KoalaSafe Family Friendly Wireless Router with Parental Controls/Access Point/WiFi with Internet Safety for Kids Technology

We have a 14 year old, twin 13 year olds and twin 12 year olds. I am a busy trial attorney and my husband is a professional golfer. Until now we have struggled with how to regulate screen time. We tried BOB but the kids just unplugged it. And, to all of you parents who say 'just don't let them do that" I say, right, until you walk in my shoes you can't understand. They did it anyway. To overindulged children it is difficult to take everything away.Anyway after lots of searching I found Koala. To put it briefly, it has saved my parenting life. Now, the kids know what the schedule is. I can give them "5 minutes more" and mean it. I can cut them off instantly if the nanny calls and says they are misbehaving,Don't get me wrong. We have great kids. But, they are kids. Koala allows control with ease and the fact that I am able to deliver direct consequences creates perfect behavior modification.Thank you Koala. I hope every parent gets to learn about you.Susan

So as a parent of 4 teenagers chore time, bed time can be a nightmare. But trying to turn off everyone's devices is also a hassle. So we bought this trying to give the kids their own controlled network. I am going to lay this out in a series of Pro's and Con's for you. And some images of the iOS version of the app (Android is very similar)Edit: Between all of the kids I can verify it works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Apple TV, Xbox, Playstation, Roku, Android, iOS, Wii.Pros:1. It does what it is advertised to do. It gives plenty of control of content filtering, time management and separate profiles for each kid. Like if you have a 10 year old and a 17 year old you might give the 17 year old more freedom than the 10 year old. You can filter by category, by type (such as (but not limited to) search engine, social media, adult, violence and videos2. Technical support (although email only) is spot on, professional and prompt. We had numerous issues originally get it setup but I have to admit KoalaSafe stood behind their product and walked us through everything. Please realize when I say this my husband and I both work in technology field EDIT: less than 2 months in won’t connect. Tech support is nice but I’m spinning my wheels with no results - ongoing all lights flashing. Not sure how long I have to go in circles before the unit is replaced3. You can turn it off (per profile) for X period of time via the app. It starts at 5 minutes and goes to indefinitely for those time when you truly want to go full metal jacket on your kids.4. Kids can try to plug it, mess with it, whatever and there are very few ways around it.5. It has built in diagnostics and utilizes its own separate Wifi name and password (obviously don't make it the same the main network you don't want the kids on)6. Homework mode is nice when the kids are screaming they need to do homework. You can set a normal day to day set and a homework set of rules and allowed websites.7. The schedule feature is very nice for the school year. And believe me if its vacation (if your kids are like mine) they won't let you forget to change it!8. The app is fairly easy to use and setup.9. It shows you a breakdown what your children do on the internet (which is very nice)Cons:1. The one major con I have is that the distance is somewhat limited. I understand the reasoning behind it ~ its so that you don't end up with a double NAT from your main wifi. But you will need to take this into consideration on where your kids use the internet the most. Or purchase multiple units if they are spread out. However - in all fairness, the unit is small and ours hangs on the wall outside of their bedrooms. And our house is quite large.2. Because it has to be so close to the kids rooms we have to use a range extender (we use a Netgear type that use the existing house electrical system to transmit signal. They can be purchased about anywhere including amazon for around 50 bucks) and that tends to be troublesome and at least once a night a kid comes out screaming what happened to the wifi?!?!?! Of course if they would unplug and replug the extender back in the issue would be resolved. The issue seems to be specific to the Koala because we used an airport express and a full on router in access point mode and rarely had an issue. Please note I did not say 'never' as we did have to unplug and replug the extender a couple times a month.3. If you have multiple kids on a unit figuring out whose devices are whose can be a pain. If the device has a name "Janes iPhone, Johns Android" it is somewhat easier. Else you are limited to figuring out Mac addresses to assign to each profile. If (like me) you have multiple kids and are not overly techie I would take the time and google how to name each device. Janes Playstation, Johns Laptop, ect so that in the long run you save time. Now I do not believe this is a flaw, because Mac address filtering is about the best way to make sure it cannot be loopholed.4. I have had issues using the app when I am not home. There have been times when I wanted to cut off the wifi when I am not home and been unable to do so. I feel like that is something Koala could investigate and possibly integrate in further software.

