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Weird problem with parental controls disappearing on T3200M
I'm trying to use the parental controls on the T3200M. Looking in the "Advanced Settings" screen, the menu item on the left for parental controls was not there at all. The admin home screen s...
Hi there,
I have an update. Working with a couple resources from TELUS support management and development they have confirmed that the TELUS My Wi-Fi app is the supported replacement for the parental controls in the T3200M modem. This change is effective with the last firmware upgrade to the modem, version 31.164L.22.
Reverting to firmware 31.164L.18 or lower, through a factory reset of the modem, will restore the original Blocking/Filtering section with parental controls in the T3200M modem, however the workaround would be temporary as the modem will continue to pickup the latest firmware from TELUS and perform an automatic update. The new firmware is more secure than .18 so this is likely not a recommended solution.
The parental controls in the TELUS My Wi-Fi app have some know limitations compared to the original T3200M-based controls:
- Scheduling: Some devices cannot be paused or included in the child profiles (Ex TELUS Optik STB). TELUS Optik PVRs work fine.
- Filtering/Blocking: There is no definable web or protocol filtering, other than the generic option to filter out Adult content based on age ratings.
To filter specific apps, such as YouTube, TikTok or Pokemon. If you own an Apple device with Family Sharing setup, there is a relatively new setting called Screen Time that has proven to be an absolute life savior for our family's balancing of digital time: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208982
There are similar options provided by Microsoft for Windows and Android (https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340?hl=en), but I am less familiar with them and do not want to stray to far off thread here.
Hope this helps.
The parental controls have disappeared once again, even after the factory reset. This is now the second time in less than a week. I just spoke with tech support again and she said this is the first time they've ever heard of it and nobody has reported this issue before! So I guess jujubehead and my report didn't count! Anybody else's parental controls disappeared in their GUI advanced setup?
I just tried to do the same thing today (Dec 4) and encountered exactly the same issues. As mentioned, I had set parental controls back in March, at the start of Covid, to control specific websites on my kids' devices. So you are not the only one. We now use chromebooks and Windows machines. The Telus My WIFI app is unhelpful, as it only allows me to block a certain device, which is not my goal. My goal is to let my kids play games on their ipads, without them being able to google search or You Tube watch, without my direct supervision. And as parents, one keystroke misstep, can bring up some nasty google search stuff. I am now waiting for tech support see the next steps .
