Circle Is the Parental Control for the Internet I’ve Always Wanted
Parenting often means running a small network. This is tricky because there is no built-in way to apply the same parental controls to all tablets, laptops, and other devices your family uses. This is where Circle comes in. It helps you easily manage content and screen time for each family member.
The circle is a 3-inch white cube that connects to your Wi-Fi network. The $ 99 device lets you filter content, add time limits, and view activity reports for every device on your network. It’s like God Mode for Wi-Fi devices in your home. You simply plug in the Circle’s power cord, use your iPhone or iPad to connect it to your router via Wi-Fi, and customize the settings for each family member in the Circle app. (Unfortunately, Android and other non-iOS users, Android, and web configuration and management are still in development, which is disappointing but common with first generation products.) Circle can control not only tablets and laptops, but also game consoles and smart home devices too – anything that connects via Wi-Fi.
During the 10-minute setup, I created a profile for my 9-year-old daughter, connected three devices to her profile, and set the filter level to Child. The default child filter level will automatically block social media, adult content, gambling, dating, and malicious content. It also blocks certain categories of apps and sites such as business, chat and forums, email, government and politics, and news. So it’s basically one tap to block most of the things that bother parents when it comes to kids’ use of the Internet. Other age group filters include preschool and teens. You can turn any settings on or off and add your own filters.
Circle gives you truly versatile parental controls
Parental controls are nothing new. All operating systems offer a way to limit the types of content your kids can access and / or how much screen time they are allowed. (Screen time, by the way, does not necessarily spoil the brains of your children , but too much of it can take up time for children to do other useful things, such as playing outside or sleeping well at night. And if you are a parent, you probably worry about which dark corners of the web your child might wander through.)
The problem is that with traditional methods, you need to set up parental controls on each of your devices . Except for the awesome Windows 10 Parental Controls, which matches your child’s Microsoft account settings across all Windows devices, parental controls is a feature on every device. This means I will have to customize the iPad, Chromebook, Windows laptop, and Mac that my child has access to. (And if I really wanted to go crazy, I could set up parental controls for Smart TV, Wii, PS4, etc.) I can’t even imagine doing this for gadgets for two kids, let alone to make more than two.
Also important: the settings are different for each system – there is no uniformity . iOS, for example, lets you restrict certain apps and media that your child can access, but it doesn’t let you restrict the amount of time they can spend on their phone or tablet. Chrome OS only lets you block or allow specific websites, not apps or time limits. While you can use OpenDNS or your router’s parental controls, they only install website filters, not specific applications. Most routers’ parental controls usually only limit the use of time or specific URLs on the device. (And let’s face it, how many parents use their router’s administrative controls to blacklist individual sites?)
With Circle, I have a single, higher level of control – settings that I can instantly apply or change on any or all devices, controlling both content and time usage (with some caveats – see the restrictions section below). I could turn off dating sites, for example for teens or toddlers, restrict my middle school student to apps like Disney, and turn off all filtering, but turn on ad blocking for devices owned by us adults.
Block off the Internet as much (or less) as you want
Even if your child already only uses websites and apps for kids, Circle is an added peace of mind. To be honest, I’m not particularly worried about where my 9-year-old daughter will go on the Internet. It helps that she has a natural aversion to rough adult content (like kissing and zombies) and knows when something is outside of her age group. In addition, she is usually in the same room with me when she has a gadget, and if a curse is uttered in one of the Minecraft vlogs she is subscribed to, I just need to take a look at her and she will switch to no curse mode. video. But it gives me peace of mind when I know the content controls prevent it from accidentally bumping into inappropriate things. For example, when she blocks news sites, she does not see headlines or photos that show the many complex issues we face today – and I can discuss them with her when the time is right and in a way that is right for us, not the media were hers. first contact with these problems.
You can also turn on ad blocking, safe search in web browsers, and YouTube restricted mode for one or more devices using Circle.
Bring back family meals by turning off the internet
The online time management feature is what attracted me the most about this device – for both her and me. A while ago I tried to introduce a no-tech lunchtime policy, which worked well at first, but then we all forgot about it and went back to our old ways of eating in front of the TV or in front of separate screens. (I’m on. When I’m on a tight schedule, I eat at my table more often than I want to admit it.) Now that dinner is on the table, I just hit the pause button in the app and no questions arise. … This gives us a good habit.
