Circle with Disney Parental Controls and Filters for Wireless Devices

Really impressed. Totally simple to use and great tool. Our children are pretty well behaved, do listen to rules, and don't abuse their internet - yet Circle gives me confidence I can protect them from accidentally seeing things that they shouldn't need to see at a young age. YouTube Restricted mode, Safe Search, and a heap of non-child friendly web filters incredibly easy to apply across the kids devices. As they get older it allows me to say to them - "I can see exactly what sites you have been on" - which is the kind of transparency I want to make them realise the internet is a public place not a private place. Some routers sort of do this, but not per person and never with such clear reporting from your iPhone. We don't need to use the more intrusive features to manage our children - like timed-allowance, or internet-time rewards, or god mode feature (pause all internet in the house) - but its quite nice to know its there in case any behaviours took a turn for the worse.

I'll tell you my experience and let you make up your own mind... Have been living with a 'smart' home for the last 18 months - lights / heating / alarm system / etc., and I'm like a 5-year old child with it... hours of entertainment knocking the lights off on the kids from my phone...never gets old that...(this is how exciting my life is)... anyway no real bother with anything. I'm pretty security aware so passwords are changed regularly. So, the Circle device arrived on Monday, and ashamed as I am to admit it, there was a slightly over stimulated Homer Simpson moment with an 'oooh-ooh-ooh' / jittery fingers / feet swapping actions etc. / with unboxing and un-packaging it. With the exception of some very small teething issues the device did really well on installation - it was pretty straight forward process. The UX is very VERY excellent and managing the family profiles is a doddle - obviously some effort has been put into this from the UI guys in Circle, I couldn't fault it. The on-boarding process contains a cautionary note indicating a 48 hours timeframe is required for the unit to recognise all devices in the home - so happy days... life is just soooooo good. So... Day 3 started at 5am in the morning when I woke to hear the heating boiler kick start.... (a "WTF??" moment if ever there was one)...who put the heating on in our bedroom at 5am????? The heating has been off all summer and the smart heating device has been in OFF mode since May (with a small passcode lock in case any of the little frosty-boned children I live with made a unilateral decision that everybody in the house was cold)... so crawled out of bed, knocked it off from the wall and went back to my lovely dream. Next morning, all good at home - kids having a bit of an allergic reaction to their new restrictions from Circle... but there ya go kids...when you're paying the bills you can watch what ya want, until then, soak it up. Went to leave the house and noticed the house alarm was off... another "WTF???" moment...definitely set that last night... how is it off? What the sh*t is going on...? Then, like slow-mo video reveal from my iPhone, it finally dawns on me that the only thing new / different the last couple of days was the Circle Device from Disney... what are the chances..? Hmmmmmmmmm. So, right away I got on the ole tin-ternet and searched the term under 'vulnerabilities Circle by Disney'... the Nov 2017 thread from ZDNet that caught my eye... "Circle with Disney web filter riddled with vulnerabilities / The kid-friendly Internet filter protects children but did not shield family privacy" and I read it thoroughly... what a 'come-to-Jesus' moment that was. As I read, it was like an out-of-body experience with a HD camera rapidly approaching my face as I was calculating just how much work it was going to be to put this right....and then set about the following tasks: > Factory reset on my service providers modem... a 90mins support awaiting new addressing. > Factory re-install on all android devices / phones / tablets / etc. > Factory re-install on smart heating device > 2 Hours on hold to house alarm security firm resetting the home security unit And as if all of that wasn't enough, just to top things off, I noticed 2 hours after unplugging it, that the wee little led light was still on and pulsing away and would not switch off (as if the little b#±t@rd white box was winking at me saying 'not dead yet'). So did a factory re-install yet again on the Circle unit but to be honest all trust had collapsed at this point and the pulsing light remained...so it was either a bucket of water, or jump in the car and run it over to my Mothers house (who has no internet) and leave it there until the battery died...(I opted for the later, which then led to a 30min unscheduled visit and a cup of tea with a nice rich-tea biscuit... nice visit.. but really hadn't got the time). All in, twas a total balls of a weekend - spent all Saturday / Sunday re-instating everything that little white box had any sort of dealings with, while getting mangled by 3 angry children and an understandably agitated wife (who's confidence in me is in a constant state of review)... oh yeah, and to top it off, I got to miss the Pope drive by the top of our road (not joking) – he was in Dublin the weekend first time in 40 years and drove by the top of our road and I missed it cause I was b@lls-deep in fixing the mess this box had made. Suffice to say, if you're bored and up for a challenge knock yourselves out... it's totally 'J-Awsome'... like 'Awesome'... but with really really REALLY sharp teeth.

Very easy to setup & manage. Steps were straight forward as follows :- 1. Connect to the Circle WiFi network that appears when you turn on the Circle. 2. Connect to the Circle's management console & set it to join it your existing WiFi (assuming you have a compatible router - check the list). The Circle WiFi network will then disappear 3. Connect to your original WiFi & open the Circle application on your phone 4. Create a profile for each family member, selecting their age category (eg. teen), total allowed usage time, bedtime, etc. 5. Within the app, assign the detected devices (they are assigned to the Home profile initially, which has no restrictions applied) to the relevant family member's profile. You can change the detected name to a friendlier one if you wish (eg. rename android_2345612_785 to Toms Phone). Multiple devices can be assigned to a single profile (eg. Toms Phone, Toms iPad, Toms Laptop) 6. Sit back & wait for the kids to complain. You receive alerts on your phone / pad, wherever you have the Circle app installed, as & when the Circle box disappears of the network / kids exceed time limits / new devices join your WiFi / etc.

