Samantha CrookDisney has partnered with "family-centric" tech company Circle to make a device that controls your kids' Internet use. (Video via Circle Media Inc.)
"Sorry, Internet, pause," an actor in a Circle promotional video said. (Video via Circle Media Inc.)
Circle with Disney, as the product is called, certainly isn't the only parental control device out there. But backing from a household name in children's entertainment does set it apart.
Circle actually failed to meet its funding goal in a 2013 Kickstarter campaign. (Video via Kickstarter)
Through the partnership with Disney, Circle now comes with curated, age-specific Disney content like blogs, videos, games and music.
Aside from the Disney partnership, what makes Circle different from other parental controls is that it doesn't require confusing Internet settings and software or a specific Wi-Fi-enabled device. (Video via NETGEAR, Amazon)
Once Circle connects to your home's Wi-Fi, parents can control how different people on the network use the Internet through the iOS app. The app controls things like how much time a child can spend on different sites and spits out information about how much time is spent where.
One concern with the device that's been brought up by multiple tech outlets is data security. Wired suggested the familiarity of Disney could help ease any user concerns about what the company does with user information.
"Disney has absolutely zero access to that data. A philosophy with our company is, we don't even want to have much access to that data. All that data actually still lives on the Circle device," a co-founder of Circle told Digital Trends.
The Circle device costs $99. The company also plans to release an on-the-go service for iOS devices using 4G LTE networks in 2016.
