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Forum Discussion
Re: Overnight device activity consuming allowed time
Same issue. I noticed there is an option to put sites in Site Manager and set to unlimited. Unfortunately, if they are IP addresses you cannot. I have an Apple IP address (17.57.144.39) that keeps pi...
Never did hear back from them on if this was fix. It appears the long-standing issue with Smart Parental Controls remains unresolved. Two years after canceling for this exact reason, I was enticed back by a discount, only to find the same flaw: background activity is being counted as active "Time Limit" usage. For example, I set a 1-hour daily limit for my daughter’s devices. Even when the devices are asleep or she is away at school, background processes (updates, "phoning home") exhaust the entire time limit within an hour. I regret paying for a service that is currently unusable. Is there a fix for this, or can I request a refund?
Something to contact NG support about.
Never did hear back from them on if this was fix. It appears the long-standing issue with Smart Parental Controls remains unresolved. Two years after canceling for this exact reason, I was enticed back by a discount, only to find the same flaw: background activity is being counted as active "Time Limit" usage.
Hard to see how Netgear could sort out background activity from other usage.
Have you looked into the screen time management controls in the devices? Not sure on Android, but iOS does have controls to schedule downtime and also manage communications during downtimes. You could use these as well as the parental controls.
They sort background activity for every other ip. It is specific this one for Apple.
For some reason it isn’t able to be converted to unlimited access like other IP and apps.
iOS and NG Parental have to match perfectly. Practically, you have to use one or the other.
I’ve chosen iOS.
It is specific this one for Apple.
Are you sure Android doesn't have the same problem?
There are a lot of "background" activities, including responding to "find my phone" and receiving notification push. The orginal IP from 2024 was/is used for notification push. Keeping this properly separated out would require tracking an ever-changing set of possible IPs (and in some cases those IPs might also be used for services you do want to block).
Another aspect with this particular service is that both iOS and Android allow children to change the "private address" for the wifi to rotate. Which bypasses the smart parental controls completely, unless you also have MAC address access controls set up for the router. But it wouldn't affect the built-in iOS parental controls.
I’ve chosen iOS.
Which I think is the clear winner for iOS devices. And is the only possible option for phones and tablets that also support mobile data connections.
