Circle Media - Circle with Disney - White

I got the Circle as soon as it was available at Best Buy, rather than online. It set up easily. It takes a while to figure out some of the IP addresses for devises, finding the right time limit settings and filters, but overall we (the parents) love it! The kids do NOT like it one bit, since the Circle is doing exactly what it's supposed to do- block apps and turn them off after they hit the time limit.

Circle has simplified managing the time our kids spend online. It's simple enough to configure that my non-techie wife finds it easy to regulate, limit, filter, and pause our kid's Internet access. It's simple log shows who is accessing the Internet and when. Easy setup and no special connections. (We just set it up high on a shelf so the kids can't see it.).

The circle does what it says it does. The only complaint is that sometimes it seems to loose connection.

This item meets and exceeds my expectation of protecting children from accessing undesired material on electronic devices.

For context, I'm the parent of a 13-yr-old with a cell phone and a 9-yr-old without. We purchased the Circle based on reviews after trying to reign in our kids' internet access through software, router, and ISP solutions. None offered the flexibility, access, and reporting we were looking for. The Circle comes the closest to our idea of a perfect solution, and it is priced below other less-featured solutions. The major features that attracted us to the Circle were the ease of access using the iOS app, the kid-proof-ness of the design, the fact that it works with the router we already bought to do this (for 3x the Circle price), and the ability to set up multiple groups with multiple on/off times each day. Being able to put each kid's personal devices into their own group allows us to switch off the younger child's access for an earlier bedtime without affecting the older one. We also have separate groups for family-wide devices like the primary homework computer - these get different schedules for accessing entertainment vs educational websites. The ability to also exclude devices like our security cameras and thermostat from the user pool is helpful for when anarchy breaks out and we have to lock everything else down until the tantrums end (you other parents know what I'm talking about). While it's not perfect (the interface can be clunky at times, and you can't undo a reward given to a child, for example) the overall experience is leaps and bounds above anything else we've tried. Improvements are always coming, and connections to multiple additional apps have been promised. It's great as-is, and hopefully it will just get better. Note: We have not yet tried the paid service that controls devices on a mobile network, but it is supposedly an extension of the included home wifi service.

As a father of seven (yes SEVEN) children and a technology professional, I've worked hard to protect my family from the junk that is out there on the internet. I've had from transparent proxies, custom firewalls, and DNS servers; but I've never been able to share it with my friends and family because it took too much expertise to manage it and keep it up to date. Enter Circle with Disney. This is the device I've been wanting for years. I retired the other devices. I still use OpenDNS as a first layer of defense, and of course malware protection, but Circle adds the time limits, targeted filtering, and everything else in a really easy to use application. The application, by the way (on Android) is improved and more stable than when I first got it (otherwise I would have only given four stars). They still could do more... like integrating controls with shared devices that have logins (like my kids homework desktop computer), but overall I'm thrilled.

This is how parental control SHOULD be. Period. I am amazed by how easy it is to configure and to control individual children. This is what I have been looking for! If you have kids, buy this. Protection is great, and no monthly fees. When your kid gets blocked, they can scroll down to see a bunch of Disney advertisements, but no big deal. Now, for the down sides... It uses "ARP spoofing" to do its magic. This means that if you use it wirelessly, all traffic will go over you network three times (once from device to router, once from router to Circle, once from Circle back to router). This may slow your wireless network speed. However, you can get around this by simply plugging the device in. The down side is that if it is where the kids can get to it, they can unplug it. The final down side is that there ARE ways around ARP spoofing, but the vast majority of kids out there will not know how to do this. Also, you should know that this ONLY manages devices on your network. If your child's device has a data plan, they can turn WiFi off and get around it. If they go to a friend's house, no protection. Can the get on a neighbor's WiFi? If so, no protection. What I **REALLY** want to see is for Circle to make their own router.

This is working fairly well so far. It is basically setting up filtering based on the MAC address of each device that touches your network. As a result, this filters or restricts per device not per person. Therefore, I cannot set up settings for my iPad for my 8 year old daughter that are different from my 4 year old son since they share the device. I can only set up restrictions for the device as a whole. This made me reconsider the settings for many of my devices, especially my shared devices. As another example, I can keep the internet from being accessible on my Apple TV to prevent the kids form turning on Netflix at 6am. However, if I turn off the internet at night too early, then my wife and I cannot watch Netflix. I also cannot restrict Netflix content on the Apple TV through the Circle b/c I will be restricted as well. Another surprise was that I have a lot more MAC Addresses touching my network then I thought. Many of them are cryptic and I have no idea what they are. I'll figure it out eventually. In short, this is going to set up restrictions on DEVICES, not people. It does this very well in an easy to use interface and I recommend it.