Circle with Disney keeps any device under parental eyes

In this digital age, almost every kid wants to have access to the Internet and to modern amenities like mobile devices. The situation often presents a nightmare for parents who want to protect their children from the dangers of the online world. Since not all smartphones and tablets are equipped to safeguard children's welfare, some parents resort to buying specialized devices with parental controls built-in. Now, however, they might not need to spend as much, with Circle with Disney offering that same control for any device in the house and a fraction of the price.

Circle with Disney basically turns any device that connects to your home router into a kid-friendly device. Or any age-friendly device for that matter. And you don't even need to buy specialized hardware aside from Circle itself. It doesn't replace your router but instead connects to the router wirelessly. It then practically spoofs mobile devices into thinking they are connecting to to the router directly when, in fact, they are routing through Circle.

Because of this, parents can setup up fine grained control of any Internet content that goes to any device connected to Circle, which is practically any device in your house that connects to the Internet. Parents can set up time limits on apps and Internet access, filter content, and even "pause" the Internet entirely. That works not just for kids but for any member of the family, regardless of their age. The Circle management app allows parents to create profiles for each family member and group devices according each profile, tallying up total hours across devices owned by the same person.

The idea, and even implementation, of Circle with Disney isn't exactly new but it differentiating factor can be seen in its name. Circle Media has partnered with Disney to provide curated content appropriate for kids, like GIFs, music, games, and some videos. Unfortunately, there will be no full-length films available there.

All of that control comes at a price of $99 only. You don't even need to install an app on target devices, removing the dangers of kids uninstalling the app themselves. The only app parents will need is the Circle Management app on their own iPhone to control all of Circle with Disney's functions. For now, the app is available for iOS only, with an Android version promised sometime in 2016.

SOURCE: Circle