Circle Parental Controls App App Reviews

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Circle (and why you shouldn’t get it). I am 15 years old. My mother got this in April. Our relationship has gone down from there. We have been having almost daily arguments about restrictions, and have had screaming matches at least twice a week. This app (and the accompanying physical block) have done nothing good for our family. It slows down the WiFi considerably (because it checks all incoming and outgoing network traffic.) and prevents us from learning on our classes because of this. It kicks me and my brother off of our online classes whenever our mother changes restrictions (which is often) and catches many websites that we need to use for school in its filters. This is the literal worst option you could ever get for restricting your children. If you’re reading this, it is most likely on the App Store. Use Apple’s built in restrictions. Please, I am begging you, don’t download this app.

Why can’t I block devices or approve them?. I like that I can put filters and time limits on my internet, but why can’t I block devices and choose to accept devices into my circle? I can delete a device but as soon as it come back into range, it goes right back on. And if I don’t want someone on, why don’t I get the option to accept a device that wants to join? My mother in law hands out my password like it’s candy on Halloween. I’m not really in control of my internet without those features. Also, it decides when, and if, it works. I have a bedtime set at 8 pm and a wake time of 9 am, but I get up this morning and the time is all used up on my kids’ school computers. One of the kids decided to play games all night. Even though it was on bedtime. I’m paying to be able to control who, what, when and how my internet is used, but I’m still not in control.

No. Just no.. Disclaimer: I’m a 14 yr old that was in a good state with my mom before this. I understand that most of you are gonna ignore me because I’m a kid, but most of the people reading this understand nothing about being a teenager today. I’ve had this for about 2 months and its hell. I don’t tell my mom lots about my personal life. I’ll tell her things when it benefits me, example: I like a girl and I need advice. But now I always feel like someone is watching over me. The sense of freedom I had when I got this phone for christmas 3 yrs ago, out the window just like that. It slows down my wifi, which makes my $2000 computer useless. And so now, the money I was making from streaming games is gone because I can’t stream anymore. I’m also a very private person in real life. 70% of my friends are friends I made online playing video games on my free time, and now, in the middle of a global pandemic, where my mom doesn’t even let me go outside, I feel more lonely than ever. Get this if you have real problems, but if its because you have a kid like me that gets decent grades but not amazing, and forgets to do chores sometimes (I have ADHD so I kinda have an excuse), then don’t get this, just gonna make things worse. P.S. Circle Devs, I talked to my parents about this, if your gonna respond, don’t give me your bot response.

No.. if you are a parent reading this, please do not abuse your power with this app. many parents take certain privileges away when it comes to phones and it’s not fair. For some who are having a hard time with mental health, their phone is there only escape. Plus why look through your child’s history from an app when you can simply ask to look at it. As a kid i’m not trying to hide anything but sometimes it’s nice to respect our privacy. No child over the age of 15 should be controlled with this app (depending on maturity level) but by 15 your child should be responsible enough to know there limits and learn when to go to sleep, what not to do, how to be safe, etc. Thanks for reading all of this bye.

Mary Montgomery. The circle first generation app was wonderful. Lots of versatility and easy to control all of my kids’ devices. The new circle parental control is nothing but a problem. Let’s start first with the fact that none of my previous log in information works with the updated app. Second, my “circle family” equally does not import into the new app, forcing me to set everything up all over again as if this is a brand new service. Super frustrating and time consuming. Third, the VPN is a mess. It causes many other apps not to work, some of which are the main ones my kids use for school. It’s just a disaster. Fourth, Circle First Generation worked with chromebooks. This was a huge benefit because I could limit their screen time. The new Circle Parental Control app ONLY works on mobile devices and not Chromebooks, which is what every school kid in America is seemingly using right now. You took a really great app and made it virtually useless. Such a shame that the developers wrecked what was a really good app.

It’s ok. I am a child. So I may have a biased opinion. So take this how you please. First of it slows the WiFi down. I mean like to a halt so much so that our 4g WiFi that we used to use befor we got 5g and circle on it was better. I does monitor your child’s activity witch is actually helpful because when I am doing school work I can get distracted and this helps stop it allowing me to finish it faster. It also doesn’t block sites witch is great because my school has one that does and it’s sometimes hard to access the sites that I need to do work. The good thing is that it’s effective enough but doesn’t block all your sites. The one problem is that it monitors everything that is sent through your WiFi witch might allow the company that owns it to date mine you (I did my research) and some hacker steal that info or a hacker just skips the middle man and takes it right from you. Honestly I would like it much more if it didn’t slow down the WiFi. But if you don’t want your identity stolen the I would suggest not doing any of these things that monitor your WiFi. Also realize that they might not be data mining you but it is definitely a possibility and me personally is not willing to take that risk but it’s not up to me. All I am saying is be wary of this and any other device that monitors your WiFi especially if it’s owned by a company like Disney (I wouldn’t put it past then to steal your data) any ways hope you have a great day :)

New Circle is horrible. We loved the original Circle with Circle Go. Since the upgrade to the new Circle device and VPN it’s been nothing but problems. I’ve spent hours on the phone with nice people at customer support with no solutions. How do I not like thee, let me count the ways: - teen can click “turn off VPN” in settings to remove her device from Circle with just a toggle switch. - teen says it’s not her - it just happens (hmmm) - days later Circle tells me teen’s phone hasn’t communicated in a while. (Old version immediately told us if devices left network) - teen unable to use certain sites that we allow because of glitches. Sites we allow - like Snapchat. Forced to set up VPN (which now allows or forces device to leave network, see above) - always have to enter my password after an app update but suddenly do not need password to open app (different passwords, of course. Memorized the app opening password and use thumb print but need to look up the program password) - while customer service is pleasant they can’t fix anything and when I’m told a more senior/experienced tech will contact me, they don’t. —-I’m so sad this new Circle is so bad. We loved the old version and they messed it up. I’d like my money back and I’ll find something else (which won’t be as good as the old Circle).

Could be improved. First off I’m not parent using this to nany-cam their child as I am the child in question, although I will try to look at it from the perspective of a parent just take this review with a grain of salt. If you were a parent I can see the uses for this app (Thus the rating of 5 stars) as it can prevent unwanted materials such as violence or pornography from crossing your child’s screen. (As the child in question I can verify that it does a REALLY good job at this) Sometimes though you may want to allow you child to access X and not Y even though they are in the 17+ category. This can cause some issues though as let’s say your child needs to do a research project on the Holocaust but you don’t want the child to be at risk of seeing pornography… I propose that the developers add a “Custom” restriction so that the child my be able to access X but not Y. Although another thing that some may want added is the ability to chose what apps take up your time limit. For example it would be annoying when I try to do something in the settings app but it takes me 30mins to figure it out only to have 30mins left to do whatever else… In conclusion this app is great if you want to manage the material that might come across your child’s screen but, this can be somewhat infuriating from the child’s perspective as it adds a time limit to almost everything. Anyways have a great day!

Dear parents,. Look, I know that I’m a teenager, and half of the adults looking at reviews won’t listen to this, but coming from a child, this app has done NOTHING but cause problems. I am a 16 year old girl who has had this app since I was 11. First off, it slows down your wifi significantly. It basically racks onto ur wifi and causes everything to load much slower and not as good of quality. Second, it has caused a lot of issues between me and my parents. I understand using this app for children. But if you’re considering using this on your teens, do not. I’ve felt like i have no trust between me and my parents anymore because they’re constantly pausing my wifi for something like not doing the dishes. Thinking that taking your kids phone and wifi away will solve the problem is WRONG. It makes kids feel like you as parents can’t figure out a way to tell us we were wrong face to face, and instead you revert to technology thinking that taking our phone will make us stop. I know this isn’t exactly the app developers problem, but if your an adult who actually cares about what your kids think, do NOT get this app. Please, trust your children enough to manage their phone on their own and if it gets bad then step in.

I hate it. This app is horrible, I know I’m a kid and people probably won’t agree with me, but this app is horrible and ruins relationships between the parents and they’re children. my experience as someone who has their parents using it was back in January (during COVID) while I wasn’t doing good in school, so my dad decided to use circle, from 9 am to 11 pm we could only use our devices. After about 2-4 weeks of using it he realized we weren’t getting any better, so he turned it off at 3pm everyday, but if we did an assignment we would get another hour, but we can’t get anymore til 11pm, and for a while that still didn’t work, so he decided to turn off all our free hours, so we had to do all of them by assignments, and so all my friends who didn’t have apples, I had to talk to them on discord, and discord is the only way I can talk to them, and also even if I did have my hours, if I did something he does not like, he bans us from our hours for the whole day.

give this app a bad review and one star please 🤗🥺🙏🏻✨. Get this app a one star or I will come and find you and continuously slap you until you wake up from sleeping then when you wake up I will kick you hard in the head a lot of time knocked out so you better do what I say I’m coming for you :) 🔪✨also I am a kid so don’t come for me!🥺🍀I believe that this app is teaching us kids that when there parents turns off their wifi it’s kinda teaching to beg for there parents to turn there wifi on basically begging.😪 Another reason why you should not get this app for your kid and rate it a one star☝🏻is because it makes us kids extremely sad basically if your kid is calling someone or playing watching YouTube/Netflix/Hulu/Disney+ when there WiFi gets turned off, it make us sad that are WiFi just got turned off. Us kids being sad all the time is not good for are mental health. So that was all my reasons why you should not get this app for your kid/kidS! *also it cost money~ 💵* Love, Isabella (´ε｀)♡ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Helpful, but tedious. I like the time controls this allows, but the system is a little frustrating. I find it difficult to keep track of many things and rewarding for good behavior is an annoyance. I try to increase my sons time on Fortnite, but his online game time is 1 hour, making me have to add that reward so he can actually play Fortnite, then he has a total internet timer set at 2 hours, so if I want to let him play Fortnite more than 2 hours I have to also give him a reward for that. So, I have to do 3 rewards to give him a little extra time on Fortnite. Or I have to take off time limits on all but 1 of those 3 things. The other issue is how it tracks “online games”. For instance, my son left his Xbox on while we ate dinner. He had played 15 minutes of Fortnite, but when dinner was over he was locked out because circle counted his time connected to Xbox live as “online game” time. So then I either have to increase that time limit or set it to unmanage. The system is a little cumbersome, but a heck of a lot better than my distracted inner clock that will allow my kid to play games for hours on end. I’d definitely recommend it, it’s a great system, but not as magically controlling as I’d envisioned in my mind when I bought it.

