Reviews for Circle 1st generation

The app should automatically refresh every time it's opened, or at least have a "refresh" button on the home screen. We have multiple adults in the house using the app, but when anyone opens it, the status of the devices shown on the home screen might not be accurate. I paid over $450 for my Netgear modem and router, so it would be nice if all of the parental control fearures were available for no extra charge, but the app works well for pausing and resuming internet access for the kids' devices

I have a paid subscription. The app took a very long time to open today. It would just spin and spin. After about 5 minutes, it finally opened. I have issues with "pausing" devices, though. I set up a profile for my son with the Family PC on it. When I pause it, it doesn't pause his internet connection. Then, it will sometimes pause the internet for all of us, not just that PC. I have it enabled on my Orbi router. Last, there are so very many devices that display on it. People who connected to our network years ago have their phone on the list. To manually remove all of those would take a very long time... apple watches, iPhones, etc. It should only show me the current, active devices on the network.

Mediocre at best. I work in IT so its important I have all my devices mapped so setup was a breeze for isolating the devices I wanted in a group to regulate. They have the right idea with this. However, after subscribing to the premium and testing further I notice that time limits and bedtime are not enforced. If an online game is being played, it will not cut off their play. It only takes effect if they sign out then try to get back in does it block. I can find a better solution for free.

It would be better if you could set time limits within certain time frames of certain days. For instance 9am to Noon-up to 1 hour, then Noon to 5pm-up to 2 hours, then OFF 5pm to 6:30, or whatever. I wish the little circles indicated more clearly what the device is, not just 1 ltter. I cannot figure out if the main thing is running off of my WiFi, or my laptop. I cannot figure out how to add my smart TV or my DVR units.

Who controls who? It asks you to create a username, email, telephone and then it says it is a paid app, with very limited free features. But worst thing is that it does not recognize most of my devices, so it is useless. After I uninstalled it, all my devices kept being blocked, so I had to re-install and disable it. Still devices were being blocked! After a "factory reset" of the app things went back to normal and I hope I can get rid of it now.

This app can't get any worse. Issues since I used the app. I set a sleep time for only three devices under one user, but when the sleep time comes, the internet cut off from all the devices at home. The only way to get the internet back was to restart the router, and there was no way to stop the sleep time. The internet kept going off every single day multiple times, which means I have to keep restarting the router. I finally fixed the issue by resetting the router. Worst parental controls app

For an average home user, it's definitely subpar. The interface is unreliable and hard to fine tune, especially when it comes to easily identifying devices. With that said, If you are willing to fiddle with it, you can find workarounds to most issues, provided you have time. There isn't much choice out there for this sort of device.

I am having consistent problems with this app, ever since my free trial ended and now that I paid for it. $50 /year to not have it functioning is not acceptable. My phone says it is unable to connect to Circle, yet my wifi is working just fine and my phone is connected. Then it was "unable to locate Circle" and required me to re-register. This should not have issues for a paid app, and if it isn't fixed I'll have to cancel. It's just as easy to just physically turn off the wifi.

This is terrible, it gives so little information on the devices that you can't tell what is what. All Nintendo products are listed as "Nintendo device" and there's no way to tell them apart, so if you want to assign rules to one, but not another it's a guessing game. Then to make matters worse you have to pay to do anything more than the most basic things (free = pause, history, filter) so the poor quality of the app feels more unjustified.

Circle came free with our new router so we are trying it out. It has some great features, such as providing me with a tool to pause our family internet by device or as a whole house. I signed up for the 30 day free trial of their premium service and I don't think I will keep it when the trial is up. The daily counter that tells me how long my kids have been online is never accurate so when I set time limits for them, frequently they can't get online because the service says they have already spent their time (even when they haven't been on all day). I also don't love the way "off times " works. I can't set a time that starts in the evening and goes until the next morning because it doesn't recognize that 7am the following morning comes after 8pm. I would have to set off times for 8-11:59pm and another for 12:00am-7am. It's a bit of a hassle. I do really like the free version though. Being able to pause the internet feed even when my kids are hard wired into the network (as opposed to using wi-fi) is fantastic. The fact that it takes a few minutes to boot users off because their shows or games had buffered ahead took a little getting use to, but overall it is an app I would highly recommend if you can use the free version.

Netgear has lost my business with the switch to the Circle app. Now I get to pay for features that were free yesterday. Awesome. Never again Netgear. To be honest the free app wasn't great either, but the "free" part was good enough. this is ridiculous, and I'm on my way to Amazon to find a new WiFi router that doesn't suck and make me pay a monthly fee to do things that should be included. Dont buy Netgear and you wont need this app.

The Circle app is not very intuitive, and not very effective. It takes an enormous amount of work to identify all of the devices attached to your network, then you can only control access per device by assigning each device to a user. There is no option to set limits or block sites for a specific user on a multi-user device. Many of the sites visited in the history cannot be visited to see what they are, it just results in an error. Most "sites" are ad services but the app doesn't tell you that.

Like others are reporting, when you switch to a new phone, you will no longer be able to log into the app. It will say it is sending you a code, but you will not get it. Now, I am locked out of the app with no way to admin all the devices I have set up. I have a laptop that the wifi gets turned off at 10pm every night and no way to modify that. Disabling parental controls in the router interface doesn't help. I'll probably have to factory reset the router to fix this. Huge mess to fix.

App was a little glitchy, but seemed to do the job. Time by app usually doesn't work. I have the paid subscription (till 2/21) but since late June/early July the subscription states that I don't have one and would I like to buy another one. This is the third time since I installed it that I have had subscription problems. Would give 4 starts if the subscription part would work.

We have Circle on Netgear. We love the idea of this app. UNFORTUNATELY, we daily get the error "Can't Connect to Circle" making the app non-efficient, time consuming & frustrating. This means we are unable to pause or unpause devices. Another issue is if you set time limits on devices and things are running in the background, children lose their allocated time. Device's must be turned off to save time. If we could fix the disconnect issue, we'd definitely give a higher rating.

Avoid if at all possible. I've been a subscriber for over a year trying to make this thing work and I'm at the end of my rope. Chrome devices frequently can't connect even when they are properly configured in Circle. Filtering is random, it can't be trusted. My subscription seems to have vanished from the app (even though I'm paying monthly) with no obvious way to correct. Even when it works, it's not worth the money and time needed to support.

Overall, I've appreciated the app. However, it will periodically be "unable to find circle" and that issue is becoming more frequent! I've taken time to reboot my wifi... restart my phone... check for updates... swap from my 2g wifi to the 5g wifi (or vice versa). One of my children has a new device and I can't get into my app to update that profile!

When it works, it's fine. When anything happens, like you need to sign in again and it doesn't send the code to your phone number, or you accidentally press the pause button on all the devices (which includes your own that has the app) it's super annoying to not have a way to sign into your account except through the app.

update 8/26/25: subscribed to be able to limit the time spent online. I open the app today and it's past 9 am and my child's computer is connected. there is no history or usage information. Zero. Nothing. And I know that he's been on today. Unsubscribing. It doesn't even work for paid subscriptions. (face palm) It often doesn't open. Very frustrating. Have to wait until it fixes itself. Unfortunately it seems to be the only option for parental controls for Nighthawk router.

Simply doesn't work. It can't find my router. I know the router is compatible. I've logged into the router and enabled it, and it directed me to this app. I've restarted my phone, I've restarted the router, I've turned everything except wi-fi off on my phone, etc... Nothing works. This is app is broken and doesn't do what it is supposed to, and you want to charge a subscription service too? I'll just unplug the router every night. It's easier than fighting with this app.