Customer Ratings & Reviews

It stated your kids can’t remove from device, wrong. Mine had figured it out. We also had our Xbox with time limits, didn’t work properly and caused many issue with playing on it. It was completely a waste of our money.

We have 11 connected devices in our home. Some Apple, some Android. Right off the bat there were issues with some of the Android devices and an older iPad trying to connect and quite frankly, the hassle of installing the app on every device was annoying. Plus, with so many ways to get online, setting limits for individual profiles was useless. Our kids aren't dumb and figured out quickly that switching devices was an easy work around and it's not practical to keep everything locked down at all times. We keep things pretty secure through parental controls on our devices already but thought a few of the features of the Circle Home Plus would come in handy. Unfortunately, the ones we are most interested in like bedtime are premium features that will require a paid subscription after the initial trial period of 12 months. A year free is a pretty generous offer but without doing much that we can't already control through the devices themselves, routers and settings in individual apps and services and good old fashioned parental oversight, I'm not inclined to pay a monthly fee in a year so why get used to using it? If there were less devices all on the same platform I'm sure it would work fine but it's not for us.

Circle Home Plus is a well-conceived take on the question of how to control and filter internet usage across multiple devices and family members of different ages and with different needs. Rather than relying on software installed on each device, Circle provides a centralized approach by monitoring and, if needed, interdicting traffic to various devices on your home network. This allows you to set filters and time limits on a per user basis without the option for tech savvy kids to disable software on their own devices. Pros: 1. Easy to set up on either wired or wireless connections 2. Centrally managed from a smartphone app that works at home or remotely 3. Intercepts and interrupts internet traffic in conjunction with your home network router, making it more tamper resistant and easier to update and configure than software based solutions 4. Allows you set up multiple user profiles with deeply customizable filters for each user. 5. Allows devices to remain unmanaged by the system (so you can exclude things like smart light switches, etc.) 6. Easy to set limits on usage time, allowed services (YouTube, Instagram, etc.) across multiple devices 7. Can be added to mobile devices to allow you to apply the same filters and limits even when those devices are out of the home. 8. Device is physically small, innocuous, and can be powered from USB. Cons / limitations: 1. The system doesn’t monitor screen time, just network usage time. 2. The system cannot filter or report text messages 3. I ran into some bugs. For example, in one case pausing the internet for one user caused Circle to become unresponsive to the app. In another case, a device that should have had internet access temporarily lost access. In general, it works fine. 4. Access to the more advanced features is free for one year but then requires a $9.95 / month subscription 5. The Circle web pages displaying messages about why certain pages were blocked were sometimes blocked by the browser due to missing security certificates 6. Privacy is a question mark Circle generally works by monitoring traffic on your network and intercepting traffic in cases of violations of the controls you’ve established. This can mean filtering out requests to certain web addresses which the system determines are either a) not allowed because you’ve blocked a particular app like Instagram, or b) serving material which you’ve blocked using category filters such as dating, sex, health, etc. It can also mean blocking any traffic other than system level updates to devices once a user has used all allowable connection time. For mobile devices, Circle installs a virtual private network (VPN) on the device to be monitored along with the Circle app. This allows monitoring of all network traffic to the phone even when not on your local Wi-Fi network. It’s a clever solution to monitoring of devices outside the home. While the phone user could disable or uninstall the VPN, this action will be noted in your Circle control panel, so it’s still possible for parents to enforce accountability. The app works well. It’s easy to establish new user profiles, edit limits and even grant one-time exceptions. The scheduling is flexible, allowing different time limits on weekends vs. weekdays, and allowing you to enforce bedtimes and “down times” which are independent of the time limits themselves. In my use so far, I’ve found the content filtering and service blocking to be much better than nothing, but not perfect. For example, blocking Facebook blocked facebook.com but still allowed certain direct FB links and/or messages to work. Turning on safe search still allowed some explicit results to be displayed, although they were greatly reduced and actually trying to access the pages in question usually resulted in the action being blocked. The biggest negative is that by its very nature the service does not allow monitoring of text messages (or other messaging services for that matter). This is unfortunate as this style of messaging is one of the ways kids are targeted, be it by acquaintances and bullies or others. That said, I think the fundamental design of the service is solid and the approach of using a VPN on mobile devices is an excellent solution to out of home monitoring. Monitored mobile devices can also have their locations monitored. The other thing worth thinking about with any service like this is privacy. You’re essentially letting a packet sniffer onto your local network and transferring all the usage data to the cloud. While the service ostensibly does not transmit data for unmonitored devices, it’s still worth noting that a large volume of data around the usage in your home and on monitored phones is being sent to a third party. For concerned parents, the loss of potential privacy could be a small price to pay for an easily manageable way to help protect their kids on line and allow them more freedom as they grow.