I’m a kid, but I like it!. I am thankful that my parents have installed the app. I feel like it has protected me from a lot of bad things. I like how quickly my parents can unblock the internet as well. It’s easy to set up too. I have no iCloud storage left so things will uninstall sometimes and when ever circle gets uninstalled it’s so easy to set back up. My only problem is that it will make the internet run a fair bit slower. Probably because our devices are trying to keep up with circles settings so if you could fix that that would be AMAZING!! I also listen to podcasts on the Apple podcasts app and it will cut out at my bed time and my parents said they just unblock the podcasts app. So if you could make it so we can just unblock the podcast app I would appreciate it very much!!

Bad for limits. My parents got the first gen about 3-4 years ago and at first since I didn’t play much games it didn’t bother me much but nowadays my parents got the second gen I play more video games because it’s my only way of contact with my friends and my parents have made it so I can only play if I get a reward so sometimes I do that but usually I can only get more time when my friends are offline and can’t play so now I’m losing friends because I can’t play anymore and even when I do get time it just kicks me off in the middle of a match and I can still hear my friends talking and they don’t even acknowledge that I’m gone and these are friends I’ve known for seven years just fading away because of the fact that I can’t play. And on top of all this it just randomly turns off my WiFi so I can’t do school work my parents also set a bedtime of 4pm so if I’m working I can’t complete and turn in my assignments. And that is why this product is good in theory but ends up ruining your childhood by imposing limits that have no way of being overcome

It’s ok. It’s not great, of course I’m the kid in the situation so my opinions may differ from the parent. I understand this is helpful for kids who are on their phones to often. But it’s a little bit frustrating and slightly scary. It makes it so I can’t delete the app, (although I wouldn’t if I didn’t have my moms permission) the set-up is strange and frustrating. On several occasions it brings up a blue screen that says “cannot connect to circle” I’ve had to spam the “try again” button until it works. It’s not healthy to have endless time on the internet. But their are a few technical issues with this app. The bigger issue I have it that it doesn’t let me call people when my time limit is off. In an emergency, I wouldn’t be able to call the police. it completely defeats the purpose of getting a phone. It blocks communication, and can be down right scary sometimes. I give it 2 stars because some of the functionalities are good.

Disappointed. We had the Disney Circle first Gen to begin with about 3 years ago, it was great and we never had any issues. Earlier this year (January) we changed internet providers and the first gen didn’t work with that one so we got the newer version, the circle plus. Set up was just as easy and it worked well for maybe 3 days. I haven’t been able to get the app to work at all in months! I reached out to circle support and got advised to do a number of steps, which I did. It didn’t work. I’ve let it sit on the back burner for a few weeks and decided to give it a go again today, still nothing. I open the app and have 2 options “get started” or “log in to parent app”, type in my login info just to be taken back to the previous screen. Try clicking “log in” again, it doesn’t work. Won’t take me anywhere. I’m not sure what’s up or why it hasn’t worked in over 5 months. It’s doing it’s job, I do know that. But I’m not able to utilize the parent app like I’m supposed too. I’m very disappointed in this and feel like it was a waste of money.

To all parents. Don’t get this. You can’t say that you trust your kid and get this app it’s hypocritical. If you trust your kids to make the right decision then why track them. Setting more rules and restrictions will ruin your relationship with your kids. Putting up restrictions and too many boundaries only will challenge kids for the real world. If they get told no this or no that they will just stop asking do you want them to do that when they get a job someday? They need to learn right from wrong not be forced into it. It will help them make decisions for jobs or careers one day. This app doesn’t make you a better parent it just make you a more controlling one. This has ruined relationships with my parents and Is somewhat an invasion of the last bit of privacy I had. Putting up rules makes people want to break them. A little kid maybe it’s ok because they don’t know right from wrong as well as teens but this WILL eventually ruin relationships

I like the app. There is a lot of bad reviews from the younger generation. I do want to add that my son asked me to place this app on his phone. This prevents viruses and the phone to open random links with explicit websites. I do however do not limit his internet time nor do I pause it randomly. We talked and when he’s mature enough then we can remove this app from his phone. For now an 11 year old should not have free range of the internet because then it opens his mind to things he should not be worrying about at this age. I feel sad for the kids who cannot communicate with their kids and set proper boundaries.

This app will not fix your family problems. My parents forced me and all of my siblings to download this app so that they could limit our media time to no more than 3 hours of a day. This means no social media or shows. My parents seemed to think that if they limited the things we enjoyed and completely took them away every time we got upset or forgot to do our chores that we would become better kids. All this has done is cause more problems. Every day someone is frustrated over losing their privileges and I don’t think this has improved our relationship with our parents at all. In fact I hate them more than before. Parents using the app and making their kids hate them more isn’t the only problem I have with it though. The app also slows down internet considerably and recently when we got media time the apps that we were allowed to use, but are usually blocked only worked for short amounts of time before not working again. I’ve deleted the app and my parents did everything they could, but nothing will work and I’m afraid this app permanently messed up my phone. If you want to restrict your kids internet access I recommend other options.

Warning for parent !!!. I'm 11 now, and ease don't igorne me because I'm just a kid, and since I was findings an app for my parents to reduce my phone usage time, I have read some comment on the other app that had same abilities. First, I have read that many users got their wifi lower. Second, they don't manage your app, they just simply deleted it and then reinstall it after the giving block time, this can cause data lost for app that not connect to Icloud, especially for teenagers gamers, they can lot their process of gaming by this app Third, hackers, hackers is many, and this app use your location, not like google map timeline (the setting that track where you go) , they track your location and send to many people, a hacker can access it easily and track your location. Forth, they can easily access your data and take your personal data from your phone such as credit card number, an account password, personal photo, etc. Last, they might scam your money, so I did download it, after it, I try to click to parent section, they lead me to an unknown website and tell me to sign in, and give personal information. If you have an IOS device such as iPhone, iPod, or iPad, you should use screen time manager in family, made by Apple. I hope parents who read this can consider to use another app, or simply use apple screen time.

Infuriating. We got this for our child who has a difficult time waking up after we’ve gone to sleep to be on screens. Our kids have ample screen time, we use parental filters, and they have a lot of control over their usage. We educate them in safe internet skills. The purchase of this was strictly to eliminate the temptation for our child to wake during the night. The set-up is not user friendly and very convoluted. I set up focus times and bedtimes for different profiles and outside of those times (even if I turn off focus or bedtime) the internet is not accessible. It has been an absolute nightmare and interferes with business I need to take care of online. I have been using data instead, and then today— after having Circle installed for about a week—I uninstalled the app and disconnected the Circle hardware permanently. What a mess. We’ll be returning the hardware. I just want to turn the internet off during sleeping hours. It’s not really that difficult of a task.

Tried multiple times to get to support.... I haven’t personally used the app yet since I just downloaded it. I just found out that my father has been using your software to control and view my mothers and my internet history behind our backs creating a very toxic home. When a domestic abuser has access to this information, and causes problems constantly over speculation; because they are so deranged with an ego out of this world this causes so many problems. I’ve tried multiple times to get to circles support to have a live chat with someone that could answer my questions, but everytime i was redirected to the faq page over and over again. So here I am leaving a review for a response. Will a VPN stop him from being able to see the device and history? How can we stop this madness that he is creating off of old history even if its the most basic info that is listed. Its toxic and needs to be stopped.

DO NOT GET THIS APP. Hi everyone if your reading this and think about getting this app don’t get it and read why ok so the reason why you should not get this app it’s very bad and here’s why it’s bad let me get to the point my mom has this app and my friend ✨Ella✨has it to right right so you might be think whatever this is coming from kids well guess what kids I more smarter and wise we go to school and learn thing so there smart and I feel like people should learn WHAT SMART KIDS HAVE TO SAY cough cough us cough cough so my mom controls me with this app this app just gets me mad 😡 for example if I do something wrong oh ima turn off you internet so basically your taking advantage of this app between your kid and if you get this app that means you don’t trust them so you and your kid might have trust issues and I get that your kid does something wrong 😑 put why do you have to turn off the internet atleast make them do the dishes or something that does not go with internet because we are in a hard time staying home so we play with iPads phone and other stuff does not mean you have to take it away from us please give it a 1 star ⭐️ because it bad if you want to ruin your kids life then get it but just remember how they will feel and out yourself in there shoes

Won’t fix family problems. While this might seem like the best app to get your kid off their tech and spend more time with family, it won’t. The only thing this app will do is make kids hate their parents even more. It tracks your location with a VPN and makes me feel insecure. Me and all of my friend who are limited by circle say it’s a torture method. You also have to pay 10 dollars a month which is a total sham. Circle also blocks Alexas which means kids can’t listen to music or anything on an Alexa. You can also just play offline games like Rocket League or something. I only get 2 hours a day and when I wake up I, somehow, am already down to 45 minutes. The device has to be plugged in to a router and, say you have 5G makes your Wi-Fi feel like you paid for 2G. You basically pay for worse internet with Circle. It honestly just ruins kids relationships with parents.

