THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED HOWEVER THE ARTICLE ON THE DEVICE WILL REMAIN SO THAT YOU CAN USE IT TO COMPARE TO OTHER DEVICES ON THE MARKET
As more connected devices enter the household managing internet time and usage becomes an almost impossible task. There is hope however thanks to the folks at KoalaSafe.
The KoalaSafe is an easy-to-use family-friendly WIFI access point, which allows you to protect and manage all devices from one mobile device interface, turn off Internet access at specific times, and block inappropriate sites and apps.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX
- 1x KoalaSafe Router
- 1x micro-USB Cable
- 1x USB Power Adapter
- 1x Network Cable
- 1x Quick Start Card
KoakaSafe was purchased on www.amazon.com
SET-UP
KoalaSafe is pretty simple to set up.
- Simply power it up with the micro-USB cable and USB power adapter.
- Connect the included network cable from the WAN port on the KoalaSafe device to any LAN port on your existing router.
- Download the iOS or Android app, create a KoalaSafe account, pair your device to the KoalaSafe WAP and away you go.
Nothing else is required on the set up side but you can get more configuration details from the KoalaSafe website. The set-up took about 10 minutes when we tried it.
SOFTWARE
Once you’ve setup the KoalaSafe and connected it to your smartphone or tablet, you can change the Wi-Fi password for the KoalaSafe network. The default wireless network is open so kids don’t need to know or remember passwords to join.
The next step would be to create a group, or multiple groups through the app. This would allow you to add your kids devices to the KoalaSafe network, assign them to the appropriate group.
Each group allows you to allow or block various settings which include:
- Schedule: Set specific hours each day in which devices can access the Internet.
- App and Site Blocking: Allows you to allow, partially block, or block sites and apps.
Adult, malicious, proxies/vpns, and violent content is blocked by default, as well as sites that allow the creation of custom personal websites.
The nice thing about the KoalaSafe is you can set up multiple groups for different ages and add devices accordingly, assuming each child has their own devices.
In addition, you can set the default security level between
- high security (the most difficult to bypass and blocks the most apps),
- medium security (some apps will still be incompatible), and
- low security (compatible with the broadest range of apps and services).
During our testing we left it on the default medium setting and it worked just fine for our purposes.
The KoalaSafe app also allows you to track and monitor usage.
The usage portion of the app breaks it down by category, and you can drill into each category to get a more detailed look at what apps and sites are being accessed.
PERFORMANCE
As far as I could tell during testing, it also did a fantastic job of restricting access to the apps and sites that we’d set up as being blocked for our kids.
After trying to use a few different sites and apps that had been set up as restricted and not being able to access them, I’m pretty confident that the KoalaSafe does a decent job of restricting access to harmful content as per how you set it up. Note that there will still be a chance that you may still encounter undesirable content while connected through the KoalaSafe.
Nothing is perfect, but the KoalaSafe did indeed restrict the content that we set it up to block without any issues.
The Internet access schedule works great as well, and as a bonus you can temporarily block all Internet access, or add extra time through the app.
The app can also be used anywhere once you have it set up, so you don’t even need to be home in order to kill Internet access, extend it, or configure additional sites for access or blocking.
CONCLUSION
If you’re looking for a solution that will help you restrict Internet and app access as well as set time limits as to when the Internet can be accessed by your children, the KoalaSafe is a great little wireless access point that is easy to set up and configure, and does a great job of giving you a little more peace of mind as a parent.
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