home Plus will continue to work, but at a connectivity cost for all managed devices as it uses the 2.4Ghz connection, adding latency and reducing connectivity speed. For complete parental control of mobile devices I can see the Circle App on Android and iOS devices providing that total watch and control. For home devices that aren’t covered under those, the Circle Home Plus does add some feature control, but with added frustration and not as smooth as using any software supplied by newer routers. For example, the safe search feature for Google and Bing worked perfect on the mobile device that had the Circle App installed. But, on any other device, like a managed PC, it worked on Google but not Bing. With this you essentially pay for 12 months of the premium features ahead of time and get a little more network monitoring. I can say that the mobile device features may be worth it as most home parental controls don’t extend to mobile connections, as kids can easily turn off their WiFi to get back on the internet if they have data services. But, there are other smart home security systems that have applications that can provide the same features and work much better on the network.

I am a parent of three kids who go to virtual (online) schools. With online school, they are mostly on the internet all morning on their computer/device and also during their free time, when they entertain themselves via the internet. As a responsible parent, I have to make sure the internet I provide them is always safe. Doing it manually with rules and removing the device is easy at first, but it gets harder to follow through. This Circle Home Plus is a great device to monitor online content and time. Now I feel better that my kids can navigate the internet safely in my home and when they are using their device at another location. The Circle is a small box-shaped device that pairs with your home router/Wi-Fi, and that allows the parent/guardian to control the network/internet wirelessly. Connecting the box to the network is simple, you download the Circle app (by “Circle Media, Inc) from the mobile device app store, create an account, set up parent/adult profiles, and create a profile for each child (or other adults) you would like to monitor. The app will guide you through the entire process. For monitoring each child's device when outside the house/network, it is highly recommended to install the Circle app on that child's device. During the setup and after, the Circle app on the parent's device can monitor and adjust the controls for each device or the entire home/network. There are basic configured filters such as “kids, teens, adults and none” - all of them are customizable. The app will give you control to each connected device, block specific device, set up to block internet usage during bedtime, pausing device usage (useful during family time), and monitor internet traffic. The app on the children's’ device alerts them when it is bedtime, and their internet usage time allocation has ended. The filtering control allows usage and time allocation for a specific platform, e.g., Youtube, Facebook, etc. the parent app shows what sites each device has visited. The parent app will receive a notification when a family member reached their allotted time limit, and it gives the option to leave as is or issue a reward, such as extended time for that day, no bedtime blockage, or no off time. The box only manages one network, but the premium version allows on the go monitor for ten devices for a monthly/yearly fee. The service is cool and worth it because it gives the parent internet usage control when the kids are using their device with their cell phone data (cellular network) or on another network. One issue that I encountered was that my weather app on my phone got blocked since I have all the news content blocked. It is a simple fix; I found out the website of the weather app and added this to the allowed sites on the custom filter. The device setup does take some time and learning to use all the features, but, when complete it makes internet usage safe and manageable for the entire family. It restricts contents and manages screen time by device or the whole network. I hope the kids do not outsmart me and find a way to bypass the parental controls, but I am confident in this tool.

My wife and I are all about limiting the screen time of our 2 children. We have tried timers and also verbal requests when they are not listening. So, we saw this Circle Home Plus and having the controls at the palm of our hands sounded like a good idea. We tried this filter for about a week before realizing how frustrating and howl limiting this device actually is. So here are my thoughts: Pros: -Easy setup. I am all about easy and painless setting up. The Circle device comes in a small box, nice and minimalistic design. There is just one outlet (that you can see) for the usb-c power cord. Around the gray circle, you can open it and find the Ethernet connector (if you do not have Wifi). I simply downloaded the app to my iPhone and was able to set up an account. You then can make several accounts (one for my, spouse, and my two children) for their many devices. I set up all 3 iPads, my iPhone XR, wife's iPhone 6 Plus, and my son's Sony Xperia. You can set up your device as Adult or Child, which is a nice way to differentiate devices. Cons: -My major issue was with the cross platform connection. As my son has an Android phone, there were issues on his phone. I could not enable his phone to use the app. His screen would freeze and I had to constantly close the app and try again. It would not work. My son wanted to use his phone but the Circle App continued to interrupt and I was not able to click "ok". It just froze and crashed and we both ended up very frustrated. This has been my experience and I feel there are certain bugs that need to be fixed. There were no issues among the Apple devices I own, but for some reasons I could not get it to work between Apple and Android systems.

As someone who has setup many networks, with various equipment from multiple manufacturers, this is the first one I’d say you’d be best looking for something else. The setup process should be easy, but isn’t. It is filled with dead ends and useless help. Things that should work, like texting you the admin passcode, do not work. Why would they not provide a first time code with the requirement to change on first login and to setup the software? Sadly this is a fail as far as I’m concerned and again I’m very familiar with setting up networks and network monitoring devices. First time I could not get through the setup process despite multiple attempts and much frustration along the way. And the instructions that come with the unit do not match the app, so that is another fail. And as a last resort, plugging into the network jack is a fail.

Easy setup through app. I have 7 people in my house and it took me less than 20min to setup. The kid app that installs on your kids phone(s) monitors and tracks their activity when they are not in your house wifi. You can monitor and limit online actives and it also tracks where the phone it located using GPS.

Setting up the Circle Home Plus in my home was simple, even for a non techy like myself. I appreciate the added level of security in my home internet. The app that controls the Circle is simple and I can add or remove devices in seconds.

Once setup this keeps track of my kids online activities and lets us meter/control screen time. Very nice phone based app works along with the physical cube that connects inline with you wifi router.

Just open app and you can manually pause internet including mobile phones and smart tv. Also you can schedule bedtime. Worth it!

Wife wanted some internet control around the house and bugged me to get this unit. I finally installed it and had it running for several days and worked ok but I was not too impressed. You can get the same filtering and protection on most standard routers (assuming you know your IP address). But also, I purchased an eero mesh system as my wi-if signal was not strong in some areas. In my view, the eero provided the same or better security features than the circle. I also figured out how to program screen time and restrictions on the X-Box and my kids iPhones so I got those bases covered. In fact, this has been my biggest accomplishment during COVID-19 :-) All in, I found the circle easy to use but simply redundant with the provided features on other devices.

This replaced all the per month subsriptions with 1 device and has done an even better job. Easy to use, easy to maintain and perfect for a house with all age range of kids (4 between 15-8yrs). Use it to minimize video game time, use it to shut kids out for bedtime, use it for content control. Can even pick and choose what apps we want and don't want and time control per app they are using. Great value great product!

Bought this to manage usage at home. Very easy to use, app is great and I now have control! The only issue I have had tho is when the kids use their school issued chromebooks that utilize a school proxy...they can still get out to sites whenever they want. I don't blame this on circle, just saying be aware and check with your school on proxies if you want to manage school issued devices.

Love this! Has made life so much easier. I can keep track of whstkids are spending time doing online and limit games and different apps. Makes it less of a fight! And the company is great to deal with. My son broke the cord and they sent a new one no chsrge!

Give you the ability to limit your kids internet time, you can control what they are browsing and you can reward them with time, everything works very well but the only bad thing is its not recommended for high internet speeds like gigabit speed, works well with 100mbs or less and its also wireless

With smart phones and iPads taking over time I’m the day. It’s great to have control over my family’s screen time. This works well enough and the premium edition allows me to control screen time away from the house.

A little tricky to set up but seems to be working so far. Will be useful as the kid gets more curious online...