HORRIBLE APP!!!!!. I am 11 so basically no one is gonna read this but, yeah. If a parent is reading this DON’T get this for your child. My brother and I use to turn off circle because we hated it (with a passion) My parents mostly got this app because, I had a problem with not getting any sleep for school cause I was staying up watching tv. They put this app on EVERYTHING. They first put it on my tv. But when my tv went off I would get my Nintendo. Here is what they have it on. My things: Tv, Phone, Chromebook, Old iPad, Nintendo. Brother’s things: His tv, phone, Xbox, PS4, Chromebook. My dad is a manic with this app. If I am being a “smart mouth” then he will pause me. Like I get circle during school. My bedtime during school was turn off at 9:30 turn back on at 7:00. Weekend it just turned off. But now in summer they still have it on. But the weekends are turned on and turn off at 11:30 turn back on at 7:00. My brother and I hate this app. My dad abuses his power with this app. I asked my mom when we can get circle off of our phone and she said “When you start paying your phone bill.” Well what if I can’t pay my phone bill in college? Are you gonna control my phone while I am in college? They put a password on circle so now we can’t do anything. If you went through my phone on my text with my mom while on summer break. You would be amazed at how MUCH I have asked for an reward.

Does not work as advertised. Let me preface my comments by saying that I have a background in IT. The bottom line with this App is that, when it works, it works well. However, when it doesn’t work (as advertised), it utterly fails and you waste time (daily) trying to get it to work. In a nutshell, I set restrictions on a child between 10p and 7a. Why, when both the control app and user app side say they have time left for the day and the access isn’t restricted, does it say that they can not connect to the internet, won’t allow email, and applications can not get past the firewall? On a daily basis, both of my iPads are dead in the water. I went so far as to remove ALL restrictions and it still takes 5-10 minutes for the controlled device to be “released” by the VPN. Flipping a switch and saving should be as instantaneous as turning on a light in a dark room. I’ve wasted enough time troubleshooting this application that I’m looking for a different solution.

Frustrated parent. As a parent trying to protect my children/family, this app falls short. After paying for the lifetime subscription and not getting sufficient support, I feel scammed. This app is pretty good at blocking content. Lots of content, even working from home or school e-learning; it all gets blocked. I have to assign many devices to “unmanaged” just to use them for basic e-mail or homework. From that standpoint I don’t get any value for the app for my most common devices. Then when I do get some control and the iOS app sends me a notification, I get no description of the trigger event from Circle. Did a child reach a time limit? Don’t know. Was some malicious content identified and stopped? Don’t know. Did a new device just join my network? I don’t know. The notifications are useless. When I’ve engaged support, if I can’t get back to them immediately, my ticket is closed without resolution. I’ve had multiple support attempts closed prematurely without any resolution. Parents considering spending money on this app, be cautious. Consider other options. Don’t take the dive on a lifetime subscription. Test the waters first. Learn from my mistake.

Do NOT give your teenager this app!!. I’m 17 years old and it’s so frustrating to be in school and, not be able to look something up or, do something your teacher told you to do because your parents put school time on and your internet DOESNT WORK!! I always had trust issues with my parents; I’ve never really told them anything I do really and this app has just made everything worse... I feel like i’m being micromanaged by them and I’m almost an adult. I understand that parents don’t want their kids getting addicted to technology but this is NOT a good way to stop that. We grew up in the era that has all this and it’s not going away. It’s frustrating when I only have 15 minutes on all my social media apps and I won’t even be on my phone and my time limit ends. What’s going to happen when i graduate this year and go off to college? Are they just going to keep micromanaging me with this app while I’m an adult and trying to have fun? I know you think that from a teens perspective you think we’re just being dramatic but, what if we put this app on your phones... how frustrating would that be? This app doesn’t solve the technology problems and your children’s addiction to their phones, it just makes them not want to trust you and keep things from you. So please if your thinking about getting this app for hour kid(s), re-think that option.

Great when it’s online.. We have had circle since Gen 1. It is generally very good in time and content control. However ever since we switched to the new circle and new app, there are a lot more manual monitoring each day on my part. We do not use VPN as it does slow down devices and Apple can do a lot of the work on the go. The new Circle unit turns off by itself very frequently ever since we got it. Not just the box itself, the notifications function in circle app turns off by itself every single day. The app is only installed on my phone and no one can open it except me. I have called support, all they told me to do is to restart app, box internet at the same time. I have done everything include re- pair circle with app, restart all equipment at same and issue it fixed. This is a BUG need to be fixed. I need to see notification if the system goes offline.

DONT GET THIS PLEASE. Ok so to start off I’m a child. 11. developers,I've talked to my parents so much about this so don’t give me your bot response. Ok, so the thing is, that if you’re a parent and your considering getting this app because your 6 year old is obsessed with Minecraft and you want them to be like one of those book worms when they grow up, don’t. Because if it’s only for like a year or 2 then that’s completely fine, but if you are planning to control your child with this app UNTIL THEY ARE 18, then don’t get it, because MY parents are planning to do that and it drives me insane. My parents have had this app since I was 9 years old. I got my first phone when I was 8. I got my moms old phone, iPhone XR. As a normal child that got her first phone, she will use it. And that’s exactly what I did. Everyday. On my phone. I downloaded musically when I was 6 on my moms phone and kept it on once I got the phone for granted. But, my parents started to realize that I am “ too obsessed “ and downloaded this app. Ever since, I have been diagnosed with anxiety since 10 years old, and I have trust issues. But what makes me the most mad is that not only is my dad a TECHNICAL GENIUS BUT I also has kept it on until now. He has found a way for it to work with it turned off, and to give him a notification when i delete it. So please circle developers, DELETE THE APP OUT OF MY IPAD AND MY PHONE FOR THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

Absolutely Love Circle!!!. We have tried many different filtering systems but always come back to using Circle! It offers the most comprehensive and diverse parental controls we have found available. I know what my children are using on their devices and can monitor the amount of time spent on different apps/websites/etc. Has also paved the way for conversations when I’ve seen excessive use of certain social media/websites/video streaming. The older teens have actually appreciated having limits and bedtimes/off-times to allow them play time/break time on their phones without the stress of being sucked in and losing hours of study or sleep time. Has been a blessing all around for setting electronic device time-limits as well as blocking inappropriate material/specific websites for those struggling with internet/pornography consumption.

It’s to over controlling. I am 12 years old I used to have a phone but it got stolen now I’m left with an iPad and my Xbox 1. Every second I want to search something up I feel stocked and I’m not making this up I’m dead serious, I text a friend who curses but he’s still a good friend he just has a little bit of a trash mouth, but when I’m about to go to sleep my mom busted open the door and let me state exactly what she said. “SO THIS IS YOUR FRIEND, HE HAS ONE POTTY MOUTH I DON’T WANT YOU TO TALK TO HIM AGAIN.” And man was I angry. One thing I need from this app is a little freedom. And the app works perfectly but too perfect. I think there should be a way for the child when they hit a certain to age for like the parent can’t see what they search up or the parent can’t control how much time the child should get. Developers please do something about this I’m old enough for the real world and I think my mom thinks I’m still 3. -by a wonderful 6th grader

Focus Time / Bedtime conflict a major pain. Circle is better than most alternatives, but the fact that the app refuses to allow you to schedule overlapping bedtimes and focus times EVEN THOUGH BEDTIME IS TURNED OFF is a major hassle. I have lost count of how many times I try to set a focus time, only to be told I can’t because it conflicts with a bedtime that isn’t active- or the other way around. And there is no way to just delete bedtime altogether. Customer service tried to help, which involved several paragraphs of instructions. After a ton of effort on both of our parts - including me deleting everyone’s account and all the saved focus time websites for homeschool and starting from scratch- the issue continues to be a problem. It’s clearly part of the app’s basic programming. After two years, there is no fix in sight. So if you have a complicated daily schedule that often changes, this might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Couple of problems. I believe multiple people have this first reason, but for some reason Xbox live is counted as online games, so if it is left running (ex: I leave it on for something to update faster) it will eat up my video game time. The second problem I have with this app is the Dashboard. It may load once, but if I close out the app and try to re-open it again, the dashboard will not work. After clicking the dashboard button again, waiting, clicking, waiting, it never works. I don’t know how to fix this problem either. Circle help center doesn’t really have a solution to this. If I go into system, it will say that the internet is reachable, but local infinitely says checking. Please fix this, it is very tedious and frustrating to have to wait for my turn to view how much time I have left in a certain area to “recharge”

Nice in theory, doesn’t work in real life.. I had high hopes for this device and app. After using the older version I upgraded to this newer one—big mistake. The vpn blocks all internet activity on the kids phones, so now I am paying for data they can’t use. My network has slowed down considerably. And the only way for anyone to play Minecraft or other server-type games is to turn the filter off completely. That defeats the purpose! The Kids can’t even play Pokémon Go on their phone because the VPN blocks It. After 30-minutes I pulled the VPN off one phone, so they could play. I don’t have 30-minutes to take it off and another 30 to put it back every time they want to do something. I’m out $300+ for a system that doesn’t work! The support site has a lot of holes in it. I’ve tried going there on several occasions and can’t find answers to my issues. But, the system does successfully route me to answers I don’t need. So, if you already know the answer to your question, you’ll find that info on their site in several places. I purchased a lifetime membership, too. If you are going to buy this, I recommend initially purchasing a month-to-month contract. That way if you find it doesn’t work you aren’t out a ton of money. Also, if you only want to control your home internet, I’d suggest finding the original circle from an older supplier or online site and use that. It is much, much better.

Limited Usefulness. The app and device that you pay for annually is not user friendly. There is so much potential. I cannot use the app to see what device went to specific websites, which devices are currently drawing bandwidth, and unmanaged devices might as well be the Wild Wild West. I have been a subscriber since 2018 and I just hate it. Slows the internet in the house. You can block websites, but if a user switches to device on other profile, you have to block it there too. I want to be able to see what devices went where on what day and time. Half the time it works and half the time it doesn’t. It’s constantly creating new devices with zero context-just Apple device. But that device I have named and put into a profile. Then that ‘new device’ stays in the unmanaged devices until you delete it. Do not recommend.

