Parents: This App Shuts Down Your Home Internet and Forces Your Kids to Play Outside
Ever find yourself missing the pre-cell-phone, no-Wi-Fi, zero-distraction days? Us too, and particularly when there’s not a bribe big enough to get little Caleb unglued from Danger Mouse on the iPad.
But Circle, an app and internet-monitoring device from Disney, is hoping to change all that. Aside from setting internet usage limits on your kids’ devices, the developers just announced a new feature: turning off your internet when it’s nice enough to play outside.
Here’s how it works: Circle lets you integrate IFTTT (If This, Then That) technology. This means that if you add certain parameters via other apps on your phone (say, weather temps and conditions), the Circle app can switch off internet to your connected devices when those conditions are met. It’ll even send you a text telling everyone to get outside and have some fun. (Much better than a text asking you for the Netflix password.)
But what if Caleb needs the internet to finish his homework? You can always override the Circle functions from your own app.
So…68 and sunny? We’ll see you at the playground.
