108Set screen time limit
We have a three eero network and love having great WiFi all over the house! Also like your Family Profiles feature to ensure the kids are off devices in the evening and school day mornings. Our profiles keep the kids' devices off the Internet from 8 pm to 8 am, so our kids get sleep, and get ready for school on time.
However...
In addition, we'd like to ensure that our kids only have total of 90 minutes of screen time a day. This is in addition to our current rules of no Internet from 8 to 8. Is there a way to do this today? If not, could you please track this feature request?
Yes, I know you can manually pause the Internet from the eero app. But we can't exactly hover our kids with a stopwatch to track when they hit 90 minutes of Internet usage when we're driving, making dinner, etc.
Thanks.
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Hi asargent —
Thanks for reaching out and for your feature request!
We are happy to hear family profiles are working great for setting a schedule for internet time, and we greatly appreciate the additional feedback for how to expand family profiles in your particular use case.
In this scenario, would it just be a pause? Such as, pause the internet if this device hits 90 minutes of online time or it is 8 pm?
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Yes, exactly, pause if device hits 90 minutes of online time, or 8 pm.
The pause should last until midnight. Of course, we don't expect our kids to be up at midnight, but strictly speaking, that is when the 90 minute limit should reset.
Also, pausing until midnight allows devices to automatically download software updates.
Indeed, for the kids' devices, we turn off Internet from 8 to midnight, and 5 am to 8 am, to ensure that kids get sleep but also allow a window when devices can download updates. That might be a best practice you use as a default in the product, when setting up Family Profiles for kids, since not all parents might not be thinking like a software industry person.
Indeed, you could imagine a wizard that prompts the user (parent) for the following:
Kid 1 name:
School days:
Kid 1 bedtime:
Kid 1 wake time:
Kid 1 max time online:
Weekends:
Kid 1 bedtime:
Kid 1 wake time:
Kid 1 max time online:
... and from there, construct a Family Profile that reflects those. Of course, people could customize, but I bet the above would work for 99% of kids.
Hope this helps!
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Thanks for the additional feedback, asargent 🙌
Also, that is some pretty interesting feedback regarding the updates! I'll share that feedback with our team for when we ever consider updating any copy in the app around Family Profiles.
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I love every detail of this suggested enhancement. This would be, to my knowledge, the only network app the allows for time limitations as well as the more common scheduling concept. So needed by every parent I know! Please set this up asap - it will bring you a huge population of networking parents eager for this specific feature. And putting it all together into each kids profile is brilliant.
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I'd love for the eero to enforce accrued time allotments for my kids. Today, I have to monitor the kids' usage and manually pause the wifi in the eero app. Having the wifi shut off after 90 minutes per day or after 8pm would be fantastic!
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Please do this! I want to teach my kids to manage their own time allotment, not police them.
Software Logic:
- Variable 1: X total minutes of usage per day
- Variable 2: Y MB of data usage per minute for that minute to be included in daily total (eliminates phone pings, individual texts, and non-use time)
- Parents set X and Y
- App displays time remaining for each child.
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This is a brilliant suggestion regarding screen time quota, and we would become even bigger fans of eero if you add this feature. A screen time quota is a very common thing that very many (perhaps even most) parents enforce on their children. I have not heard of any other network router/switch that provides this feature, so it would be a nice bragging point for your marketing materials. (The idea of allowing for overnight software updates is a very good one too.)
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Is there any traction on this feature? It is the one thing I really require from parental controls, and would be willing to pay extra for it.
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It would also be helpful to allow rewarding your kids for chores, etc. I have a Circle right now, but i'd like to replace this with a full Eero solution.
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Another problem with using a combination of Circle + eero, is that the Circle's "max screen time" enforcement can easily be defeated if a kid just unplugs the Circle. It's only a matter of time before my kids figure this out. That makes Circle kind of a dumb way to enforce screen time for families with older kids.
And it gives eero an intrinsic advantage over Circle around this capability, if only they'd build it in.
