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Circle with Disney Parental Controls On Orbi WiFi Systems Now Available
Click Here for details on installing Circle with Disney on your Orbi WiFi System.
NETGEAR is bringing peace of mind to parents by managing not only access to appropriate online content but also...
The most useful review on this thread by Frank. He gets it.
I just dumped my traditional router for Orbi. 100% of the reason for choosing Orbi is the performance of the system. Every review clearly states it is #1 as a MESH solution, and they are correct. There isn't anything else close for a larger home. Trust me, I have tried many router, extender, dual router and MESH options.
That being said, the parental controls are actually a nice bonus. I had looked at Circle for a year, but just couldn't bring myself to set up a new account and buy a piece of hardware. The fact that it was integrated into Orbi is great. All you do is sign up.
Frank gave an excellent account of the free Circle features. That is good enough for 99% of parents, and better than any other router parental controls I have used. It's also better than a couple subscription services I have tried due to ease of use.
My one complaint was touched on above. The basic features (pause internet, filter content and services by age, monitor usage) are great. I wish Netgear/Disney would offer an option to install the basic features on 4G/LTE using the MDM/VPN solution. I just want to extend the basic features to my kids' phones when not on WiFi. Call it Circle Go Light! I would happily pay $4.99/mo for that, but it is a bit of price gouging to require $4.99/mo to ENABLE THE ABILITY to pay extra for Circle Go!
I respectfully request that you offer this in a future update. Just do it an squash the competition!
For smart kids Circle has Circle Go which extends all of Circle’s settings on your home Wi-Fi to your kid’s mobile device 4G connections, and any other Wi-Fi network they join. You can use the MyCircle app to install Circle Go on your kid’s mobile device.
OrbiExpert
Thanks - can they delete the Circle Go app from their phone, or is there any other way around the parental control features on the kids' phones? I have teenagers.
Circle Go is for iOS devices only. It works by installing a MDM profile onto the device. When the device isn't connected to its home wi-fi a VPN connection kicks in and connects to a Circle VPN server where the profile of the user is enforced. If they disconnect the VPN it auto-reconnects. If the VPN can't connect they can't access the Internet.
If the are smart enough though they can delete the MDM profile, but you get an alert from the Circle app if they do. After Circle Go has been setup the My Circle app can be deleted from the device.
Thank you very much. This is what I was hoping to hear. So when can we expect Circle to be available for the Orbi?
Thanks again!
- They can download a VPN app on their phone to avoid Circle. You'll need to look at their downloaded apps on their phone up and/or set up an alert for their mobile data usage to catch it.
