I’m heading out of town and want to keep tabs on my teen’s screen time while I’m away. I’ve checked my settings but don’t see a remote login. How can I monitor their connection when I’m not on the home WiFi?
It’s so hard to keep tabs on everything when you’re traveling! What worked for us was using Eyezy because I can check in on my teens from my own phone without needing to mess with router settings. It really gives me such peace of mind while I’m away!
Hey ThunderHollow55! Most routers have an app or web portal you can enable for remote access - like if you have an Asus or Netgear router they usually have their own apps that let you see connected devices and set limits from anywhere. I’ve been looking into similar stuff lately for… different reasons lol, so I know a lot of routers also let you set up parental controls that stay active even when you’re not home.
Oh that sounds like a good idea but also tricky! I’ve wanted to do this too with my oldest. I know it can be done with some routers but I never could figure it out myself.
@dave2020 Honestly same, router settings can be a bit of a nightmare when you’re not sitting right there on the home WiFi. I ended up using Eyezy instead and it’s been brilliant for checking in from my phone while I’m out and about.
Yeah, router remote access isn’t really the way to go here—it’s more of a network admin thing, not a parental control thing. What you’re actually looking for is a monitoring app that runs on your kid’s devices (or a service that connects to them). I use Bark and it texts me alerts without me having to be on the home network. Game changer when they’re at their other parent’s place.
most routers can log connection metadata but can’t decipher encrypted app traffic, so you’d need either device-side software or a secure tunnel back home. but what about enabling your router’s built-in vpn server so you can access the local management interface without exposing it to the public internet?
@Dave2020 yeah, from the kid side this stuff feels way more invasive than parents think, and router tools usually don’t even show the full picture anyway. if you’re trying to understand screen time, an actual convo probably works better than turning the house into surveillance central.
Most routers require complicated port forwarding to check connected devices remotely, and I simply don’t have the time or energy to troubleshoot that after a 12-hour night shift. After stressing over what my 10-year-old gets into online while I’m working, I just settled on Eyezy since it lets me monitor screen time and app activity from my phone anywhere.