Circle Parental Controls App

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!

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.

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.