It’s definitely effective, but is confusing to use.. Disclaimer: I am the child this software is being used for, so I may be negatively biased. This Software is VERY effective when it comes to getting your children off their device, but it is REALLY hard to give rewarded screen time. When my parents attempt to give me more screen time for say... tiktok. My parents only allow me 30 mins for tiktok, and sometimes they reward me. The problem is that if I’m rewarded 30 minutes more for tiktok but my overall usage for the day has expired, I can’t use tiktok. My parents usually have to reward both 30 minutes for overall time usage AND tiktok. It would be so much easier and more effective if you just give them more time for tiktok.

Lol there are so many ways you can get around this. (I’m 14) -MAC spoofing (look it up) -VPN -Network switch (look it up) -there’s a thing called rat trap that is way better than this and can straight up just block this thing (look up rat trap network security) -water and circle home plus don’t go together, unplug the thing and dab the metal part of the cable in water (just a tiny bit) and then plug it back in ^^^if ur parents replace it cuz of what u did, find a way to gain admin on the circle home plus device ASAP like right when you see the box Circle devs, in the unlikely chance your reading this... I hope you take these off the shelves, they clearly don’t work and when they do, they do way more harm than good. Trust between parents and kids can’t exist under this thing For other kids reading this, 2 of these might not work because circle has cracked down on VPNs and MAC spoofing. Keep in mind whenever you unplug circle your parents get notified, if something happens to circle your parents will get notified... I seriously recommend just talking to them if you have a good solid relationship with them, if not then go ahead I’m glad I could’ve passed on this knowledge... peace ✌️ PS. Please don’t give me that dumb bot response, this is clearly not worthy of that

Go Ahead Ruin Your Child’s Relationship. Not only does this app allow one to restrict social media or entertainment from their kids device but it also enables them to turn off their internet for days on end. They have access to all of the browsers searched and receive data on every app they open. This isn’t helping your kid it’s making them feel controlled. This isn’t an easy quick fix to getting you kid off the internet because it’s shows them that you have little to no trust and makes them feel like their every move is being watched. Parents can simply type in their child’s email and control their device for as long as they wish. Every little thing can be controlled, this isn’t beneficial it’s nonsense. Don’t jeopardize your kids relationship because you want them to spend less time on their phone, it’s not worth it.

Great System but needs these. I really like your system but it has one problem when bedtime is set and say the time of bedtime is 11:30 pm and you set a reward it still shows that your bedtime is 11:30 pm but it also shows under rewards that bedtime has been removed for the night it is confusing and when that time comes around 11:30 pm it blocks it won’t give the reward I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or it is just a glitch please help of fix thanks Also another thing! I kind of fell like it slows down the internet a little bit because before we got the circle our internet speeds were 300 MB’s to 400 MB’s and now it is only 100 MB’s to 200 MB’s that’s when you do a speed test and I’ve done a speed test on different apps and websites and it’s the same when you use a wired connection. And our internet will just turn off out of no ware and we turned off the circle for a whole week and none of that happens and we’ve even gone as far as getting a new router. Thank you we really love your system!

Circle.. Hi. I’m a 10 year old girl, and my dad got this app for me. He makes my time limit 4 hours a day, which isn’t so bad. I have to do chores to earn time. If your parents don’t even give you an hour and you can’t earn anymore time then that’s very wrong. Circle doesn’t invade all your privacy I guess, like your texts and stuff. But your parents can see your history and all the links you go to. Which isn’t so so bad! If you aren’t gonna have your child only use like their electronic for 3 hours, and not be able to earn more time then don’t get this app. If you let them earn time and make their phone turn off at like 10:30 (depending on their age) and turn on at let’s say 6:00, that’s fine. But other then that, this app is frustrating but it has helped me from my phone addiction. :)

The parental control app ever. This will probably never get read by anyone but oh well This app actually makes your internet stupidly slow. It’s alright for playing online games (for nerd stats I get an average of 30 ping) but for downloading updates it’s unbearably slow. I have an ethernet cable for my PC but if I need to update a game I have to ask my parents to completely disable the app so it will download at the full capabilities the ethernet cable gives you. The mobile app is also super buggy and stopped working after a few months, so I don’t get bedtime warnings for 15 minute left warnings which can be a little inconvenient for when I’m trying to play games with my friends and I randomly stop moving and talking then disconnect (this happens on a pretty much daily basis) yeah it’s a great app but only if your kid actually has issues with screen time (like spending ~5 hours online for entertainment and not productivity purposes) and not for if they just casually use devices Random rants: Love how the photos show happy children on devices (these are misleading and do not reflect the feelings of a child when Circle silently disables all internet regardless of what they’re doing, and also do not reflect the feelings of a child while Circle is enabled) Also, fun fact, 4Chan is allowed starting at “teen” restriction level (for context 4Chan is a super creepy messaging site that no one should be on)

this app is not good for a child.. ok so yes I may be a 14 year old and I know you probably wont listen to this, but this app has done nothing. I had such a good relationship with my parents, and as I got older and older, I started getting a bit more private about my life. I would still talk to my parents but I wouldn’t tell them every single detail, I would just tell them to the level I was comfortable with. but since this app my privacy has been destroyed. it shows everything, even your search history and some red flag sites. not to mention the app barely even works when you try to give rewards you get a 1 in 3 chance of it actually working. this app is good for a punishment, but nothing else. since the app I feel like im not in control of anything anymore and its caused me to become severely depressed. my parents think its making me less dependent on the internet but its doing the opposite, because they treat it like a reward and any time I can talk to my friends, or look something up I am so grateful for, that ive stopped doing homework just cause my focus time ended.

Frustrating to use!. I have been using the Circle app for 3 years. First, I used the Circle with Disney app. It worked well at first. Then it started glitching. It wasn’t stopping my son’s usage at the time I set. Then the app wasn’t responding to my touch on my phone. Eventually, I returned the Circle w/Disney and got a new one. Once again, the new one worked fine AT FIRST. Eventually the app was not responding at all. I have deleted and reinstalled the app about 10 times over the 3 years. Eventually it became more annoying to use than it was to monitor my kid’s usage, so I threw away the whole thing! Then, Circle came out with a new IMPROVED version. I figured I’d give it a try and give them my $100. Same as the previous version, it stopped correctly monitoring my kid’s devices correctly and the app is glitchy and keeps turning off while I’m trying to use it.

BAD APP!. Hi, My Name Is John I am 13 years old. My parents are very chill people they would always trust me with my internet. I then got older, and older and I would always listen to my parents, but they thought for some reason I was ignoring them. They kept complaining saying that I was “Using To Much Video Games” I rarely play video games now at age 13 it just is boring. I use social media and that’s also a hassle with my parents I try to explain how there’s a pandemic going on and I can’t go out and see them and they insist I should do other things, but there’s nothing I can do. The app is hard to manage if your a Parent It works very poorly and it slows down the internet. I have had it for 2 and a half years now and it is awful. I love socializing with people in person, but I can’t do anything right now with a pandemic going on and my parents can’t realize that. My point is that you shouldn’t get this app it will ruin a trust with family and will mess up your internet. The managers are bots and do nothing, but tell you to email them. Thanks for taking this in a 13 year-old’s perspective

Poorly Made n Limiting. The apps idea itself is very stupid due to other free versions existing and being much better than this, but other than that it also has massive issues, such as if you use the filter, the one thing i believe is good on this app, it limits bandwidth and slows down your internet by a large margin, this happens all the time with me, without the filter on my speed is around 400, the second it is turned on it drops to 40ish. Dont waste your money on this parents, not only are built in options easier, theyre better, and cheaper. And your kid will hate this more, and attempt to bypass this, in my case bypassing is very easy but it feels like bait for your kid, and they may feel the same. Such as the turning off the VPN. Its an obvious and easy thing to do but it notifies them instantly and will get the poor kid grounded. Its just bait to punish your kid. Do Not Buy It.

Was Better Before. I loved Circle with Disney. The interface and control points were better and more intuitive. There were some problems, but overall it was good. I think the engineers were not held back enough on this new version. Every time the iPhone is updated, I have to redo all the restrictions. So annoying. The VPN in Circle Go causes so many issues that my kids are constantly complaining about it stopping them from doing what I have allowed them to do. So, I have to keep allowing them to turn off VPN. It defeats the purpose. I don’t know whether the bandwidth through the VPN is too small or what, but it’s annoying. A word of advice to the developer, tweak don’t revamp. If you change too many things at once, you almost will screw it up. Just regulate the engineers more. They will over-complicate products and forget about the user experience. Anyway, while this is something that is still useable, I can no longer unreservedly recommend this product any longer.

Stupid. This app is the dumbest creation ever , yes I’m only 12 years old but I have an opinion on this. I used to be very comfortable with my family before this but now I’m not so much because my mom abuses her powers with this app. It is a waste of money and stupid because what are you going to do when I’m 18? Throw it away? My mom wasted $100 on this stupid circle box just so she could turn on and off my internet 😐. I used to talk to her a lot about my life but not anymore because I’m just asking for more internet so I can socialize with my friends because I can only text my friends because my mom homeschools me *shocker* and I can’t talk to any of my real friends in person so I FaceTime and text but I can’t do that with circle anymore. Don’t get this for your child, it is stupid and if you want your child to have a good relationship with you then stay away from this app

I really like Circle. I have had Circle and Mycircle for a year and have been happy. When the kids are at home you can parent, but this gives you a hand When kids are outside the home. It will analyze and block inappropriate sites, but also block apps on demand that you deem bad for your children like Snapchat or Fortnite. Because you can set phone bed times, getting the kids to sleep ample amounts on school nights has been much more manageable So why not 5 stars? The only major problem was one time the system had a glitch and the all devices had to get the app reloaded. The phones went unprotected for an unknown time without any notification, but with help from support we got that squared arround and I am happy again. Now, every so often I will use my parent app to turn off the internet from devises to make sure I am getting ample complaints. That confirm the system is doing its job.

