Circle Home

Amateur attempt at network security that's apparently geared towards grade school students. Clunky, minimal interface that allows hardly any nuance. Does a great job of keeping devices that I need to connect to the internet off of the internet. Edit 3/16/22 - I HATE this app! It is so difficult to disable it and it has turned my router into a paperweight because it is preventing ANY internet access! I will be buying a new router NOT made by netgear soon.

Clunky and hard to use. I have roughly 20 devices that were initially setup. Had to reset my router and that means I had to delete and re-install circle. Each time this happens, I have to go back through and find out what each "Unknown Device" is rather than it pulling the names of the devices (which I guaranteed are being broadcasted) from the device itself, nor does it pull it from the router settings. As of my most recent router reset, Circle now says that I have it setup already, and wont let me re-create anything, asking for a PIN to login and manage it now., something I don'[t have access to as I have no idea what it is. Before then, it wouldn't even pause any of the profiles I specified, it showed it was, but the devices on said profile were actively on the internet throughout the night. I would certainly get rid of this program if it wasn't the built in parental controls on my netgear.

Great App When It Works Right. UPDATE: RE: Nighthawk router. Bed time wake up is off time. In Jan did a hard reset for ISP upgrade. App didn't find Circle net. I set the acct back up it still didn't connect. Prior 2 reset there were random times when the router and the Circle app would forget each and I had this same issue. I did the trblshoot with no connection btwn the router and Circle. I was done for the night. Didn't we put men on the moon in '69 with less technology? Where is 2nd Gen?

I find the Android version of this app frustrating although trying to persevere through two years of subscription I have given up and cancelled. Backups on Android do not work. An android bug is receiving multiple notifications (had up to 7) for a single event, the only fix is to uninstall. No working backup ability means reconfigure all over. Had enough after years of perseverance, surely this Android app is being ignored by developers or dont have the expertise to fix. No web support available

I have had the circle in our home for about 3 weeks now, and it is dong a great job of limiting my kids technology time, making sure they are not on their devices after bed time, keeping them from harmful sites, and giving us a bit more family time. So I love this. However, I have to constantly reconnect to the Cube, and its really frustrating. Disney definitely needs to work on fixing this connectivity issue. I read about it in other reviews and just ignored it and took a chance, but it is a real problem that needs to get fixed. Sometimes it reconnects right away by itself, sometimes it takes a few tries, and twice I have had to go through set up of the device again to trouble shoot.

Very disappointed in the effect this system has had on my network speed. I like the functionality of the time limits, bedtimes, content filters, etc., however, my network slows to such a crawl that I cant wait for the kids to go to bed so I can unplug it and ha e restored speed. Read about other products AFTER i bought the circle system. I would recommend you do so as well. There are competitors out there that do not cause these problems.

Was originally a very good app and enabled great control over the internet access including off times, etc. However it has not worked for weeks now. It just tells me I need to reconnect. I have restarted the router a few times but it doesn't solve the problem. Somewhat difficult to cancel your subscription in the sense that you have to remember you signed up to it via Google rather being able to cancel via the app or on the circle website. If it still worked then I'd give it a good 4 stars, perhaps even 5, but if it doesn't work then why bother with it?

The Circle App is extremely buggy. Screens glitch out all the time and don't go to the correct places. The concept is good, but the functionality isnt quite right. I can add profiles but I can't tell which device in the profile made the connection. It tells you basic information such as YouTube but can't tell you which videos were viewed. The "free" version for Netgear tells you nothing. The free version is worthless. In order to get ANY information, you have to get the premium version.

I really like this system and app so far. The ability to set bedtimes and off-times is excellent, the ability to filter content and websites for family members is excellent, and the ability to see history and filtered websites is great. Yes, it can be overwhelming to have so many devices in the list, but if you identify as many as you can right from the jump and assign them to their users, it's much more manageable. Occasionally the history feature will fall behind or require some time to show up correctly, but that's a pretty minor complaint when all the major functions work consistently. Overall this app has made it a lot easier to manage device usage time for kids.

Terrible time setting it up. Finally connected only to find that the filtering didn't really work as expected. Some things filter while others do not. The profiles don't work either. It filters whatever it wants regardless of the settings. Maybe its how I set it up, but that also proves that it's not intuitively user friendly. Ive had to reset to factory settings 3x. My internet is stuck off. Luckily I have a backup connection, but its frustrating that I have to change all the devices. I give up

This is a pretty good app, it provides some helpful tools but was difficult to get up and running since the firmware on my router was old. As a parent, this is great to control devices on your network and i like that when a new device gets connected, i get a notification even when i am not home. Then i just put that device in the proper grouping. it is simple to use. Would be perfect if they didn't charge you extra money for the additional features.

Worked great for the first few months, then the Circle device became increasingly unstable and now needs to be rebooted every few days. The app now constantly crashes when trying to do some functions like increasing limits. It also now has a hard time connecting from the app -- not having a web interface is just dumb. Even though there's a lot of problems and missing features, nothing has been changed or added for the past year other than minor bug fixes -- the developers have abandoned it and only do the minimum required to keep it limping along.

