Review: Circle With Disney Is Your Best Defense Against the Dark Side of the Internet

So you got the kids a new tablet, computer, or a smartphone for Christmas. Now comes the fun part: Keeping your children safe from the dark underbelly of the Internet, while preventing them from spending every waking moment glued to that new screen.

When kids are little, this is relatively easy. But as they get older, it gets increasingly difficult. By the time they’re full-blown teenagers, it can turn into all-out war (which you will probably lose).

Now a company called Circle Media is partnering with Disney to offer an easy-to-use, $100 network device that can help in that battle. Circle with Disney can track where your kids go on the Net, block sites you don’t want them to see, limit their screen time, and turn the Internet off at night. It requires absolutely zero technical expertise to set up, and you can manage all of it from an app on your iPhone. It also provides a smattering of family-friendly content provided by the Maus Haus.

For parents, this sounds utterly awesome. (For teenagers, not so much.) The question is, does Circle actually work as advertised? To find out, I installed it on my home network and used it for several weeks.

My conclusion: Overall, I have to say I was impressed. Circle is amazingly easy to set up and use, and is the best home-filtering solution I’ve seen since the late lamented Skydog router (which was acquired by Comcast in June 2014 and has never been seen again). But Circle is far from perfect; it doesn’t block everything you might want it to, and it suffers from some technical limitations, which means you won’t ever be able to just set it and forget it.

Sublime setup

The initial setup couldn’t be easier. You start by plugging Circle (which is actually cube-shaped and slightly smaller than a box of Kleenex) into a power outlet. That’s right: You don’t have to wire it to your router or your modem, which means you can place it almost anywhere in range of your Wi-Fi signal.

Next you download the app from the iTunes Store, which then walks you through the setup process. You log onto Circle’s own mini-Wi-Fi network from your iPhone, provide Circle your Wi-Fi network name and password, then log out of Circle’s Wi-Fi and back onto your home network. Enter your username, email address, and phone number; Circle sends you a verification code via text message. Plug that in, upload a photo, tell Circle what level of filtering you desire (adult, teen, or young’un), and you’re done. Total time elapsed: 5 minutes, give or take.

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