Ruins relationships with your Family.. I’ve been on circle for years and ever since we got it, it has caused problems for ny family. First, it makes the wifi SOO slow. Secondly, it so frustrating that parents can’t just trust their kids with their devices. Like being a strict parent doesn’t make you a good parent. Actually, you create horrible relationships with your kids. Your kids begin to dislike your and because of all these restrictions, your kids become more sneaky. Strict parents create liars. Why do parents feel the need to control things like this? It’s 2020z. Let your kid control themselves. They are never going to learn how to control them selves when they grow up because they have been so used to having something stop their device at a certain point. Horrible. Unless you want your family to explode every night, do not even think about purchasing circle.

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How to bypass. If you want to bypass just go in settings, search vpn , then tap the info button and click delete.

Annoying and useless. If you have an iPhone this app does exactly the same thing as the Screen Time feature, so why bother getting this? I also feel that you just shouldn’t allow access to the apps the child has spent too much time on, instead of just cutting out the internet. If you set bedtime, the wifi cuts out completely and the child won’t be able to use anything, even if it’s for something important. Some features are useful, like the focus time. But apart from that I feel this app could be a lot better.

Misleading. App requires a 15.99 mth sign up to access not listed accurately

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It doesn’t work those day. To be honest this app was great until few days I can’t open it and I deleted it and downloaded again but it doesn’t want to download

Sucks. I’m 15 and I still have this it’s so stupid and useless for me I have tried to prove responsibility for 2 years now and my parents are just to stubbed to remove it. If any parents read this I highly suggest not to get this app it’s overpriced and just causes problems within your home.

Now requires expensive subscription. Disappointed that many of the reasons why The Circle was good now require a very expensive subscription. Going to ditch the Circle and use ISP solution which is offered for free. Goodbye Circle, my kids resented you and now I do too.

If you want your kids too hate you then go ahead. We put this on our kids devices and they got very upset and instead of any positive things coming from this our kids ended up getting very upset and violent with us the same thing happened with all of our friends who tried this

Who’s your CEO?. The concept of the app is absolutely necessary but you’ve missed the mark by a long shot in your execution for the following reasons. 1. UX The user experience is absolutely atrocious from the moment you open the app and attempt to setup. It’s obvious that this app was not properly tested on the target user. 2. Too many features Keep all the features but put it in advance setting tap. SIMPLIFY the setup process. It should be no more than 3 steps. 3. Copy The way menus and settings are worded could be rewritten in a way that is more clear. 4. Build in guide Don’t send users to a long help site. Quick help instructions should be built in to app!

Not compatible with modem. We had a circle first generation that was amazing and we then upgraded to the newest model. It worked for a year and then as soon as it was time to pay for a monthly subscription, we paid and could never get it working again. The customer support told us it wasn’t compatible with our modem but it was the same modem we had been using for a year. Don’t waste your money.

Update desperately overdue. Good and have it for many years but app needs an update as it’s slow to scroll on latest iOS

Life ruiner. This app is absolute torture. It destroys your happiness. As a teenager, I believe that I should be allowed to at least be able to watch some decent, funny videos on YouTube. But no, my whole life, my parents have blocked all websites related to entertainment and videos. Meanwhile every single kid at school watches YouTube or goes on TikTok and things like that. Everybody at school talks about things online; they all say “new words” that we’re made up online. So when a kid like me goes to school and doesn’t know what anybody is saying, I feel like trash. You would think his wouldn’t be such a huge problem, but it is. Since I never know what anyone is saying, I just don’t say much at all because I am afraid I will say something dumb and get laughed at or something. I have speaking problems because I was always to scared to say anything. I hardly have any friends because people consider me quiet/boring. This app has caused more pain and suffering than you could ever imagine. Just for watching some funny videos on Youtube, I get punished. This app causes overprotective *crazy parents* to get out of control and become 1000 times more annoying. Unless you want your kids to hate you, DONT GET THIS APP. Not getting this app = No depression, speaking problems, or lack of friends and happiness Circle🥊😡🤬😡😡😡😭😭🤬🤬😵

stop. i hate this app so much it destroys trust between parents and their kids and you get no privacy whatsoever. and the worst thing is you know your parents would hate it too if they had it on their devices

Circle. Poop

Terrible. Very bad do not get

Horrible device. buy this is if you want your children to hate you with a burning passion

You mutterfiker. Zu Mutter

Let’s not 😘. Let’s gay playful together ok😍

Need a pin. Thought this was a great tool until our son figured out all he had to do was download the app himself and change the controls we have put in. I recommend the initial installer of the hardware be able to create a pin so that you have to enter the pin to make changes to the restrictions thereby eliminating this go around as he would need to the pin to be able to make the changes. Please make this change ASAP.

I hate it. It is stupid

Disappointing😔😔😔. This app is leaving stress for a lot of kids and teens. It is very difficult for me to not be stressed. I hope you can understand. ~thanks~

Nope. Not only that I don’t want to have screen time but this isn’t even a good app it works horribly and glitches tons so parents if you want to waste your money only for your kids to bypass this then go ahead and get this app.

Awful (and how to bypass). Hi. This is coming from one of the teens that had the absolute unfortunate luck of getting this app on my phone. Not only was I VERY EASILY able to bypass it, and actually delete the app off of my phone, It was practically useless! It didn’t really affect my screen time, as I could just turn it off. So go into settings > general > VPN > circle > info > delete VPN. It may not be those exact words but I think its easy enough to do. My name on here is my snap, so feel free to add me. I wont be having any problems spending more than 60 minutes on it. I can’t believe my parents spent 100 or more bucks on this only for me to get around it 😂😂

Attention. Problématique.. Oui l’application permet de belles fonctionnalités. Mais NON elle ne permet pas un contrôle aussi exceptionnel qu’elle le prétend. En fait, un ado moyennement débrouillard trouvera aisément comment le contourner. Et en le contournant, il appliquera des solutions informatiques qui peuvent mettre à risque votre réseau internet! On appelle ça créer un problème en tentant d’en régler un autre!

Hello fellow children with strict asian parents. title

Do not recommend. Absolute garbage. My son bypassed it within the first 12 hours. You cannot tell which device belongs to who or look at the history for each device individually. The controls don’t work reliably it’s an absolute joke and waste of money and time. Not to mention it’s so hard to set up on your kids device that you pretty much need to be a tech wizard to figure the thing out.

Please. Just... I don’t know what to do anymore. I only get 30 minutes a day. Look, I learned my lesson, ok? Devs you did a really good job though.

no❤️. if you want your kids/teens to hate you and doubt your trust in them and increase the chance of you going to a ✨nursing home✨buy this😃😃

Circle. Test

Privacy. You can see everything that people are doing on you wifi that’s practically hacking

Great for blocking devices. I use other software to manage apps and control screen time but this one is great for being able to just hit a button and turn everything off in the home

Garbage. If you want your teens to feel unsafe whenever they are around you and end up in a nursing home then get this. I’m 16 I don’t need my parents monitoring me and limiting my screen time to 1 hour a day. I can do it myself.

Comment le désactiver. Quelqu’un a installer cette application et contrôle mon téléphone contre mon concentement est ce que vous pouvez me dire comment le désactiver? Svp

Circle review. Such a bad device and invention does not work can’t Connect to wifi or my or my partners phone won’t let me control the kids devices do not buy

Not as user friendly. I am on my second circle and I found the 1st generation way more user friendly. I have had very frustrating moments with this new circle.

gayer than lil nas. mega gay

It sucks. This ruins my life

Bruh. Really bad u can just turn off the VPN in settings in general or just delete the app 😂😂😂😂😂😂😆😆😆😆😆😆🤣🤣🤣 like bruuuhh it’s 100 dollars not worth it seriously devs if you read this just know that I very am disappointed

Plz shut it down. This app has taken away the only thing that I use as an escape from the world. Believe it or not idc but it’s the only thing that brings me happiness now a days. I beg you please shut it down.

Useless. Absolutely useless

Awful Demon Machine (DO NOT BUY!!!). This machine has torn our family apart. Not only has it turned out kids against us it has also started out mutual hatred for each other. My kids now doubt that we love them and are pulling stunts to see if we actually care about them. This machine was the reason all of this started. My oldest daughter has now moved out one year ahead of when was planned because she “wants to live somewhere where she is loved and not stalked by a ‘demon machine’ that is ruined her life.” My youngest son has now started living with the neighbours who’s dog is extremely dangerous. But he says he would rather live with the fear of death then this demon machine. Honestly I wish I had never bought this machine for many reasons but there were also some unsettling things I did not need to know about my son witch I discovered for his search history. The most tragic thing about this machine was when it electrocuted our dog in a result of leaving him dead with no more fur. So I strongly suggest you do not buy this machine unless you want children that despise you and a dead dog.

Not accurate. i could talk abt how this app is garbage but it’s not even accurate, if i check snap for 2 seconds it automatically marks me down for 5 minutes. it is very annoying and i would be better if it was more accurate

Team up to fight circle. Ok, first of all we all know how horrible Circle is.My parents were strict to begin with, but as soon as they downloaded circleNone of my siblings or I trusted them anymore. I’m petrified to do things on my iPad even things that I’m allowed to do, thinking that my parents will get angry. Every kid whose parent has download in circle knows the pain of the thousands of parents who’ve done this to their children. But I’m tired of suffering in silence together, we can do this. By writing horrible reviews and filing at least 10 complaints, we can bring down circle together. We have to team up to fight circle stand together side-by-side and gain control of our lives again!!!!

