Circle Parental Controls

First off, this application with the subscription didn't do much. No granular controls to block individual applications. This application and the device is absolutely useless without a subscription. I get that with the subscription you should get premium features but to totally block all features even within my own house is ridiculous. There are better options out there.

I was led to believe that the Netgear Orbit MESH WiFi system I purchased came with basic access to Circle Parental controls with an option of upgrading to a premium account, but the app is instisting that I set up a free trial with payment information!

I got this device when another parent told me about it bc during the early pandemic, my kids were glued to their school cheomebooks watching all sorts of stuff. I needed to limit their usage so I bought this as a lifetime purchase. I love it!! Setup was easy enough and once I got the app programmed, I was able to add all the devices that my kids have and control it. The kids hate it so I know it's working! I can turn off their wifi without shutting off the rest of the house so that is a win!

So far so good just upgraded because I really needed cell phone control. Please add something that helps resolve this MAC address work around. My kids run around grabbing Mac addresses to bypass the controls. ID like a feature that stops duplicate macs on my network or at least alerts me. I do what I can but it's a never ending battle.. thanks

so hard to stay on top of all the technology. screens and screen time and what you playing on your phone 🤣 now with circle all the guesswork is gone. circle makes handling tech with a special needs kiddo so much easier for both of us. limits are set and parameters what's ok and what's not and circle takes care of. Brought home a friend's device all good circle picked up anew device in the house. Love this device. it is a lifesaver.....

The product itself is excellent, though not for an Adroid phone out side the home wifi. In that case, the app can easily be removed from the phone. Boo. But we got something else for the phones and kept this for the devices in house. But now that the trial is over, I can't restart the subscription! I am working with customer service, but I've been escalated twice, and still no luck. I am really hoping they can fix this bug, I'd like to keep this service!

The Circle is just not that good at blocking content you don't want your kids to see. It has a feature that allows you to assign all new devices to the "Home" profile which was good to just keep that paused and prevented devices such as the Xbox who allows you to change the Mac address and spoof the system, but now even pausing doesn't work. I purchased the lifetime package and regret it. Also it interferes with all my smart home devices, bulbs and such even though I have them set to unmanaged.

This app is terrible and barely works. Why am I paying for it? I haven't been able to connect to the circle app for a while now, it gives an error saying cannot connect to circle... Also, anyone who can't login using their email address, the login is case sensitive. I had the same issue until I made my entire email lowercase. Hope that helps someone.

This is truly one of the worst experiences I've ever had with an app. This is one of the worst companies ever. I don't know why somebody would want to do this, But it is terrible. I strongly strongly recommend you do not get this app!

The device hasn't kept up with technology in general. The Circle device is supposed to identify the devices on my network, but it couldn't identify most of them. So I wasn't sure which devices I was working with and didn't know which settings to establish. It was such a mess. The few devices it did identify still didn't have finding and other settings working after I established them. At one point the app finally crashed and wouldn't open again. I never was able to open again.

Its great when it works. Very annoying when it doesn't. Which is too often. Sometimes can't connect so your stuck with whatever it's set on. Right now it has a bug that makes the categories tab not open. Such a pain to work around. No customer service. Edited to 1 star based on recent blackouts. Totally unacceptable functioning as of late.

Only one complaint, but its a big one: CPU usage is off the charts, i.e. it slows down your phone sooooooooo very very much. UPDATE: they said they've "resolved this issue," but I have the latest version installed and it still uses just as much CPU space. It might just be the nature of this kind of app, but it's still really annoying. I've also noticed my phone does a pretty bad job connecting to wifi now and that wasn't a problem before circle.

Ever since my mother purchased this device (about 6 months ago) we have been experiencing many connection issues. The wifi speed can be extremely inconsistent at times, and sometimes I cant get internet access at all (even when the circle app says I am). I did some research and found that our specific wifi router is not mentioned in either the list of compatible routers nor the list of incompatible routers. We cant return the $100 device because it was purchased months ago.

This app is awful. All I have to say. I'd definitely suggest getting another filter app. One that actually works. I put the bedtime to 9 and either goes at 8 or 10 depending on how malfunctioning It is that day. And for some reason, when I make a device unmanaged,I have to wait a full day for it to actually start working. Ridiculous. And while it's managed for some reason, it doesn't allow you to install other apps?

Many issues that initially plagued this generation of Circle have been resolved; however, there are two things that have been really frustrating. First, very often I get "no connection" errors. Two different management devices have the same problem. Kids are paused and need access for homework but there's no way to unpause. The other annoyance is that there's no way to set up a filter profile. I have to manually configure each child one by one. And add additional websites one...by...one. ugh.

So far poor experience. I put devices in a profile, and there are times with the least amount of restrictions, where users cannot even go to Google. Once I remove devices to unmanaged, everything works...using defaults.... One thing that's annoying is trying to set focus time allowed websites. Everything I save and try to exit, it gives me a warning that I should save. I click save, but it won't exit. Changes are never persisted. This is annoying. So far not the best experience

This app is horrible. I initially subscribed to it with my Netgear router and had immense problems with it. Could never get Netgear support to help me with the product. So then I purchased the Circle Home Plus device thinking this would work better and I would get better support. The device was even worse than the router. Latency on the network was horrible every time I would plug the Circle Home Plus device and and the Bedtimes and Pause would work intermittently. To add insult to injury, you could never get a support rep on the phone to answer any of your questions. I finally gave up and threw the product away.

Horrible UI and user experience. App is broken and flow doesn't actually allow for basic subscription....forced to sign up for monthly or annual account. And even then there's no way to login to an account after creating one without signing up for subscription again. It's as if though they never tested the app. Completely undermines faith in the product. I've since deleted it and an trying other options now.

So far, so bad! I purchased the circle plus device for my home network, and the app will not set it up. I've tried with wired and wireless connections. The app stalls on the "looking for your circle device" page when attempting to pair through ethernet. When I try to pair via wifi, I can connect to the circle hotspot, but after that, the app stalls and won't do anything. I reset the device, reinstalled the app, and am still unable to pair.

Kids with minimal knowledge will quickly realize they can circumvent the app by simply turning off the VPN in their phone settings. Might be ok for kids 5 or 6 years old but older than that and this becomes a total waste of time and money.

Loss of functionality so they can force you into subscription. I am amazed that I now have to pay for what was previously part of purchase. The worse part of this is that there is no new functionality. How about you figure out how to block vpn? I had previously been able to set times and limit to different profiles and apps. After the app update and all of that was no longer available without purchasing the subscription. It became an on off switch. No not a free trial I have had device 2+ yrs.

Sadly, the circle device wouldn't connect even after technical advice. I'm still having a continuing problem of trying to cancel my subscription, which has been very difficult to do..app won't let me and it depends on how subscription was made on platform, which we can't recall. Would love some help on resolving.

If you have lots of devices on you network it's barely usable; You can't search by MAC address. It re-sorts the list of your devices after you look at the details which makes it impossible to search manually. It clears the device search string everytime you return from looking at device detail. You can't segregate new devices joining your network into a "no go" zone.