This device was easy to setup. Simple plug in and connect via app. This device quickly captured all my devices on the network with ARP. Once this was done, I just had to setup my user profiles. I setup Home, Kids, Adult. Each had a different profile but mostly I focused on the kids. I was able to set several filters and time limits for their devices. Its was very easy to do. I did have an issue where the device was blocking a site but there wasn't a event log or any notification on the IPAD, I think this is a good product that provides a fantastic service to non-technical users. I just want more information and the ability to manage via desktop rather than my mobile. Highly recommended for the concerned parent that wants to monitor utilization and control content for their kids.

too difficult but good customer service. I had to return

The pervasiveness of the web and the multitude of applications found in many homes bring a number of benefits. However, many parents find themselves struggling to find ways to effectively monitor and moderate the internet activities of their children at home. The Circle Home Plus, with it's full range of features and simple setup, is a welcome and effective tool. Download the companion app, plug the unit into your router, and you're immediately ready to begin. After identifying devices, you assign them to family members, or to the home in general, or whatever designation you like. Then you can set individual filtering levels, hours of use, total time on, and other parameters for each label you've established. There's even a 'reward' feature for rewarding someone with extra connection time. For clarity, you should know that the Circle Home Plus is not a router. It plugs into your router and controls it. Many of these features are found, in a basic form, on modern smart routers. However, few (if any) give the full range of controls found on the Circle Home Plus. That, coupled with it's plug-and-play simplicity, makes it an excellent value. Depending on the number and variety of devices you have, it may take some work to correctly identify them at first. I had more than one show up as 'Apple Device'. So I had to turn the internet off and on for them until I could identify them - and label them accordingly. Once that was accomplished, I could control them with confidence. The Circle Home Plus fills a clear need for modern families.

Circle Whats in the box ————————— * Circle Home Plus Circle * Ethernet cable * Power adapter * Quick start guide * USB cable Pros —— 1. Control online time for kids 2. Setup Bedtime for kids 3. Monitor websites visited 4. Shortcut to control facebook, instagram etc 5. Pause internet to get attention 6. Schedule offline times Cons —— 1. Most good features require premium subscription 2. Premium subscription is free only for a year Review ——— SETUP The setup is very straight forward, download the app, connect the circle home plus to the router and use the app to setup the circle home plus. Once the setup is complete, it will let you identify the devices connected to the internet snd you can assign groups to the devices. Once you assign the groups, you can control different attributes like online time, scheduling etc for the group FILTERING you can use the companion app to control which apps can be online and which ones cannot be. You can for example say that facebook is not allowed for kids and they won’t be able to use it on their device. You can also setup time limit broadly or per app to control the online times. The app installed on their devices also will notify if they are running low on time. PAUSE & OFFLINE (PREMIUM FEATURE) the app allows you to setup bed time so that kids cannot go online after a certain time or you can pause the internet so that when it is say dinner time , you pause the internet so that they come over to the dining table. Because they never listen when you ask them to!. The app will also let you setup offline times so that you can watch a movie together etc… FILTERTING (PREMIUM FEATURE) The app lets you filter either by platform or by websites, apps or platforms per group. It will also tell you the history on which platform was used how long and which websites have been visited. Other feature I did not mention is the rewarding feature which I never used As I have noted above, important features are still premium. I would rather have the higher upfront cost than have to pay membership.

Being that my internet provider has no way of me monitoring my kids usage I was dealing with my son staying up gaming while everyone else would be in bed. This device gave me 100% control of everything connected to wifi. I absolutely love it & he hates it. When I say get off the game he knows that with this device I can remove him by the app on my phone. I will receive a notification if it goes offline so there's no sneaking and unplugging anything. It's separate profiles so that I'm able to filter out the restrictions for each child separately or timing online and bedtime. When I pause the internet at home my smart TV keeps trying to reconnect every 10 mins so it will let me know circle has paused the internet(my choice) so that was the most annoying thing but not a problem at all. I receive emails that tells me more that I can do with this box but everything was simple just playing with the app a little. If I could give it 10 stars I would because this works perfectly for what I need for my family!!!

The Circle Home Plus is an excellent security and content solution for parents who want to protect their kids. You can set different schedules for each user, and it can monitor content on various types of devices, not just phones. You can allow or disallow specific apps, limit screentime, set schedules, set a bedtime shut-down, see a phone's location, etc. There are very few things you can't do. As the parent of a young teen, the type of configurability offered by Circle is tremendous. I have used other apps, but I really appreciate the many options and controls offered by Circle. But nothing is perfect. I would have preferred a better cord management system, but I guess it's good enough. And there are so many controls that it can be daunting to set up. But once it's up and running, it's amazing. Note, there is basically a $10/month charge for the app to monitor devices, but the device includes the first year free. Even at $10, that's not a bad deal. Other apps I've used accomplish far less and cost about the same.