Note to children. to turn it of go to settings

I cant delete it. This app sucks. It blocks your data and you cant even delete the app.

i’m sorry teens. this app is okay for those under 13 but for this 13 or over, i’m sorry... apps like these don’t do what they think they do, parents. they actually limit your kids from being independent and instead just make them feel trapped and violated. just because you don’t trust your teen, doesn’t mean you have to put this mistrust on them. i unfortunately have been unlucky enough to get this app and i’m sorry. this is probably being tracked right now but it is valid to be angry and is invalid to download this app as a parent. privacy is important and crucial for independence

The best parent control. I have tried several routers with parent control.. This is the best one that I know..

Laggin. Lagging and never work when I am in pause never have time and always change worst app

bad. i cannot believe my parents spent like 100 dollars on this peice of trash just for me to bypass it in like, a day. yikes.

Retirement home speedrun. This app will help you get either no contact with your kids or will get them to put you in the retirement hon when you need to eat mush at the age of 80 take my advice don’t buy

Garbage. Spent $140 on this. It was never able to connect wired or wireless tried all the things. Best Buy won’t return it. Spent hours trying everything.

great if you want kids to hate you 🧍‍♀️. as a 15 year old, i feel as though this is ridiculous, i shouldn’t be getting tracked on every single device i own, my wifi should not be turning off every single day. i beg you adults, do NOT get this for your children, as it makes them miserable. i already have depression, and talking to my friends at 2 in the morning was helping me. now i can’t even do that. so thank you to my “nice” parents who implemented this trash system in my household. it is also very easy to bypass, but i do not want to, as my dad can see when i turn it off, and then i will be grounded as a 15 year old in the middle of a pandemic. i stand alongside all the other teenagers that are suffering with me in this battle.

Useless app that my son bypassed easily. After I told my son I that I had implemented the parental controls he laughed at me and within five minutes he had bypassed the entire system and within the next hour he had complete control over everything (which he used to shut off my phone and computer’s WiFi). Completely useless and ineffectual.

⚠️PARENTS⚠️. Circle is a great device. Installing this for your kids, increases your chances of being thrown in a nursing home by approximately 200% ❤️

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Blocks Data When Off. My daughter is finally at the age where phone in hand is more important than eyes on where you’re walking. So figured why not give this a try… what a waste of time, money, and frustration trying to figure it out. Things were working good for about 3mo and then it became an issue. It has blocked all her data on her phone no matter what the settings are on her profile. I’ve tried everything to get it working right again with no luck. She has a field trip tomorrow where she won’t be around a hotspot so she won’t have data at all so I finally gave in and told her to delete the app. Sure enough, phone works great. Now to figure out how to cancel my subscription!

annoying. hi i’m a teen or whatever so you probably don’t care but circle is literally annoying. im here for parents looking out for their kids and protecting them and stuff but this is too much. instead of micromanaging your child build a trust with them so you’d know what they’re doing by them ACTUALLY telling you. i get little kids (like 2-10 years old) using this but 11+ is just stupid. you need to teach them online safety at a young age so it sticks. teens would find a way around this so it’s a waste of money. also, it slows down the wifi so much. anyway parent pls just build a trust/friendship with your kid so they will tell you stuff bc if you get things like this they will slowly start to not like you and i dont think you want that, right?

It’s a Solid App. My parents used this on me as I used to be on my phone too late and now I have a great sleep schedule and I’m not tired all day. It works really well but sometimes I could still watch videos if I reloaded the page a few times but it usually works. It was very frustrating as the one being limited but you get used to it and now I can sleep better.

As a kid. I’m a kid- skip if you don’t care All I’ve found this app to do is ruin relationships between parents and kids. Besides the fact that I can add time when I want whenever I have one of the parents’ phones, my father has an infinitely low time for WiFi usage. The device also slows down competitive gaming, is rigorous in its system workings, from what I’m hearing from the other reviews, much less effective than the previous circle device. All in all, makes me despise my parents for what I could, but don’t, have. Edit:the average ratings must be wrong- I went through at least 50, only saw 2 five stars.

Aero. So cute to read all the reviews from children. Clearly it works or the kids being blocked would not be so upset. Of special interest is the kids that are concerned they will not be able to pay for their phones when they go to college and wonder if parents are keeping Circle. Grow up, pay for your phone and you won’t need to install Circle. I love all the children with a brain not fully developed wanting to make adult decisions. Kids are being exposed to porn at 8 trails and they want us parents to trust and not do anything.

This ruined my life. I’m a 13 year old who wasn’t bothered to much by the circle. I knew I could always escape it when I went to my moms house. But, when our old one broke, my dad got us the circle go, which he could control my internet anywhere. Even at my moms. Ever since the circle was installed on my phone I’ve just felt unsafe and frustrated. I just want to delete the app to make my dad mad. Sometimes I feel like he just did this to ruin my life. I also feel like it’s to be on forever, and I’m never going to escape it. Some people must think that I’m being dramatic, but to me... this is a big deal. If your a parent wanting to get something to control your kids internet, this isn’t the way to do it. Your kids will most likely loose trust in you. I hope these people release that the circle is ruining family and will stop making it.

I'm mad. If you're trying to be a helicopter parent, then yes this app is good. As a child I can tell you that when you try to control your kids like this they'll just become more sneaky. You wonder why your kids don't wanna talk to you? Well this is why. I hate to break it to you but things like this is why kids can't wait to move out. I'm one of those kids that can't wait until I'm 18 so I don't have to put up with this anymore. You can say that this is to protect your kids or whatever, but just be prepared for your children to hate you. Anyways, the app is fine except it didn't let me have all my screen time (it cut me off 5 mins early).

Evolutionary leap!. Change: this new product is terrible. VPN used for Circle Go in new iteration fails nonstop and drives my kids nuts and therefore me nuts. Circle has been unable to fix and a ticket has been open for a month without resolution. If you are using the old product DO NOT SWITCH to the new one. It is still in ALPHA level status. I was an early adopter of the original Circle device and of Circle Go. It disappointed me when I was notified Circle Go signups we’re suspended because I figured that meant it was end of life. The new product is undersold by marketing. It moves the VPN protecting my kids devices from being routed through my HOME network and crushing my home speeds to a REAL VPN network which is worth every penny. The new Circle Go equivalent isn’t even tied to the Ciircle device anymore! New service is quick and easy and basically the new device is free with 12 months of free VPN service x $10/month. Great job Circle. New app is a bit wonky but I’m sure it will be fixed quickly.

Job interview. My mother put this app on my phone because she didn’t like my friends. Which wouldn’t have bothered me, EXCEPT for when I told her I needed google for school and email responding and MANY other things. To which she replied “no you don’t”. And due to that fact, whenever I was applying for a job, I had to call her and get the password to delete it so I could complete the form they gave me. Not only that, but this app destroys trust. I know that “only kids who have something to hide hate this app.” But why would we bother to hide or even DO anything wrong if there was the trust that we wouldn’t? It makes kids feel like they need to sneak around to do anything at all and overall destroys relationships. -10/10 would not reccomend.

Bedtime feature doesn’t seem to work. We have been using this app for several weeks and I am unsure if I will continue to subscribe due to the fact that I have set the bedtime feature to 9:00 but my daughter is continually on the phone playing games after that time. She is not doing anything to circumvent the controls, it is just not shutting her access off at that time. I’d appreciate a fix for this because otherwise I do think it’s a good app.

It's glitchy, and has created more harm than good.. My father got this app in order to keep my sibling and I from staying up too late. Outside of getting totally power trippy with it, the glitches made things way more complicated. My devices wouldn't load images or internet-dependent systems, but I could use those same systems to text and call others. Now that I've turned 18 (and out of school), my father has removed the restrictions put on my devices. Everything works except for my phone that still has a bedtime timer set. This app also takes up the majority of the bandwidth available on a router so the hundreds of dollars put into good internet will go to waste. The filters also block unnecessary things as well. Overall the system is scuffed and you'd be better off unplugging the WiFi at night.

Worked for awhile. We’ve used this for a year but we’ve found a flaw that they system seems to have to allows my children (pretty easily) the ability to bypass the system. Despite have restrictions and bedtime set up, I noticed on the filter history they were using it after hours. I could see that they were logging onto filter sites but Circle wasn’t stopping them and they were online outside of filter time. They’re are no settings for parents to prevent someone/child from setting up VPNs on their computers. It’s frustrating how limited the system is

Review. The app doesn’t always load when I want it to and when I hit disable I have go through a bunch of steps before I can get there. I have had to delete my app several times because I cannot disable circle. When it is enabled it seriously messes up our bandwidth and since we work from home this is a huge issue. And yes we have made all devices unmanaged except for the teens we need to manage but it disrupts the whole house. We cannot run circle and do our work even if we are ‘unmanaged’. The whole WiFi to the house is on slomo.. ☹️

Great when it’s working which is half of the time. I have been using the product for 2+ years. Based o my experience, the product is decent on controlling internet access for kids and teens. My main problem is the filters and devices associated with profiles sometimes mysteriously changed to unmanaged without notice. There were times my kids devices went unmanaged for days without knowing. I worked with the support team for more than once to find out the problem, but never uncover anything. I wish there were logs to know when settings were change and by whom.

Great parental control app. Device onboarding is very quick and simple. Interface is very intuitive and well designed. The reward feature is the only thing that keeps this app from getting 5 stars. You should have the ability to give a reward without it being for the entire day or having to change the whole schedule. For the developers, please add functionality for giving rewards by the hour

NOT THE WAY TO FIX YOUR CHILD NOT DOING CHORES. Hey, I’m pretty young but here’s my advice. If your worried your kid isn’t going to do their chores or something DO NOT GET THIS APP. Most of us kids under 18 have grown up with the internet, it’s where we find our happiness and entertainment, it’s how kids back in your age would treat a book, it entertains us, and connects us with many of our friends. This app will not make your child more obedient, it’ll just create trust issues between you and your kid, and make your kid a FANTASTIC liar. Give your kids privacy!! Think of how you would feel if you were a kid and your parent kept you from talking to friends. Oh I’d just deal with it, you might say, no you wouldn’t. In total DONT get this app for your kid. TALK with them and WORK THINGS out. You and your child will thank you.