I am on my second week using this device constantly and although it is quite good at what it advertises itself to be able to do, I have two major reservations and hence knocking two stars off my rating. The first and more important one is that it is quite flaky in terms of its operation. It frequently disconnects for no obvious reason which results in the whole internet to go down before needing to reboot it by performing a hardware power cycle. It also very frequently drops out of being able to picked up by the mobile app requiring re-registration of the device (although it shows up on my network, the circle app just cannot see it). There are other issues related to this like my inability to block DNS ports on my router for security as this seems to affect the device's performance even more adversely. The second significant issue is that when a malfunction occurs and I am away from home, I would not be able to access the device or my router remotely to be able to reboot it as the internet access to my home network will be completely broken. I am happy to persevere with these niggles just now as it is helping control the kids access and internet time but I really hope that these will be fixed with time. My last worry is that the company would eventually move into a subscription-based business model (yes, I have been bitten by the likes of Canary.is and Y-Cam...etc.) as they are already charging for their mobile service (Circle GO) making the whole idea much more over-priced than it is now.

***** EDIT ***** Having previously left a negative review due to set up problems it is now time to change this review to something more positive. After posting the review, Circle's customer team were very quickly in making contacting to resolve the problems. The problem was finally found to relate to the channel that the home Wifi is broadcast on. For those that may have encountered similar problems The Circle will imitate your home Wifi settings during the initial setup process. If your 2.4Ghz Wifi is broadcast over a channel greater than 6 then the Circle can not imitate the channel so will not create the Hotspot. To resolve you this change the Wifi router channel to something less than 6. Factory reset your Circle and it will now create the Hotspot needed for setup. Circle support have continued to stay in contact since this was resolved to make sure i'm still happy with everything so 'hats off' to the Circle Support team. So going back to my original review; 1) I can confirm that Circle is 'officially' available in the UK, 2) Full support will be given by the Circle teams. Am I now happy - Yes. Circle has now been working for a few weeks and after the initial tweaking of the profile settings it is working really well - to the point that i'm now recommending the device to friends. My only negative has been that the MyCircle app consumed lots of battery on my Android phone and sometimes the network at home appears a little slower. Buts that's a small price to pay compared to the positives. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Have spent nearly 3 hours unsuccessfully trying to set this up. I've been told by Circle support that Circle's are not officially available in the UK, yet Amazon are selling the device with a three pin UK plug (which looks like an official circle plug) and all the apps are available in the UK stores - that doesn't make much sense! I was also asked if I had an iPhone to set this up as it's easier to do than Android. How about Circle resolve those problems with Android rather than recommend I buy a new phone? And to top it all off the support agent hung up on the live chat session! Needless to say this will be going straight back to Amazon. My advice is don't buy one of these if you live in the UK and don't have an iPhone. Great in principle, but execution leaves a lot to be desired

These devices are excellent. I originally used Disney Circle built in to my router, when I sold the netgear router I missed the circle filtering so much I bought this device which can run with most routers. I tend to plug it into my router by ethernet cable rather than wireless - I find my network runs a bit snappier that way.

With a company as big as Disney I was expecting some kind of customer service if something goes wrong. It is a great product if you don't have any problems but don't expect any help from Disney if everything does not go perfectly.

I have been looking for a good parental internet management solution for years and CIRCLE does it very well indeed! 3-4 friends have now bought one on foot of my recommendation. This device makes managing exceptions (and there are ALWAYS exceptions) very easy. Kids seem to accept it too.

Best purchase I have made for our family and the internet. I had to purchase a new router so I made sure I had one that was compatible, I would ensure your router is compatible before purchase. This device is extremely easy to use. Every person has a profile that you make that covers ALL of their devices. You can block apps per person or set a time limit per day that covers ALL of their devices. I like that I can see what our teenage is up to in the history portion. Our teenager tried to download Fortnite and it was destroying our data. This helped us catch it and block the malicious content. It was also amazing to show the teenager how much screen time they had actually used (it was a wake up call). I like the pre-made settings based off age. We have messed around with this quite a bit and were very impressed. It is a bit of ease as a parent. This thing is serious though. If you forget you've assigned a device (like an ipad) to a certain setting it can be quite frustrating to figure out what is wrong until you remember. It's that serious. Better than pre-set router parental control. It's not even comparable, at all. You can set certain devices to bypass this (tv, your own stuff). Have not noticed any slow down for the devices that go through this. The features to reward extra time are very easy and very neat to use. I cannot say how much of a game changer this is for family safety and peace of mind with a teenager. This actually works. I was sold on this by the end of the second day that I had it. This is worth every penny and more.

Me lo recomendo un amigo, muy facil de usar. Tienes control de todo a lo que se conectan a tu WiFi. Mis hijos lo odian, ya que les control las redes sociales, veo a que paginas se meten, etc. Tengo hijos de 7 15 años. Lo he recomendado y ya van 2 amigos que lo compran.

Absolument génial. J’ai essayé plusieurs contrôles parentaux jamais bien. Celui-ci est tellement facile à utiliser. Un clic suffit pour mettre internet en « pause »...et votre ado arrive pour dîner ..sans son téléphone !! Vous et votre ado aussi pouvez voir le temps passé sur chaque appli, mettre l’heure pour qu’il dorme ou qu’il travaille. Un forfait à 20mo et il ne pourra pas utiliser sa 4g sinon il faut intégrer le système pour bloquer la 4g Je suis étonnée que cette application ne soit pas si connue des parents car, quelle sérénité maintenant !

Great product, but came with a wall plug only usable in the U.S. Had to use other plug for Australia. Not a bit deal because is was for USB.

Keeps disconnecting from the network. The product as such is very effective but what's the use if it is not connected. Badly in need of a good firmware update.