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As a tech marketing professional, I understand that features need to drive sails. And I'm sure that eero could market the heck out of this capability. Look at all the coverage of the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations of screen time usage:
https://www.google.com/search?q=american+academy+of+pediatrics+max+screen+time
... there's coverage from Slate, Washington Post, CBS, Mayo Clinic, Huffington Post, Gizmodo, The Today Show. A circulation of literally several million readers that would all hear about eero. This could really move the needle for you.
To take this further, here's a sample press release headline, "eero introduces first device for easily limiting kids' screen time that cannot be defeated".
In the press release, eero wouldn't have to mention Circle by name, but could say something like, "Up until now, devices that limit kids' screen time were either trivial to work around -- just unplug the device -- or required the knowledge of a computer networking technician. At eero, we make it so that non-technical parents can easily ensure that kids stay within guidelines around screen usage."
Sometimes even simple features can drive a lot of growth, if packaged up the right way. Happy to discuss further.
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You couldn’t have made this a simpler option for Eero. Thank you. Do you think perhaps they don’t WANT to insert a time limiting feature? Might there be a priority above parents’ use? I can’t think of another explanation For having not implemented this simple adaptation long ago. So many would be happy to pay extra for it.
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I’m going to cancel my subscription his month unless I hear some significant movement on this feature (and other simple parent friendly solutions). This is a simple add on (can be done via a timer in the app, doesn’t even require an update for the eero itself). The fact it hasn’t been done shows either a complete lack of desire to improve or an agenda against this feature (as posed above...)
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I came to see if this had been requested. Being able to assign devices to a profile then setting limits (apply to all or different quotas to different devices) would be great. Also notifications on when a device/profile reached a limit so we could (temp) over-ride in cases (for ex: when they are working on homework).
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I have no clue why they haven’t done this yet. I want to love everything about Eero, but the longer they go without implementing this simple feature, the more, frankly, betrayed as a customer I feel by Eero. They are selling an add-on service specifically aimed at parental controls, and it is absolutely incomprehensible to me why this is not a part of that.
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I don't ever remember Eero promising this feature, I just believe they need to keep up with customer needs. So far for what you get with the Plus addon I can't justify the cost. But I think it's a bit much to say this is a betrayal. Not everyone needs this feature.
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Nintendo has a application to limit the use of its devices and I get a detailed report of what each device has been doing - this would be a great add for parents.
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Admins - there's a similar posting ( https://community.eero.com/t/k9jlqq ) Add time limits on wifi in Family Profiles within the on/off schedules
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This may be a tougher sell to Eero now that Apple stepped up and gave us “screen time” feature in iOS 12. It rocks.
This will also est into Disney Circle’s market share. I’m trying to sell mine on the used market.
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Howdy folks!
This is really would be a very appreciated feature. We had Circle for quite some time and it worked fairly good. Unfortunately, because digital devices are truly being found to be strongly habit forming and addictive, it is very difficult to keep a control on total usage without causing “family angst”. Circle was ideal because it allowed flexibility to set a restriction on online games and social media/youtube but would allow us to keep the connection open for homework use.
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This is a fundamental feature that needs to be added. If not, I will seriously consider changing systems.
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I agree that this an important feature to have. While schedules are great, time limits are needed in addition.
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Agree!
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I spent $$$ on this system that physically has more/better coverage than my 3yr old Luma Mesh Network but it had schedules and time limits by user/device group. What gives? Are you guys the leaders or not in this space? You need fo get your acts together on this! It is disappointing to see such poor customer service when you have tons of users who have requested this feature, but crickets 🦗.
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BUMP! Really need this feature. For example, I have kids at home with a nanny all day, and would really like to enforce no more than 1-hour per day of TV by limiting the Apple TV network use via eero. Additionally, the ability to limit kids to total screen time is much needed family feature. I get the difficulty... devices use data, even when not being "held" by someone... how does the device know when it is receiving updates, inbound text messages, just pulling email, etc. vs. active use? I also have faith the smart engineers at eero can figure this out based on patterns of use.
PLEASE PUSH THIS OUT!!!
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2 years and no traction. I just ditched my Luma (product got acquired and has essentially died out) and already miss this feature. Apparently neither Amazon or Google can figure out how to do this, or are intentionally NOT incorporating this feature. Disappointing. :(
