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Parental controls

OK, I bought a 3 eero system for $499 plus the extra $$ for eero plus.  I am extremely disappointed with the parental controls.  I can't believe that in all the time since these posts Eero has not added ability to whitelist/blacklist individual websites either en mass or per device.  Putting a family filter to shield porn and violence and malware is one aspect.  But allowing the kids to use the internet for homework and other productive tasks while blocking youtube/gaming sites and other individual websites is a crucial necessity that i can not do without.  I may be returning this.  Can I run OpenDNS on the Eero?

11 replies

    • cMoo92
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Yes, you can set your DNS settings to whatever you want, whether that be OpenDNS or another service. Just be aware that, the way networking works, your kids can manually change their DNS settings on their individual devices and bypass those kinds of services.

    • Drew
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Thanks for helping out, cMoo92 – As one point of clarification, I'd like to mention that eero will intercept and override device-level DNS settings and use custom DNS for all requests if eero Plus is enabled. This means that the only way to avoid eero-level DNS is to tunnel out with a VPN; changing client-level DNS won't allow children to bypass OpenDNS if the user is using eero Plus :) 

    Past that, thanks so much for your feedback here, notatechie – For a little more context, the eero system currently doesn't inspect or log any specific network traffic or destinations. We believe in the confidentiality and privacy of network traffic, and we'd have to fundamentally change how eero works in order to implement any sort of URL-specific whitelisting or blacklisting feature. While we don't have any immediate plans to add a URL-blocking feature to eero or eero Plus, it's certainly a feature that we can see value in for parental control and online family security, and I'll be sure to pass your interest along to the team. In the meantime, other parental control software and hardware of almost any kind should work great in conjunction with eero!

    We're glad to have you here in the Community, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts going forward!

    Kindly,
    Drew, eero Community Team

      • cMoo92
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Drew wow...did not know that eero did that with DNS requests. That’s great to know!

      • Drew
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 Sorry, my reply was a little vague, and I've edited it for clarification. The DNS override will only happen with eero Plus enabled. Otherwise, the custom DNS on the eero side will simply be the servers offered to a device during DHCP, and client-side DNS will still take precedence for normal WAN requests. 

    • notatechie
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Thank you Drew and cMoo92 for your replies.

    Can you clarify please, if I disable Eeroplus, then how do I configure the DNS setting to my own choosing (such as the OpenDNS product for which i already have an account.)

    Also, I am sure that Eero probably doesn't endorse or recommend other parental control software or hardware.  But is anyone willing to list some compatible products?
     

    Another thought is productivity/focus and screentime limits for myself (yes at age 53!)  it is too easy to simply open the Eero app and click off the family profile to bypass.  But if say it required a complex password or other "not so simple" login, that would be much better.

      • cMoo92
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      notatechie after turning off eero Plus, you can set your own DNS servers in the app: Network Settings > Advanced Settings > DNS

      One popular parental control device which I believe would have everything you’re looking for is the Circle (https://meetcircle.com/).

      • Drew
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      I second cMoo92 's suggestion of the Circle – it has all the feature's you've requested in parental controls, and works well with eero; also, since it's a hardware product, you won't need to worry about making sure that you have a certain app or software installed on all your children's devices.  

      As far as productivity features are concerned, the ease and simplicity of toggling profiles off and on (as well as the integration with Alexa) means that we probably won't intentionally obfuscate those features in our menus. That said, having an additional suite of productivity features outside the realm of pure parental control is definitely interesting, and something I'll be sure to pass along!

    • notatechie
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into Circle.  In the meantime, if I ant to experiment with setting DNS to the OpenDNS servers, how to I disable Eeroplus?  Do I have to cancel the subscription and wait until the end of the period, or can I turn it off and on at will?

    • jakeandsarah
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I would also like to echo this concern. Parents need to have the ability to whitelist and blacklist - to turn off unproductive websites like gaming and instagram - during homework time.  This is super frustrating for me since I bought the Circle device for this reason and had to return it after the Geek Squad came to install it, check compatibility of everything in my home, and then determined for a reason he can't explain, it does not work. He recommended the Eero system for me but I won't be purchasing it unless it can run point on blocking specific websites for devices that enter our home network. 

    • Corporate IT Consultant
    • outlawmonster
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I bought a $140 Synology MR2200ac (bridged my eero) and use the parental controls free app which is 100000x better. My kids hate my level of control but it gives power back to parents in a connected home. 

    • Lindaxz
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Well, actually I think it is not good to have too much direct intervention on children. So I just use the Parental Controls application to monitor their phones without directly interfering with their activities, and I will talk to them directly when necessary. This is the way I personally agree.

Content aside

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