For pretty much everyone with access, the Internet is an indispensable part of our daily lives and facilitates more and more of it every single day. The second you become a parent, however, that same marvel immediately becomes a minefield for the little ones. It’s been a struggle for parents to figure out how best to filter the content available and limit the time kids spend on the Internet to protect their growing loved ones. Inventor Chris Gray went through this same dilemma, was ultimately dissatisfied with the options on the market, and created the HomeHalo to truly empower parents.
The combination router, cloud service, and iOS/Android app come together to create a simple system in which any parent, not only the technologically savvy ones, can have total control over their children’s Internet habits across all devices. HomeHalo separates from other products because it allows for different profiles for each child. This way, younger tykes can have stricter filters and limits than, say, a 15-year-old.
The app will let parents approve or deny additional time requests, and review, approve, block, and whitelist Web sites in real time using push notifications. HomeHalo will also alert you if its hardware is being tampered with or turned off as well, letting you take action immediately. The HomeHalo campaign is pushing for a £30,000 (~$47,000) infusion. Those who are interested can grab a beta version with no fees ever for £75 (~$117), while a regular version goes for £140 (~$220). The device is estimated to be delivered by February 2015.
The HomeHalo is a promising little product built atop a categorization system that doesn’t strictly rely on DNS addresses, which greatly reduces the chances something like this will be bypassed. Even still, systems that try to limit and filter Internet time like the HomeHalo and box&rox are based on the assumption that kids will never figure out ways around them, underestimating the incredible tech savvy of young ones.