TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

 So Circle sent me a cheery email about my "first week with Circle!".   However, it feels like a lot longer than a week, and I haven't exactly felt cheerful. Yes, OK, my setup is unconventional .  It's likely the source of many of my issues.  But, in the last week: •  I've found that Circle is not logging Usage or History, and does not enforce time limits. •  Circle is not filtering correctly.  •  It is unclear if it is enforcing SafeSearch.  It seems to be, but it's hard to tell. •  Rewards are limited to the current day.  You can set "Extend/No Time Limit", "Late/No Bedtime", or "No Offtimes".  You cannot set an increased amount of time for future days. •  Circle notifies you of new devices appearing on the network, but tapping the notification just makes the Circle app hang.  This is obviously different behavior from every other app out there. •  The Circle 1st Gen app has forgotten my premium subscriptio...

Update: Several of the features of Circle, such as filtering, usage tracking and time limits are not working.  As many others have reported similar issues, I don't know if this is a result of me setting it up as a second router or not.  Update:  Circle has now "forgotten" my premium subscription three times.  Again, I don't know if this is related to my setup or not. Update: Router was not picking up time server. Steps below have been updated. Given these issues, I don't recommend trying the setup below unless you are willing to take a lot of time to troubleshoot it. I bought a used router that - unexpectedly - had the Circle parental control functions built-in.  I wanted Circle anyway, so it was a bit of luck.  But it wasn't exactly obvious how to set it up.   Problem:  You want to set up a Circle network without having all your devices on it.  Or: you want a separate network for your kids, managed by Circle. Reason:  •  You're wor...

 TL;DR:  It's not good. Fed up with PIA , I decided to try another VPN.  I thought it might be easiest. I wanted Hotspot Shield, but the fact that they log personally identifiable information, don't support pfsense and have no live support were deal-breakers.  I wanted it set up immediately.   I decided to bite the bullet and go with ExpressVPN.   More expensive, but most said they were next fastest, they had 24/7 support and supported DD-WRT (for now) and pfsense (for future).   I ponied up and got a login.  I had to run their app momentarily to find the fastest server, then I set it all up. Any it worked!  All my smart devices reconnected, all my strange connectivity issues went away.    However, I couldn't find the nameservers for secure DNS protection.  I asked their chat, and they didn't know what I meant. Turns out, ExpressVPN doesn't support this.  They do allow manual configuration (on DD-WRT or whatever), bu...

  As of Nov 14, it appears PIA has stopped working again: Play Store not working (on some devices, OK on others) YouTube not working (on some devices, OK on others) Can't connect to BBC.com, CNN.com, but can connect to most other sites fine Smart home devices offline (ecobee, Honeywell, etc)  Honeywell Home: Endless loading Of course, nothing changed on my end, and everything works just fine outside of PIA.  Mobiles also work outside of router-based PIA with the PIA app. See here for the original saga.  Seems they can't keep their network stable for more than 3 months at a time now.  Awesome stuff, those Next-Gen servers - a real improvement! Strangely, the new problems are not as widespread or consistent as before.  One device has no YouTube, but others do.  One device can't access CNN or BBC, but others do.  A third device has no Play Store, but others do. One constant is the smart home devices.  As before, they are connected, but cannot re...