Discontinued: Circle with Disney

The Circle is a marvelous invention and I love it. I could have done some time management for my teenager's heavy internet use through the software for my router, but the router can't come close to the flexibility of this device. The Circle "sees" every device on your network and allows you to assign each one to specific users. Each user gets a profile in which you can set age-targeted basic filtering, on/off times, and bed and wake time.Doing all this through the phone app is a breeze, and you don't have to be in the house - the app controls the Circle from anywhere. And you can have the app on more than one device, so for us, my wife and I both have control over our internet via our phones. You can also use a Rewards feature to disable an off time and other things. And you can set all the devices you don't want to restrict to a "Home" profile or make them Unmanaged altogether. These and other features make for an extremely customizable level of control over any or all wifi enabled devices, and believe me, all mine are managed through it.Oh, and in the app you have a Pause button both in the main screen (so you can stop the entire internet across all devices in your home network), and in the family members' profiles. It's like a kill switch! So if my kid does something super heinous, I can drop the consequence bomb of losing his internet instantly. It actually helped him choose his behaviors better, knowing he lives on his internet time. While not the only thing a good parent would use, it's a great part of the parenting toolkit.I also like that the company is really family-centric and is working on more enhancements like connecting with rewards and chore apps, etc.I haven't used the Disney content or feature, so I can't speak to that. Also, I had worried that this device would slow the internet speed of our wifi (or at least for the managed devices) but I'm happy to say it has no noticeable effect, including on high-demand activities like streaming and my son's gaming.I really recommend this device to my fellow parents for peace of mind. Set up is just a little tricky, but the directions are very good and they have a great support page online. After setup, we found that we don't use it much except to give rewards (extra time online) here and there and to add new devices to profiles. It has become an easy to use part of our lives.One caveat: In the initial setup process, then when a new device is sensed later, some devices appear listed in the Circle app with a name that is easy to identify, like "iPhone". This is super helpful so you can know who to assign with device to. But many show up labeled with their MAC address instead, and some with weird names. For example, my kiddo's new PC is a PowerSpec brand from Microcenter, but showed up as "ASUS..." something or other. Basically, the Circle was naming the PC for its network card brand. I'm somewhat techie, so I don't mind getting on those odd-named devices to figure out which ones are which in Circle. I did that and then renamed them in the Circle app to something far easier, like "Johny's PC", etc. Again, most of this work was the evening I set up the Circle for the first time. It was about an hour or so. Now, when a new device is sensed (a visitor's phone, Nintendo DS, etc.), we can add it, leave it on the default Home profile (we leave that one unrestricted), or just ignore it since its not a permanent family member's device.So with a little patience and just a pinch of techie-ness, you can set up a Circle and reap the benefits. Again, I highly recommend it! Final note: we've been using it for 5 months or so and works great. Power failures (often short in our area) will temporarily disable the Circle, and you get a notification that it's offline on your phone. Once the network and Circle are back up, you get another notification telling you it's back online. I like that, too.

-----September 10, 2016Updated review after 1 1/2 months of usage: Downgraded from 5 stars to 1 star. The product is unusable.It worked great out of the box -- just as my review outlines below. However, as time wore on our home internet began to rot. Here's what I mean: Our iPhones could not connect via wifi, our Tivos quit working, our Nest thermostats dropped offline. Sometimes a reboot of our router would fix some of these items, but eventually, they just stopped.I would be (slightly) OK with all this if they had some form of customer support. They don't. The best that they offer is a FAQ. No phone line, no email address.Worst part: Some of our devices have not "recovered" even after the Circle thing was turned off for 2 weeks.Great product idea, I really liked it at first. The UI execution is good, but there are problems they didn't anticipate with the technical execution.I can only give an unusable product 1 star.-----July 28, 2016We just got this and installed it. The current review is just after installation. I'll come back and update my review after we've used it for a few weeks.-----Out of box experienceSet up and installation were smooth as silk. It goes like this: You connect the electricity. You install the app on your iPhone (also available on Android). From there the app directs the remainder of your configuration. Connect your iPhone to the wifi network that Circle makes available, then tell it the SSID and password for your wireless router. After that the Circle network disappears and you connect back to your router.The app then prompts you to set up a profile for each of your family members. The main task here is to associate devices with each person. I was surprised that Circle detected 23 devices in our house: Laptops, iPhones, TiVos, Nest thermostats, printers, etc. etc. There are still 3 devices that I'm not sure about.For each person you can set filters to limit access to inappropriate content, you can also set a "bedtime" where the internet is shut down for all that person's devices (e.g., 11PM to 6AM). Additionally you can set time limits for each person and even split those limits out to different categories of content (videos, shopping, etc.).-----A finer pointI wanted a bit more fine-grained control over gaming versus "regular" internet usage, so I created two profiles for each of our kids: One for game consoles and one for their other devices. That will let me totally shut off the consoles without limiting more mundane access. We'll see how that pans out.-----How the technology worksI have to admit that I'm completely sure how this device works. Other products work by intervening physically between your kids' devices and the rest of the internet. For instance, a competing product (koalasafe) works by setting up a completely separate wireless network that your kids must connect through -- I get that. On the other hand, Circle connects as an ordinary device to your existing wireless router, then takes it over via mind control of some sort.----Pros+ Very easy set up.+ Does what we need it to do -- sets time limits and turns off the internet at bed time.+ Solid, simple smartphone app configuration and monitoring.+ Smartphone app works even if you are outside the house.+ Reports that summarize individual child's activity.+ Big one: The company is alive and actively improving its product. Some competing services (webcurfew) seem to be dead or dying companies.-----Cons/limitations- No control over devices when they are not connected to your home's wifi. A particular risk here is that a child can set up their iPhone as a hotspot, then connect to any content through that hotspot. Our approach to this is to set low monthly limits on their smartphone data usage.- No control over devices outside the home (e.g., smartphones at school). Circle does offer a subscription app you can install on your kids phones to monitor them outside the home.- Only way to monitor/configure is via the smartphone app. There is no web-based interface, or other way to control the device.- Only can control the system from a single smartphone. It would be nice if both me and my wife could change the configuration.- Weird name. The "Disney" affiliation is tenuous.-----Competing productsI have looked at a few other competing products, but settled on Circle for now:+ WebCurfew: This is a cloud based service that you allow to remotely connect to and control your router. I tried it. The interface was very clunky and slow. I couldn't figure out how to set schedules. Just overall cheesy feeling.+ KoalaSafe: This is a device that you connect to your existing router. It sets up a separate wireless network that your kids must connect to. Overall it looks like a promising product, but the reviews seemed to indicate that it was not as good as the Circle. The primary weakness seemed to be that the quality of the wireless connections was low.+ Individual router controls: Many routers (e.g. Apple's airport, ASUS) have options that let you set on/off times for individual devices. These are OK, but not as flexible as Circle. For instance, I can easily "ground" all of a kid's devices with a single click using Circle.-----OverallGreat product. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.