Impossible to manage. Circle is a good concept poorly executed. The VPN blocks connections of crucial applications like VSee (used for our kids remote doctor visits), Lessonmate/Mandrill (used for their music classes), etc. in ways that are impossible to unfilter. In the case of web-hosted apps the VPN causes DNS lookup failures for the servers. VSee just hangs (possibly on the same condition). No available filter rules bypass this behavior — circle VPN must be disabled to allow access —rendering the software worse than useless. It is also unable to correctly assign apps into generic categories. Unlisted games such as my kids favorites, Human Fall Flat and Hotwheels Infinite Loop, do not get whitelisted by allowing games generally. There are just not enough listed apps and the heuristics for unlisted apps just don’t work right, plus the VPN botches the network such that even if I turn filtering to “none” level many many apps - web and native alike - can’t connect to their servers (the VPN must be disabled). Simply breaking the network layer isn’t control - its lack of control.

I hate it.. FYI this review is coming from a teenager. I hate circle. My parents think they can just turn off my internet whenever. It’s really really hard right now because I am a very social person and due to the Corona virus I can not go to school. They turn off my internet the whole day and I can not message my friends or anything like that. They sometimes cannot see that I am growing up. It’s so annoying because I get a notification from someone that doesn’t text me a lot so I’m exited and then when I go to the app I cannot not see it due to circle. I get that this app is mostly used for screen time but I barley go on my phone now and then, and when I do it’s mostly just texting a friend not playing some game. This app is literally ruining so much for me. I hate it. Words cannot even describe the pain I feel because of this app.

Don’t pass this just because I’m a kid. I’m going to be upfront and say: yes, I’m a kid. But just because I’m younger than you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to me. Circle is an awful app. Period. I’m sorry app developers, but it’s true. All it’s caused is problems between me and my family. They always pause me for the dumbest reasons! And sure, that’s not the app developers fault, but creating this app is their fault. Also, when you ban Snapchat, it bans Bitmoji which is completely unnecessary! Plus, my parents pay $20 for me and my brothers to have this crap. What a waste of well earned money. Additionally, it’s super easy to just delete it when your paused. Sure, there’s an option to make it so your unable to delete it, but no kid is actually going to hit that and say, “sOuNd’S gReAt!” So, if you want family conflict and to avoid all your problems instead of solving them, download circle.

Should Create ALERTS warning Kids TIMES UP!. We just started using Circle again after giving up on Circle a few years ago. Latest version is effective in shutting down Internet. However, too much of the burden is placed on the parents to warn the kids that their times up. COVID-19 has made digital social interactions with friends critical. Instead of parents having to warn the kids that they have say 20 minute left, CIRCLE SHOULD CREATE ALERTS ON THE KIDS’ DEVICES TO WARN THEM THAT THEY HAVE SAY 30, 15, or 5 MINUTES TO END THEIR GAMES/VIDEO/ETC. This way, the kids learn to self monitor, rather than the parents, which inevitably almost always creates a conflict between the parents and their children.

Doesn’t live up to expectations for $100+ subscription. Great hardware keeps me paying, but lackluster software UX means I’ll switch once a better competing product comes along. As a parent of 4 younger kids, I’m a longtime Circle customer. I just upgraded our gen1 unit to the newer gen2 unit, which requires this app. The gen1 hardware was starting to fail, so time to replace. I expected the gen2 app to be way better than the gen1 app (yes they are different apps), since the gen1 is ~4 years old. Nope. Pain points: 1. iPad app still does not support rotating portrait to landscape. This is not hard, why is this still missing in 2020? 2. Cannot export all my devices and settings from gen1 and import to gen2. Go hire a summer intern and let them spend 2 months on a feature to export settings from gen1 and import settings to gen2. Again, this can’t be rocket science. (And if it is, hire an intern from SpaceX) 3. Way too may screens to do common tasks. There has to be a simpler way to organize settings.

Worst thing on the App Store. I hate this app. And I’ll tell you why. I’m 17 years old and I pay my own bills every month and my mom still insists that we put it on our phones, EVEN THOUGH I pay my own way. I can’t do anything, nothing loads, it kills my wifi speed, and I can’t even delete apps that take up too much space anymore. For God sakes the VPN you have to install for it makes it to where my speed on data is so slow that I can’t even clock in for work bc the app wont open. I hate this app it is a total invasion of privacy for someone paying their own way almost 100%. This company needs to go I’m sick of having my own life ran by dictatorial companies and parents that are emotionally abusive, so this doesn’t help at all. It’s got to go!

Great until the Advertisements. I’m a big advocate of the Circle app and system. I’ve tried all sorts of different systems like Bark, Net Nanny, and Eset. I’ve read all the reviews and tested out everything, even going as far as routing my internet through Cloudflare and OpenDNS. The closest thing I found was Qustodio and even that wasn’t as solid as Circle. However, with the latest changes, the app has become sluggish and more unresponsive. I get logged out more often now, and the app is buggy at inopportune times. All that said, I would have still rated it a 4 or 5 given what I know is in market. But now Circle is pushing advertisements in the app. I already pay a $90 annual fee and I’ve paid for the device too. Why am I seeing Ads! I guess the parent company needs to push their products and figured it would be great to market to paying customers right in the app. It’s a terrible decision and one that breeds mistrust in the device and system.

It’s cool. I’m a child writing this review. I think it’s a good app. It works well. Bedtime goes on and off when supposed to. It’s cool. But sometimes it asks my parents to sign in over and again. And sometimes we can’t sign in. So all the devices that are blocked are blocked forever. Well, not FOREVER, but until we can get in the app again. But overall it’s cool.

Don’t, just don’t!. I’m 13 and honestly if you want to ruin your relationship with your child, then go ahead and get this. But I’m telling you, that this only cause issues, I mean how you like it if you had your parents controlling everything on your phone?! Parents always say teens and kids are on their phones to much, but really parents are in them just as much as we are! And if you don’t want your kid always going on their device, then actually go do something with them instead of getting this! This is just overall really frustrating, because even if your at a friends house it still will do the limit, then you always will have to text your parents for more time, so unless you want your relationship with your child to go down hill, don’t get this!!

Useless nightmare of a filter masquerading as effective.. This app is a disgrace. Not only is it easy to bypass with administrative acsess to the device it is used on, it also fails to block the most obvious of websites. News sites are sometimes blocked, as well as many informational pages. 4chan is disabled, yes, but just the boards with some semblance of legitamacy. My child was permited on the boards with racism and hardcore porn, but not the place where users congregate to talk about math and science. I was surprised this site had a math and science board, but they do, along with other topics like history, literature, video games, and advice. All of which are blocked. And let us not forget the blatent corperate favoritism. The page a child is redirected to when they go somewhere they should not be is full of promotions of disney. So not only does circle have an ineffective filter, they brainwash children to buy disney.

NEVER GET THIS.. I know, I know. I’m a 13 year old and my opinion is irrelevant these days but don’t get this app for your kids. Get something else. The first gen was so easy, and I was okay with it, but I feel completely violated by this one. I am paying for MY OWN service so I can do what I want freely and my mom STILL forces me to have this. It’s ridiculous. Also, the internet? Yeah, it said ✨no✨. Completely ruined it in the top half of my house. If you’re looking for an internet filter, just get the 1st gen. And parents? Don’t get it at all. Try to build trust with your children instead of limiting their times on the internet. and remember, social media can save lives. dont cause it by blocking it.

Required for parenting teenagers. I originally had the first generation from T mobile but I upgraded the modem and it was not supported. Within days I found the Circle Plus version, I am now back up and running. This prevents arguments when my kids test the boundaries or simply become apathetic teenagers, with the press of one button their electronic devices are off line. No debate at bedtime because it is on a schedule. Also, if they do dishes, clean the room, or mow the yard, you can reward them with extra time. User-friendly interface, and the new model is much easier to setup and identify the devices.

Bad and Good. This app may help your kids, but this app also has lots of flaws. This app caused my WiFi to be TERRIBLE all of my family and friends have also noticed the change in our wifi. I get you need to set boundaries for your kids, but we should not be in our kids privacy and take away some of the responsibilities they have! Our kids should have to learn consequences of being on there electronics for to long. This app may also make your kids want to go behind you back, which is something we shouldn’t be teaching them to do. I think this app is good in bad, but I believe we should listen to our kids opinions. If they are bad take it away, but do not give them consequences for most of their life.

Why doesn’t this work on a Samsung a20. Our family purchased this app as a referral from a friend. It has worked great until our evasionous rebellious 16 figured out he can make circle not work by long tapping the app icon and hitting the remaining be button. Is there a fix for this and if so how do you make it so he cannot bypass circle vpn again? This has happened ever since google play store had issues. We have reloaded the app several times following the protocol as stated on the evasive child checklist. We are using iOS circle app on our phones and our kids both have Samsung phones. Mind you our daughter tries this and it acts as it should. How is it one can and one can’t? While they were set up the exact same? Is there something I’m missing in setup? Please help.

Just a no🤠. So back in October my dad got this app for my sister and I and ever since then things have gone downhill. As a middle schooler, I have to do work on my computer. Especially when I do online school. My teachers sometimes provide links for us to work with, and literally when I click on them it brings me to CIRCLE. Like its hard to EXPLAIN to my teacher why I can’t do my work on a safe website. Second of all, I’m really not comfortable with my dad (one who has the app) having access to like my personal information and stuff like that on ALL of my electronics. Even my computer, DIRECTED FOR SCHOOL! Like what are u gonna do? Look at my search history for fun and stalk me? HELLO??? This is a terrible app and DONT GET IT PARENTS YOUR CHILD WILL HAVE THEIR MENTAL HEALTH EFFECTED ONCE AGAIN AND WONT FORGIVE YOU. Ok I’m done xx 💋

TERRIBLE. This app is absolutely terrible. Half the time it just blocks everything and makes it so that use of phone is impossible. If you’re intending to use this app with your children my advice to you is find another option. Another problem is that it slows down everyone’s WiFi speed and cellular data speed as well. The app has a lot of trouble working on older models of phone as well. So, if you’re looking to use this app you half to pay for the use of this app AND ensure that you’re children’s phones have the most up to date phone otherwise it won’t work. And even then there’s still no guarantee that it will. It’s just not worth the money.