Good: - Intuitive control from one central location, with a number of ways to monitor and control device usage. Provides some peace of mind as to not only how much devices are being used, but exactly what they have access to. - Controls seem to work as intended - time limits, pausing on individual devices - Notifications for new devices entering the home network - Device browsing habits easily monitored - Internal battery, in case AC gets connected Bad: - Most, if not all, of the features of this device can be replicated manually without the expense. What you're really paying for here is the ease of use and the convenience of having everything in one place. Misc: - Basic features are, well, rather basic - web filtering, usage stats, and history. If you want the more substantial features like setting time limits, pausing, bedtime, GSP, etc., you'll have to subscribe for $9.99/month. - Each device must have the client side app installed (free) Overall: This device is sort of a "one stop shop" for relatively straight forward household network controls. In my experience so far it seems to work fairly well. My only real issue with it is the subscription service. $10/month seems a bit pricey (after of course purchasing the unit itself), so I took off one star.

I am a decently pretty tech savvy guy, I have a lot of things on my network, and I do like to monitor it. I have roommates that are internet hogs,visitors, and IoT devices I thought might be fun to hook up to this. I do have an ATT home WiFi router and have it pretty much locked down. All my IoT devices are on the guest network, with guests. This devices partially duplicates what I have already done with a new device to add to the network. Setup was moderately easy, my router and security settings didn't like it the first couple of tries. I had to make a new profile for each of my roommates (don't even ask about the IoT devices I wanted to just add). Then give them permissions (duplicated whats on my router). All of the settings were pretty easily bypasses by my non tech savvy roommates and friends that came over. If you have non tech savvy kids, and dont want to delve into how a router works and have some extra cash. Other than that, save your money and spend it on some extra fun stuff

We have 2 young girls in our house and I'm always monitoring their digital time. I had been looking at the Circle with Disney at the store for a while, so when I saw Circle Plus I thought I'd give it a shot. Setting up was straightforward enough, hook it up to my router and set up the app. We used it for about a week or so before I made the choice to unplug it. I wasn't really seeing any value outside of the Screentime settings on my girls' iPad minis. We already control their content and screen time settings on those devices and having to have something manage settings on top of already managed settings seemed a bit redundant. If you're less technically inclined, or don't want to have to go through the trial and error of setting up Screentime on Apple devices, or have kids that will try and sneak gadget time after you've told them no - then this product might be what you're looking for. The premium features require a subscription, but I didn't see the point for us... so YMMV.

I wish I had this device when my children were growing up. Social media has made parenting more challenging and there is more to watch for these days than when my children were younger. I now have a granddaughter and she is very good at using computing devices. This gives parents control over when a child can use the internet and what they can and cannot access. It's a dream come true for monitoring online access. Even something as simple as when they watch online services on their television. It can be set to terminate their activity at a time specified. Hats off to Circle for creating a robust device that works along side a home router. I highly recommend this for anyone with children who wants control over internet access.

We tried this filter for about a week before giving up. We have two girls, and thought we needed a filter, and hoped this would do the trick. Granted there are a few positives and a few negatives that I discovered with this filter. It was reasonably easy to set up, and it has an app! However, it did slow down the wifi; I could not customize it the way I wanted, the time limits never worked correctly. It did block certain websites; "that we did not want to block," and allowed others in that should have been prevented! I decided to pull the plug and call it a learning experience. I possibly could have continued to work with it, and get the thing to work better, but I guess, it was not worth my time. I hope others will have better luck with it because it could be a useful product. It needs to be easier to work and setup. I hope this offered some helpful information. I do not want to appear all negative in this review.

Simply put, The Circle Plus automates safety and security features you may have access to on your router and wifi-network. Its easy to set-up, set limits on what your children see on the internet and how long they stay connected. The device comes with a one year subscription to the premium service that allows you to see what websites your children visit. You can also be notified if your child disconnects from wifi to use data. You can set limits on different apps and websites as well. While other products you have in your home offer similar functionality, but it's a patchwork solution at best and takes time to decipher. The Circle is an easy, quick, and centralized way to keep your family safe on the web.

Initially we had the idea that we could limit the children's usage of devices and phones after their bed times. The only problem is that if one gets turned off, they all need to be turned off. If you leave one of the older children with access on a device they can simply hand it off to another and they'll be able to use it. It's a little time consuming to set up each person and each device but once everything's done the app is really easy to use. . Our cable company provides a similar service.so between the two we've eliminated the late night fiasco's. It's a nice product with a years coverage free but I don't think I'd pay for it after that.

