PlayLimit TV & Video Game Timer

I bought this device - there are a lot on the market, but this one being only 15 dollars, and me wanting to try this method without too much investment looked like a good deal.When I got the device, it looked like it might've been used before, possibly refurbished, the box appeared to be open and they was a nick in the back like someone tried to take a screwdriver to the back panel. The inside "lock" and "unlock" switch was stuck, but was easily moved back in forth with a screwdriver and elbow grease. Not exactly pro design, but again, it's 15 bucks.My biggest gripe is the coax inputs, they're in a horizontal configuration, right next to each other, which makes it hard to screw the connectors, we ended up using a wrench. Then the signal was terrible, it was dropping the cable signal, or causing fuzzing or signal disturbance. We unplugged the component connection next to it, and it clear a bit but still kept dropping. So then we replaced the coax cable that came with the device with a coax cable we had, and voila worked perfectly - no more dropping signals. So the Coax cables that come with the box are pretty terrible, spend 5 bucks and buy a decent one.Also we're were able to get this to work with the HDMI connection to our cable box. We left the cable HDMI input plugged into the TV and just intercepted the coax connection to the cable box. When time runs out, it just cuts the cable signal. This does prevent the "paused" and "time running out" little screen displays, but that's not a huge loss.Overall, the device is working well. We instituted a outside play activities, reading books, and doing educational games to earn the tokens, and so far it is working like a charm! It also helps the child see their TV usage and they start to self regulate because they don't want to "use up" all their hard earned TV time. A great way to get your kid a more healthy relationship with media that doesn't need you constantly harping on them about it :)

I bought this for my 2 boys (10 and 12) to assist them in keeping track of their video game time while after school and while neither parent was immediately home to assist in "time management" due to careers. We're fairly liberal with video games and TV so this wasn't to be a replacement for proper parenting, but rather a simple tool to keep them doing homework and asking to do additional chores in exchange for time. I was raised in the same way but with quarters and video game arcades. When you're out of tokens, you're out... unless you did something to earn more.Anyway, worked great the first day till one of the boys found that "dropping" the device allowed the supposedly secure cable box to open, this first time was "supposedly" accidental. The website fails to tell you that the back cable holder is secured by a small plastic tab in which the switch to "lock/unlock" is located in the token section which is secured by key. A simple flat head screwdriver would just as easily pop this off if a child were so determined, or in my case a drop of about 2 feet. What is sad is that while my boys are mostly honest (before this device) with how much they spend on playing, no child would ever happily tell a parent they have bypassed the system.Pros:Looks secureDid track timeWas simple to implementCons:lack secure designeasily defeated by determined childWho is this for:Not a parent of older children...younger kids, say 3-7Anyone that is looking to just teach basic time (and money) management skills

I liked the idea of being able to use this as a reward system for my son and video games. I liked that each coin was worth 15min.But the product was not compatible with HDMI. Not a big deal I purchased a converter to be able to use. Well the timer did NOT work with our game system. So my next step was to try to connect it to the T.V. And wouldn’t you know still didn’t work. We hooked it up to our cable and it did work for that. It would shut the cable off after the time was up.I like that it has a pause.I would only recommend it to you if you have a older tv if you are trying to use it for video games.The only reason it got a 3 star from me is because I really liked the concept and it did work with the cable.Just not the reason we got it.

Overall the product does what it’s suppose too, you put a coin in and it allows 15 mins per coin of play.My only gripe is that the slot is big enough for two coins, which when they fall in get jammed. So if you give your child two coins, make sure they do not put them in at the same time.luckily this is easy to take apart and fix.Also if you need to buy more coins, make sure you measure the size of the coin first. For testing we tried with quarters and they are too smallWould love to see this in an hdmi version too, but it’s good for older consoles