I received the Circle Home Plus Device and Parental control App for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com) to use and post my honest opinions about this product. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links.
I have to admit I let my kids get a bit carried away with video games online in 2020. We spent quite a bit of time in quarantine in Canada where we couldn’t leave our house and it allowed the kids to get in the habit of taking screen time for themselves. This was before we had the Circle Home Plus device and I’m hoping it helps us keep an eye on our pre-teens as they get more independent with technology that is online. It’s reassuring to know that we have a tool that can help us help them become responsible tech users and create healthy habits for life.
Do you have a tween with a laptop or tablet? You can use Circle Home Plus to help monitor their screen time.
I was excited to try out the Circle Home Plus parental control app and device that helps monitor the kids screen time. It works for their video games consoles, their phones and their laptops. We have the one year subscription and it allows us to set times for their various devices with our internet modem through an app. We can choose what devices (like their phones or computers) that they can use during the week and on the weekend, how long they can use them and when these devices need to be shut off. It is so cool to be able to give their screen time bedtimes especially through a simple button on the app.
How about sites that we want our tweens to avoid?
I want my kids to be able to search things but not have the whole internet available. With the Circle Home Plus parental control app it is easy to see a detailed breakdown of every site visited by a profile across all devices using wifi. We can also filter and manage age-appropriate online content based on a set of pre-determined rules. We are using the “Teen” guidelines for this and they are allowed to do games like “Fortnite” and “Minecraft” but we can also approve others if they want to be able to use too. I like that this helps foster a conversation together about the games they are using instead of the kids just trying out new games out by themselves.
One great benefit we’ve found with the Circle Home Plus over the controls that come with their devices is that we do not have to approve each site they are allowed to go to (and there might be multiple hidden sites for each page) which can be really time consuming. The “teen” guidelines in the circle app help control this in an easier way.
And the power to pause the internet with the push of a button?
With the Circle Parental Control App you can pause the internet. I know that it is possible to unplug the internet if I really need to but being able to pause it just for the kids from an app is absolutely brilliant.
And a few things we’re still figuring out
The kids’ watches and phones are connected to cellular so I’m not sure how effective the monitoring will be in our house for these things if we don’t use wifi with these devices all the time. The Circle Home Plus parental control app is good for monitoring their laptops though and it’s cool to see the sites they visit on our app.
We have also been on a combination of holidays and spring break and we are just getting ready to go back to school for some days in person when we received this device to try out so we are still in the beginning stages of figuring it out. Because of this I’ll update my findings here in the next little while.
So far, Circle Home Plus has been a good start for feeling safer about the way our kids interact with the internet and we are thankful it’s been pretty easy to use.
And would you like a Circle Home Plus coupon?
You can save 20% on your purchase of a Circle Home Plus device + 1 year app subscription or Circle Home Plus device + Lifetime app subscription at momsmeet.link/circlehomeplusshop with promo code MOMSMEET2021. This is valid until 10/15/21. One promo code use per person.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)