As a parent who is all about security and the safety of his children I love this device. You can actually lock entire applications as well as their corresponding websites. You can monitor times on the net and everything anybody on your network has ever logged into. If you're a parent with slick teenagers or you're just a parent, get your hands on this right now, because it's more than just worth it.

Best to start with what I like about the product idea. This product is built on the idea that we can monitor our kids and other devices connected to our network and are based on user management and rewards if you use your device. What parent doesn’t want to have some semblance of control over how and when our children use the devices without causing all-out conflict over the issue. Sign me up, right… Set-up: This is where the story changes. Our home has different platforms both Android and Apple, and in the case of my android, it kept freezing my app on the phone for some reason or other. After several tries, I used my wife’s phone. After several attempts, I was able to get it started. The apple was easier but my wife told me that it would randomly change settings when connected and would have to adjust it again. Also having this set-up dramatically slowed down our network and because I work from home it was just something I couldn’t deal with, so we stopped using it. Sadly, to say that we like the idea of this product, but at this time has too many bugs. I will wait for the next iteration of this product to come out and maybe some of the set-up issues, latency and cross-platform will be resolved.

So the idea behind the Circle Home Plus is to act as a web filter or proxy for either your home network or while you are on the go. You can connect your children's device and really lock down or white/blacklist content without having to micromanage it on your main home network, or go the total opposite direction and allow your children to connect without any restrictions Unfortunately, the software/firmware hasn't quite caught up to the capabilities of the hardware and the app isn't as seamless as you would expect to set up and connect to networks and then connect to the wireless devices you are trying to manage. I experienced numerous issues connecting that will probably be fixed with either app or firmware updates but right now it would be hard to recommend this device over just configuring directly at the router gateway level. Even most Mesh Network systems offer similar capabilities to filter content based on device, MAC address or even set up a separate SSID/wireless network with restrictions. I do think Circle will fix these issues as their previous devices were better reviewed. I was disappointed that the Circle Home Plus wasn't quite ready for prime time.

Let me start by saying that I'm in the technology industry and home networking is an area that I have much experience in, having configured and managed corporate and personal wireless and wired networks for the past 20 years. With that in mind, even with that experience, I cannot get the Circle Plus product to perform to my standards, and the value it offers is so minimal that I cannot recommend it even to those with less configuration experience or investment. With this product, you'll pay several premiums for essentially poor performance outcomes: Premium 1: Price - This is not an affordable product, as it retails for as much as soon decent routers. It is seemingly well-made hardware, but for what it offers it seems superfluous to place a separate device in play for it. On top of the initial purchase price (as you'll likely see these clearanced and on-sale shortly) there's a monthly subscription fee of $9.99 for any of the features beyond what most basic WiFi routers can do. While this is usually bundled in for the first year, this will be a major turnoff for second-hand owners, or folks who forget about the upcoming costs in years 2+, and will likely lead to a good deal of cancellation beyond year 1 (the hardware's costs is essentially free with a prepaid year of subscription, so why wouldn't I just buy the latest device every year at that price point? - This strategy seems odd). Premium #2: Setup Time - This thing is not as easy as other parental controls I've tested. Capturing all of my kids devices and setting them up with their own profile seemed easy enough, but in my house each of my kids as a standard complement of "devices": - Laptop - iPad - iPhone For my oldest, this was easy - Her laptop is a Mac and clearly identifies itself on the LAN. For my younger girls, their Chromebooks are identified as some illegible hash/Mac address that I had to chase down to get set to the right kid... This is largely a Google issue, but nevertheless these products should have some way of figuring this out. On top of that, this platform requires that EVERY mobile device on the network gets their app - I thought the whole point of doing this with hardware was that we wouldn't need to play "capture the iPhone" with the kids to get them under management! All in all, it took me 2-3 days over the course of a week to get everything set up how we wanted it with enforcement and measurement of activities. That's not OK in modern family scenarios. Premium #3: Network Bandwidth and Consistency - The third premium we paid, adding this "proxy server" to our network, is the loss of significant bandwidth out to the broader Internet, and sporadic drops of the network connection (not the Wifi, but the network's connection TO the Internet) particularly at Night - I assume this was related to the device's management of my children's sleep hours, but wreaked havoc on Mom and Dad's devices, which we didn't manage at all, as a result. Even the family devices, like AppleTVs and Google Homes started to fritz at night! Remove the Circle? Back to good. Every time. Can't blame anything else when you take the device offline and everything starts magically working again. This was the last straw. All in all, I can't recommend it - I DO recommend using the ecosystems family management tools (Google FamilyLink, Apple ScreenTime, etc) to control screen time for the kiddos, but don't plug things into your network to govern unless you want to be governed yourself, from time, money, and your network.