This app has great potential as a set and forget management system, but so far it has been pretty frustrating. I'm trying it for a second time (paid version this time) after it erased all of my devices and profiles at the beginning of the year. It came with my Orbi so it'll be really convenient if it works but if it fails me again, I'll be DONE done. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... Anyway, I'm being reminded of all of the annoying nuances of this app. You cannot setup different restrictions to devices per person without making a separate profile for them (i.e. computer time vs TV time). It does a pretty poor job of identifying devices... lots of unknowns or blatantly wrong identifications (i.e. Unknown Linux PC = my Android phone). I know that's a bit more difficult for the app, but Netgear's does a better job. My assumption at this point is that it adds a device to your list if it just tries to connect to your network, not successfully connect. At first I thought a bunch of people were connecting to my network all the time and it was very confusing. It also doesn't seem to have an option to see if devices are actively connected or the last time they connected. Personally I would like an approved list... I manually do this by a separate profile that I assign devices to after I approve them. When my wife joined with my passcode to be able to manage devices from her phone too, it's nice that it sent me a notification that new device had access, but I didn't need it 8 times... The way it processes images for the profile is not a critical feature, but pretty annoying... it doesn't want to update without deleting the old (it'll show it's updated, until it refreshes), some, but not all, of the photos will have a few pixels cut off the bottom after reloading, and although an image with a transparent background will be transparent when you first add it, after a reload it will be black.

Like a few others have mentioned, recently history no longer shows up. For me it stopped showing history sometime between 2 and 3 am on 10/26/2021. Some things that have been filtered show up, but not everything. Used this for years and it's mostly worked okay, but a lot of times history from devices will show up on the wrong profile for a few minutes at a time. It will also block things it shouldn't and you have to reload the page multiple times to get it to load properly.

I like the idea and so far it has worked most of the time. Had a few issues with needing to reconnect which was a pain. My biggest problem is AFTER I bought it and installed it I was told they were doing away with their subscription service with more features. I got this to be able to use some of the advanced features. I still like how I can control devices and see what usage is being done but upset that I can not get the more advanced things I originally intended to use with this purchase.

this app doesn't work nearly all the time. at first you think oh this is great but soon it just keeps saying it lost connection click to reconnect but it will never reconnect. I thought it was just my cell phone so I installed it on my iPad and the same thing. very frustrating since there's no online support for the app, you have to call netgear. please make this work, I think it would be great if it worked.

Bought the premium 1 year. When it works it's great. But often it just... loses the premium service. App has to be reinstalled. Doesn't work. Since i have a nighthawk router i have to go through netgear support. Factory reset, no good. Absolute nightmare. Multiple calls. On hold for an hour. Getting passed around from person to person with no resolution. Do not buy.

After the last update, the app isn't running as the premium version even though I have it set up on auto pay for the premium version. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, but it still doesn't function as the premium version for which I'm paying. If I look at the account for upgrade, it says I'm already paying. Also, it was generally buggy before; taking forever to load, not following commands, and losing connection.

Beware. this is the most frustrating app I have ever used. It is very unstable and frequently requires resetting. occassionally when it does it will not reconnect with the router. when it does it can get in a loop where it fails to recognize the firmware and everything needs to be reset. currently in a loop where it will text me the code but will not recognize the texted number. so frustrating wish I had not gone this way

Very unhappy with the latest update. Downloaded it today, and then tonight we all lost internet access at 9 pm, which was the bedtime we set only for our son's computer. The Netgear router is powered on, but the wifi will not turn on no matter what we do. The Circle app won't open either, so I can't change any settings. And I can't use my laptop to do it either, until tomorrow morning. This is very frustrating on top of the other problems we've been having with the app and Premium subscription.

The Circle app is not very intuitive, and not very effective. It takes an enormous amount of work to identify all of the devices attached to your network, then you can only control access per device by assigning each device to a user. There is no option to set limits or block sites for a specific user on a multi-user device. Many of the sites visited in the history cannot be visited to see what they are, it just results in an error. Most "sites" are ad services but the app doesn't tell you that.

It's OK. However, I'd like to have a filter and search function to search the histories. It is now ver cumbersome to just scroll through the immense history lists. Also, summarizing the history based on time and number of visits would be great. Last but not least: it would be cool to get details of events, specifically the full paths of requests.

This app is awful. This service is awful. I had the app (and service) running for several months. I had to get a replacement router from Netgear, which I got set up and running just fine. When I went to (re)enable parental controls via the circle app, the only option it gives me is to "Create an account". No login page, as one would expect. Just a "Create an account" button. Fine, let's create an account, even though I already have one (and am paying $5 a month for). I enter in my email address and...I get an error message! "Account already exists"! No spit, Sherlock! But you won't let me login to my account! This software looks like it was developed by people who never actually used the product, or they might notice something as obvious and unacceptable as a *missing* *login* *screen*.

This app it useless. It used to work great, but like others have mentioned, the last 2 or 3 weeks NOTHING works. It rarely blocks anything, shows zero history, and the odd time it shows something "filtered" it shows up in the wrong profile. I've tried disabling and resetting it multiple times, factory resetting the router, and nothing works. I don't know why this app even exists anymore, if they can't or won't fix the issue. All it does is cause frustration.

I have had a terrible time setting up my circle. Mostly because of this app. Due to router issues I have had to reset and disable circle a number of times but the app makes that an almost impossible feat. As soon as I am on the manage page a note comes up from the bottom of my phone saying "you are not connected" and that note covers up the reset button and also covers up the "are you sure you want to disable circle" button. So i sit there trying to do it ridiculously fast and see if i win the lottery and it works. I have had to do this probably more than 500 times now. I've got it to work 3 times. I am now in the same boat, I need to reset it as I think we have our new router set up that it should work with but wasting the last 20 minutes trying to get to the reset button has once again incredibly frustrating. I'll go keep playing that game though as I have no other option. Wish me luck.

Used this for a few years with a Nighthawk router and it worked pretty well. A little glitchy at times, but overall did it's job. Recently replaced Nighthawk with an Orbi. The Premium subscription issue limited functionality for a while, but they eventually fixed that. However, now it won't enforce time limit restrictions. I get a notification that the time limit has been reached, but it doesn't prevent further activity. That significantly reduces the utility for us.