I was looking for a way to control the kids by controlling their internet activity from an Android app. We had a Lynksys that would allow you to turn off individual devices but it required technical knowledge to set up and if your child had 7 devices you would have to block all 7 individually. My tech-savy kids would constantly play cat and mouse with different devices knowing that they had more time and energy to bypass my measures than I had to put them in place. It drove me nuts that you couldn't group the devices by child. This Koala safe device lets you do just that. I can be 100 mile away and within 60 seconds the deed is done.Your first impression is that it is tiny. How could this work? But it does. It powers from a micro-USB like your cell phone. It is small enough to hide anywhere that you can run a network cable. Ours is behind the toaster because it was easy to hide and the central location gave excellent coverage throughout the house.I had no trouble setting up the wifi and internet connections. With other routers, I had to reboot constantly but this has been rock solid so far. If you ever need to reboot, you can do it easily from the Android app. (I'm assuming that those of you who have drank the Iphone coolaid are also included).The biggest pleasure has been setting up all the kids devices. These are detected automatically and you swipe to the left, choose move and assign the device to a person. Each person, in turn, can have different privileges. Want to allow homework but block social networks? No problem. Want to block a specific game? You can block or allow websites as you please. Want to filter adult content? That is the default unless you allow otherwise. All these are set per user.Need the trash taken out or the dishes washed? No yelling or screeming. "I'll turn your internet back on when it's done, OK?" Then it's done. A few seconds on your smartphone and the magic happens. In short, it's what I always knew was possible but could never find.Like other reviewers have said, the kids hate it. That's how you know it works.

After attending an internet safety seminar, I purchased a Koala Safe. If you have school age kids, I can't say enough about it. I will say, it's a faff to set up, and it needed to be restarted several time before recognizing some of our devices (phones, desktop and X-Box). Once it is set up, however, you can control your home internet from your iPhone anywhere you have a connection. You can see what your kids access in real time and in weekly summary, you can set limits for total hrs of use, as well as internet on/off times for each day of the week, and you can do it on a per child basis. It filters all the nasties, and you can designate homework time, when only educational stuff is available. We have had no problem streaming Netflix as well as 2 sets of YouTube through it simultaneously. Finally, you can turn off the internet in about 3 seconds, so if your kids aren't responding at dinnertime... totally worth it IMO.

Perfect for controlling internet access for kids, despite sometimes confusing user interface. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that this is my third Koala! The first one broke while still on warranty, it has been replaced with new one with no questions asked. But that second one broke as well, but long after warranty finished. I suspect the cheap power supply fried it. But because of the features and no requirement for any subscription I bought yet another one. This time I run on old Samsung USB power supply and so far no problems.

This unit is excellent! As a IT security professional, I’m really impressed with all the features and flexibility.Having tried device-based software and parental controls which kids can disable on any I-device, this is really the best approach I have seen. It is much simpler than attempting to set up custom controls on your own router and few routers can do what this does out of the box.Being able to create separate schedules and profiles for kids and devices means you can allow the iPod with social media until 7:00 and after that the laptop for homework with social media blocked. The other nice feature is that even with Internet blocked, kids can access printers or other devices on the home network.You are able to tailor what sites individual kids can access and get reports on how much time they are spending on Instagram, gaming, video or whatever type of site they access.The mobile parental app is very easy to use. Best thing is that with one tap you can turn Internet on or off for a specific kid from anywhere, or just extend their time for a few minutes. All the configuration is stored in them cloud, so you can add new devices, kids or completely reconfigure it even if you are away from home,If you are staying at a friends or relatives house, you can bring this device with you and plug it into their router. All the controls function the same as if you were at home.Highly recommended and a very good value.

Great for controlling your kids internet and monitoring. No subscription fee. Be warned its only good for a couple of devices before you start getting lag! (like 3 devices). There is a lan port on this device that will allow you to connect a wired device or connect it to a hub/switch or router for more.If you have more then 2 kids get the Koala Dome off of their site (140$ USD) and if you search the internet you can get a 20% discount! The dome will handle heavy streaming traffic with no issues!

This is not a simple it if the box product. It requires thoughtful set up and several contacts with help sort. On the plus side, the tech support is top notch - both friendly and knowledgeable.Fur user, this product had transformed the use of wifi in our house. We have established house rules, and this little wonder just applies them. I have not found anything else that comes close to this level of functionality.There is a thriving community/developer discussion and, while there are many things that I an still waiting for, I appreciate that they are transparent with this community.