I can’t recommend a particular router but with regard to restricting access you should look for one with support for VLANs and multiple mobile wifi networks. You’ll also want one that can set bandwidth limits. E.g. my connection is 80 Mbps and the wifi network I’ve set up for my nephew and niece to use when they visit has a limit of 20 Mbps.
You set up one wifi network for yourself and one for the children (and one for visitors and another for IoT devices). Similarly, your wired-in PCs go on one VLAN (Virtual LAN), the teenagers’ PCs go on another, and your IoT devices onto a third. You then restrict by VLAN and wifi network rather than by device. This saves you having to block umpteen devices every time but you can still block a single device if necessary. It also means that your children can have their friends over with no additional work on your part.
Although, heaven forfend that instead of blocking, you set the internet to go super-slow instead…
What do you mean by ‘visibility into specific devices’? If you want to log internet access you want a router that logs activity. Again, you should look for one that can selectively log particular VLANs and wifi networks - you don’t want them finding out YOUR porn habits.
ETA: Oops…I saw your last point about $$$. Anyway, I’ll leave this response because it still is a good setup.
If your budget allows it, look into Eero mesh devices–they are not cheap, but they are the real deal.
They support everything you want. Put all of the devices that appear on your network into groups, such as “kids” and “grownups” and adjust the times and access privileges of each group.
I bought these in order to have a mesh network–wifi throughout the house with no dead spots and no handoff problems–and they do that in spades.
The filtering service costs extra, as part of Eero Plus, but if you are buying these things you aren’t worried about $10/mo.
For that rate you get parental controls, general network protection at the router of inbound and outbound traffic (e.g. from malware phoning home), the pro version of Malware Bytes for 3 machines, 1Password for 3 machines, and Encrypt.me VPN service for 3 people. They even throw in a router-based ad blocker that does a pretty good job of blocking ads before they even get to your device.
Not a bad deal if you can make use of all of that.
Recently I had to bring the hammer down on some younger folks at home who were not behaving after repeated warnings, so I took my phone out and tapped the “pause” next to their group and all of their devices were blocked for the next day.
I have a Netgear R6120.
I believe it can do all of that. Furthermore, I don’t think I’ve ever met a router that couldn’t cut off a device by just going in and telling it to disable a certain MAC address. It’s just as easy to enable it later.
Also, you have to keep in mind that if you cut them off, they’ll find another way to connect. Either finding a neighbor with an unsecured router, using a phone as a hotspot or, if the device isn’t only wifi (ie a phone, some ipads/kindles etc), they’ll just connect that way.
IOW, not letting them connect to your router is a deterrent, but sometimes you still have to walk in to their room at night and say ‘turn them off and go to bed, otherwise you can’t have them at night’.
Comcast comes with parental controls software that does this, but I realize you’re in a different market. Have you already checked what features your existing ISP delivers (have to ask, sorry)?
Symantec now makes a router that delivers all of this, but it’s not cheap.
Most of the major security software vendors do make some form of parental controls software, but the router level version is going to be easier to implement and manage, as you’ve already noted. Are you willing to install a software stub on each device? If so, it will get you almost comparable control. In trade, you’ll get control of the device when it’s away from your router. Non-router based software will be more of a pain to set up, but will offer broader control, a slightly different feature set, and a lot more choices of vendor.
Not sure what our router is, but it can do all that, and was not expensive. It’s from Netgear, I think. Something that could do all the things Quartz describes would be more flexible.
Facebook messenger is really hard to block. Apparently it can connect through several different sites. It’s also hard to get round the “I need the internet to do my homework” argument, even though they are actually on social media for a lot of that time. And even being on social media can be part of a group assignment or “we are just discussing the maths problems”. But yeah, it’s good for kicking them off the net at bedtime.
I’m running a Netgear R6400 that has what appears to be a full featured set of Parental Controls. I say appears because I’m not actually using it, everyone in the house is an adult and responsible for their own actions.
There’s also an app to download where you can control everything from your smartphone.
If you don’t mind a bit of hands-on (firmware updates), you can try DD-WRT. I believe it has everything you are asking for, it’s free, and it runs on many router models (including older routers). I use on a couple of mine and never had a problem. It might be worth trying if you have an old router you don’t mind playing with.
Wow, the WRT-54g is still going strong! That’s a fifteen year old router.
Great stuff for running custom firmware, but a bit dated with regards to speed.
I have a TP Link Touch p5 model which seems to fit what you want. Along with laptop access it does have a touch screen on the router itself, IDK about a app but it is usable via a mobile web page as well and works fine to the point that I never considered looking for a app. Allows seeing all devices (connected or not), Allows easy blacklisting/whitelisting devices at whim along with parental controls (limits times of day that the internet is active for them (such as from 7pm to 8pm, pr all off at 10 off as you state), but not how much they can use it per day) It also has guest access with a automatic password change per time intervals you set (Monthly, weekly and daily), so you can give out the guest password for lets say daily access. Perhaps there are more features with the latest version and firmware. It’s also been rock stable solid.
Using the stock firmware it is possible to easily assign your children’s devices to a set IP address range (based on MAC), then limit internet access to that IP range based on time of day (from hour X to hour Y), as well as completely deny access to any devices as needed for infractions (generally, denial of internet gets instant results when the kids misbehave, I find!).
I also log in to my home machine remotely using Chrome Remote Desktop to access all of these functions if I am away from home, but it is possible to set up remote access through the Netgear firmware, though I haven’t done that for years.