Before going to bed, the most important thing for me . Using the screen too close to sleep ruins sleep , but on school evenings my daughter has so little time to catch up on her app and video to-do list. It’s not just fun, she goes to math sites and studies science and history on BrainPop when she’s in the mood, so I really don’t mind when she gets online at school evenings. However, the mystery “only 15 minutes left in this video” makes it difficult to force the screen to turn off before bed, especially when I can’t manage my time. The circle helps: it warns you that bedtime is approaching, and then turns off Internet access at that set time. It’s like it’s carved in stone. You (and your kids) can’t argue with that.
I, a procrastinator with cards in my sleep , use this for myself. I set up a profile for myself, hooked up my devices, and now I clearly define my bedtime so I can get enough sleep every night. Of course, I can go into the application and change the bedtime settings, but this is an additional barrier for this bad habit. The funny thing is, I don’t even wait until the “looks like it’s time to sleep” screen appears. I know there is some equipment on my network that will shut off my internet access at exactly 10:55 pm, so I’d better hurry.
What the Circle cannot do
The Circle is a great family device, actually the first of its kind. (It originally launched on Kickstarter in 2013 but did not receive full funding, possibly because it was backed by a $ 195 support cost at the time. It was then bought by Disney .) However, this first version has drawbacks. The company is already working on fixing most of them, but they are worth finding out about now:
- You cannot connect the Circle to more than one network. We have 5GHz and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network with our dual band router. Circle can work with both frequencies, but only one at a time. So when my daughter is connected to the Mordor2.4 network and Circle turns off the internet, she can switch to the Mordor5 network and still remain online. (She discovered this, of course. So now I need to change one of the network passwords so that she can only use one of them.) If you have more than one Wi-Fi network in your home, all the devices you want to control must be on the Wi-Fi network that you connected the Circle to. And your kids won’t be able to connect to another network!
- Circle does not work with cellular data. This is not the best solution for teenagers with smartphones who might just switch to 4G to stay connected. Circle does not manage or track access to cellular data. However, Circle founder Jelani Memory told me that 4G management will appear in Q1 2016 as a standalone subscription-based product.
- You cannot manage multiple users on shared devices . Right now, you need to assign each device to one user. However, if you share a device with others, you can put your laptop, tablet, or other device in a shared user profile, Home, so that universal settings apply to everyone who uses the device. It’s not perfect. The company is looking into supporting different user accounts for the same device, but there is no ETA for that yet.
It’s worth noting that the Circle team has created several fail-safe devices for smart (i.e. dastardly) kids . The kid doesn’t have a shutdown button to turn off the Circle. If the child disconnects the Circle, it will still be powered by the internal battery. And you will receive a push notification if Circle goes offline, disconnects, disconnects from your network, gets a new administrator account, or has been reset to factory settings. It’s also a small, unobtrusive-looking block that you can hide somewhere (it will work as long as it is powered and connected to your router).
Bottom line: a smart device for families (but pretty much a first generation attempt)
Despite its limitations, Circle can help your family find more balance when it comes to screen time. It has become much easier for me to manage multiple devices, and activity reports help me keep track of how my daughter is using this technology in our home. Currently, Circle is probably best suited for families with young (pre-teens) children who have their own devices. This is for kids like my daughter who do well in structure and may inadvertently access inappropriate content when searching the web, for parents who don’t want to tweak all parental controls on every device, and for people like me who also can use nudge to turn off this screen already.
Can we manage the time spent by our kids and our own screen without buying a $ 99 gadget? Certainly. We could go into individual parental controls for each device (although some platforms are very limited) or be more vigilant when our kids are online. Adventurous kids will walk around any wall you build. This is where parenting comes in: you still need to build trust and rapport with your children so that they understand that these limitations are for their own good. You still need to teach them the best (safest and most correct) way to use the Internet and technology. This is more important than any gadget or parental control you can install. However, when it comes to small details like filtering content and setting time limits, Circle is another tool you can add to your arsenal.