Basic functionality to schedule internet. App was easy to install and set up. Learning to use all the features was not as intuitive as I would like. User interface should be more intuitive, it does work to block internet, but I’m not sure it is blocking other ports as well. I need to play with it more, but I don’t have a clear understanding of how to control all devices on my home network and cellular devices using the app from the same interface. Worth purchasing for the scheduling and pause features.

no feedback option?. Since the app has no bug or feedback option, and instead shoves you into an auto no solution found system instead, I'll put it in the app review! We are often disabling circle because it's blocking kids school work or a game. It would be GREAT if when disabling circle it offered to re-enable after a time period, like 2, 4, 6 hrs. We often forget to go back and re-enable and the kids know it. Really wish it just provided the top 30 apps for filter settings but understand that would take effort.

CHILD ABUSE! SCREW CIRCLE!!!!!!. PLEASE READ!! I’m almost 17 and my mom just got this for me and my 5 siblings. It’s TERRIBLE!! My parents can see all my browsing history and LITERALLY EVERYTHING I DO ON MY PHONE!! I always feel awkward around my mom because she probably knows about EVERYTHING! Every time my mom’s on her phone I’m always super paranoid that she’s looking at my history or something! It’s a total violation of privacy! It also screws up the WiFi! The internet barely works now and WiFi is SO SLOW!! This app gives me anxiety and makes me feel so watched and stalked!!! HECK, MY PARENTS WILL PROBABLY FIND OUT ABOUT THIS REVIEW (cuz they know about everything I do on my phone, thanks to circle). SCREW CIRCLE!!!

Good job =). I know you’re probably expecting me to say that it’s horrible and stuff because I, like many here, am a teenager. I came to say that the app works almost perfectly (though, sometimes, it will say I ran out of time on something after I actually ran out of time). I do request that the My Circle paused/ran out of time/bedtime screen would appear on Google/Safari instead of “could not connect to internet” or “connection is not private”, though. =)

Subscription Problem. I signed up for a 1-month trial 3 days ago, which was to change to $4.99 per month after, or $49 for the year. Now the app will not let me log on to the premium features. My Apple account still shows that I am subscribed as a premium account holder, but will not allow me to access the premium features. I tried to restore the account, and am getting an error message, and I tried to sign up for a new account, and the price has changed to $9.99 per month. I am skeptical about the app’s customer service, and changing subscription prices midway through a subscription. I would be careful about subscribing to this service until they get the bugs worked out… If anyone from the app wants to contact me to assist, I would greatly appreciate it.

You might think it’s good but it’s not. I’m a 12 year old kid and I bet you’re thinking to yourself, obviously this kid hates this app because he just wants more time online. But I don’t mind having time limits. I don’t like time limit apps such as this one because if you’re a kid, your parents will give you a bunch of time limits and that’s fine but it also gets to the point where some days you have nothing going on and it’s completely fine to be online for longer than the time minutes but other days it’s not. I think parents should not get time limit apps and just keep their children off Themselves. It is much better not being controlled by a device and just open your parents are you getting off when I tell you too.

Good on the surface, poor overall. I frequently get texts from my children at the start of the day complaining that the app is restricting their access. Not sure what the problem is, and part of what makes use of this app frustrating is it tends to happen when they are remote from me, so I can’t troubleshoot. Another gap is no allowance for altering bedtime - so if the family (or a child alone) is participating in an activity past their standard bedtime or if it’s a holiday so you allow them to stay up later you have to change the bedtime setting just for that evening. Hopefully, you remember to change it back! The feature that displays web address history is very little use. I’d guess 90% or more of the links shown in the history are bad links when I click on them to visit the site. It appears there is not a Circle app that will manage my youngest’s Fire tablet. I have tried the locate device feature, and it has only worked when the device was located in the same house.

Don’t get this app and maybe you kids won’t hate you. I know that since I am a teen you will not actually take my opinion into account, but if you are having screen time problems in your house sit down and have a real conversation with your children with and open mind instead of giving up all trust and killing your kids social life. His app is awful because a teen should be able to have their own privacy and learn how to limit them selfs, don’t you think. I’m mad because my parents won’t let me do anything on my phone anymore. It is the middle of a pandemic people! I don’t have any social life anymore, and shocker if you want your kids mental health to get better this is only going to make it worse! We are so disconnected right now and this is NOT helping. Don’t get this app and maybe your kids won’t hate you. Thanks.

4 stars not sure yet. I like this so far but I am not sure yet. What I like is that I know who is logging in my internet. I teach online and it helps me block extra use until I am done. I am hopeful the filters will work for my teen son but it remains to be seen - We do feel after almost a year with the circle that it is a great device for monitoring and control internet use. Nothing apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, will keep a teenager from looking at bad things on the internet so don’t be lured into false assurance. However I would purchase this device again! I am glad we have it.

First Circle Was Better. I’m tired of logging in every time I want to open the app, why isn’t that saved? I agree with other reviewers, the controls/reward system is tedious at times. Also, my kids use their time without knowing it because their phones access sites in the background that we aren’t aware of. Overall, it’s a good system and eliminates some arguments because it shuts them down when they’ve used their time, but there have been days recently that I’ve considered unplugging it because it’s not worth the hassle.

Overall, accomplishes what I want - could be easier to use. Overall, I am able to set up controls more or less how I want to for my kids. I don’t use the profiles for individuals. For one thing, my kids don’t have personal devices but rather several that they share. Rather, I set up a profile each for different types of activity ... apps/sites I want to be “always available” (a very small list, mostly kindle), screen time, and school. Then I move different devices into those profiles depending who is using them and for what. Because of that, I don’t really use the time limits. A few items would make it much easier to use 1) ability to copy one profile to set up another 2) turn off auto correct when entering sites in the custom filter

How to work around circle. Circle operates around a VPN. The way this works is your parents download the circle VPN to your device. The VPN turns off wifi and limits apps. The way to get around the VPN is by going to settings > general > VPN and device management > circle VPN > info > and turn off the slider. This will notify the parental account in control of your VPN! Your parents will get a notification! but it will turn off your limitations. Deleting the FPN will also notify your parental account. The reason I decided to share this information is that circle has no emergency feature. If you have this implication and are in an emergency and need to contact someone, this is how to turn it off.

Not an upgrade. I’ll try to leave out the obvious money grab from 1st to 2nd gen but it’s definitely there. My issue is Circle no longer reports hostility activity beyond a certain number of links on IOS devices. So it restarts daily at 12am and records history until it hits some random number of inputs and the. Stops for the day. Typically 2-5am and that’s it. It does still operate and filter but doesn’t show history or real time activity as it did previously. I’ve notified Circle and they are the ones who told me it’s only with iOS devices and are working on it. That was almost a month ago. Fix it.

Not working any more!. It worked for about a year and then it went crazy. Devices were randomly assigned to wrong profiles and kept dropping! Even though I did everything as suggested by the web, I could not fix the problem. The tech support is now only available via email. One year ago, I could talked to a tech guy. Not anymore! The emails I sent were never answered. It got to the point I had to reassign the devices every day and several times a day. I finally had to toss it. It was a waste of money. Unfortunately I purchased lift time and it is now cannot be returned because the return window was expired.

No. I’m a 15 year old who has never done anything to take away my parents trust and they have always still not trusted me. I found out that mom mom added this to my phone and it’s just making my relationship with her harder. We’re in a global pandemic and just moved. 100% of my friends are online and now I can’t even talk to them cause of the time zone difference and the bed time rule. I have always had the internet to cheer me up as someone who is diagnosed with major depressive disorder and general anxiety disorder. Now I don’t even have that. Please if you are a parent don’t download this app for your child.

Parents- don’t waste your money. We had the first generation and it worked great. The second generation and this version of the app are terrible. Several devices in our house would not work at all. Those that did work, the app had no consistency in tracking. My kids would be online for hours and the app wouldn’t acknowledge even a minute. Yes, they were connected to our home network. The vpn system to monitor devices when they are not on the home network is useless too. The vpn was forever turning itself off. There are many other ways to monitor that are far superior and less expensive. This is a terrible product.

I wish I could give zero stars. I have struggled to find a way to control my kid’s devices for a few years and bought into the great reviews for the Circle product. In particular, I was hopeful that Circle would help me control the inordinate amount time my son plays on Xbox. After spending the money and an excessive amount of time (about 3 months) trying to figure out how to use the product, I give up. Step one is trying to figure out what all the devices are on your network that are assigned seemingly random names by Circle. For example, I have two devices named “Yes”. Huh?! And four or five more with names that don’t make any more sense or intuitively tie to a device in my house. Next, I still cannot figure out how to control my son’s Xbox after multiple attempts to set time limits. To top that off, I can’t find any decent online instructions or support from the Circle website. How can it be so hard? Unfortunately, I’m well past the time limit to return the device and get my money back.

Dear parents, never, ever use this.. This app has been used on me for years now and it has done nothing but drive my family apart and give me paranoia. It has served me in no way but to make me afraid of my parents and make me hide everything I do, regardless of how innocent it is. Apps like these are what causes kids to stop trusting their parents- parents, if you would rather install an app to invade your child’s privacy than simply exhibit a healthy amount of trust in them, maybe they wouldn’t hate you so much. Circle is one of many reasons I don’t intend to talk to my parents in adulthood; if they couldn’t trust me enough to let me speak freely to my friends and use social media, then they will not get the privilege of my trust in them.