A
a_frustruated_user
I've been trying to make parental controls work using both Microsoft Family to control the hardware access and Circle Home Plus to control online access. I have to use both because Family will allow me to lock their computer profile so that they can't get access it before a certain time. They were getting up before me and getting on and doing whatever they could. So I had to implement Microsoft Family to control profile access on the actual hardware.
Circle Home Plus has been quite useful for managing the minutia of online school and game time. My kid would sneak anything and everything they could but it cannot manage non-internet usage (access periods and more importantly offline games). Even games that use Steam or Epic to log in only use the internet to verify permissions.
So my needs are these:
1) I need a more customizable way to manage *offline* AND *online* gaming time and access combined.
2) I need a way to limit ALL game apps combined to a time limit within a window of available time. Currently, if I say the window of time is between 1-4 and he has 1 hour of game time I have to either a) wait for them to decide on a particular game and ask me to allow it for an hour which defeats the purpose of trying to help them learn autonomy or b) set all games to 1 hour.
The problem with b) is that in a 3 hour windows and all games set to 1 hour (say there are 10 games) they could technically play for 3 hours in multiple games.
3) I need a better way to organize and manage the "apps", since different types of apps often need to be managed in a different manner. As is, it is just a giant pile of all windows 10 apps AND all exe files on the computer - super extra annoying. Sure, I suppose I could clean up the computer to get rid of some of the numerous exe install files but I don't feel like it and it is even a new computer and there are dozens and dozens of exes and apps.
A solution to this might be to allow us to hide apps we don't care about maybe? Or better yet, have the ability to group exes and apps and let us apply rules to groups. It would save our little thumbs and clicking fingers.
Something to clarify - My issues are currently about problems with limiting gaming times but this type of situation could be applied to any type of category or topic.
Continue reading...
Circle Home Plus has been quite useful for managing the minutia of online school and game time. My kid would sneak anything and everything they could but it cannot manage non-internet usage (access periods and more importantly offline games). Even games that use Steam or Epic to log in only use the internet to verify permissions.
So my needs are these:
1) I need a more customizable way to manage *offline* AND *online* gaming time and access combined.
2) I need a way to limit ALL game apps combined to a time limit within a window of available time. Currently, if I say the window of time is between 1-4 and he has 1 hour of game time I have to either a) wait for them to decide on a particular game and ask me to allow it for an hour which defeats the purpose of trying to help them learn autonomy or b) set all games to 1 hour.
The problem with b) is that in a 3 hour windows and all games set to 1 hour (say there are 10 games) they could technically play for 3 hours in multiple games.
3) I need a better way to organize and manage the "apps", since different types of apps often need to be managed in a different manner. As is, it is just a giant pile of all windows 10 apps AND all exe files on the computer - super extra annoying. Sure, I suppose I could clean up the computer to get rid of some of the numerous exe install files but I don't feel like it and it is even a new computer and there are dozens and dozens of exes and apps.
A solution to this might be to allow us to hide apps we don't care about maybe? Or better yet, have the ability to group exes and apps and let us apply rules to groups. It would save our little thumbs and clicking fingers.
Something to clarify - My issues are currently about problems with limiting gaming times but this type of situation could be applied to any type of category or topic.
Continue reading...