Back to School with CityWest HomeNet

With everyone slowly adjusting to back-to-school time, CityWest is here to give you some cool tips to help your family prepare for the new school year! This blog will re-visit some key pointers on how to guide you through our most popular HomeNet features, like how to turn off Wi-Fi for specific devices, set parental controls to limit time usage on your child’s electronic devices, and how to block and restrict certain website access on selected devices connected to your network. We'll also discuss how to determine if your current Internet speed is benefiting or hindering your household. Our goal for this blog is to help you manage your time and home network better so that you can enjoy everything that comes along with the new school year!

Some of us find it hard to get into that back-to-school routine now that Summer is nearly over. This transition can be difficult, especially when battling to limit your child’s time usage on their electronic devices and focus on their schoolwork. But don’t worry, we’re here to help you with that! Our HomeNet app allows you to set up, monitor, and control individual devices by pushing a couple of buttons straight from your device, just like a remote control!

Let’s get started by helping you download our FREE HomeNet app by following these quick & easy instructions located on our website: www.citywest.ca/support/internet-support/homenet

We told you it’d be easy! Now, let’s help you set up your Basic Parental Controls.

Setting Up Basic Parental Controls on Home Devices

When setting up Basic Parental Controls, you’ll learn how to set up profiles for each family member connected to your Wi-Fi network. A profile allows you to organize and keep track of all of the devices associated with each person in your home. This can help you to choose which devices to monitor and set time limits for, as each person in your home may have different access and restrictions. But those limitations can be determined by you! Watch this short video on how to set up Basic Parental Controls, or follow the steps below:

1. From the main dashboard of your HomeNet app, tap “People” button located at the bottom of your screen, and then tap the + symbol to create a new profile. You can add a name and even a photo to help keep things organized!
2. Select the devices used by the person you’re creating this profile for.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 for any other profiles you’d like to create. All profiles can easily be accessed by clicking on the “People” tab at the bottom of your screen.
   
   

Once you’ve completed the above steps, you’ll have essential control functions for each person’s devices. This means you’ll now be able to turn ON and OFF Internet access and set time limits for each individual device without interrupting others in the home. This free feature is great for getting your family back on a school schedule.

Enforce a Healthy Balance of Online Play & Work with Advanced Parental Control Filters

If you’re impressed with our Basic Parental Controls, then you’ll love our Advanced Parental Controls even more! Upgrading to the Advanced HomeNet features will allow you to monitor device usage more in-depth. With the advanced features, you’ll now have access to enable and restrict certain websites, which is perfect when you want to only allow specific websites for homework and research purposes. You can also set limits on the amount time that someone can use on a specific app to ensure a healthy balance of online device usage time. Did you know that by upgrading to the Advanced HomeNet features, a virus protection is automatically enabled that stops threats from getting onto your network and devices? It provides you an extra way to stay connected and protected online.

Check out this video below to learn how to set up individual restrictions for each profile. 

Call CityWest at 1-800-442-8664 to subscribe to our Advanced HomeNet features for only $7.99 a month, added to your monthly CityWest bill.

Ensure your Internet Speed is Up to Date

Our last tip is to make sure that the Internet speed you have is up to date and able to accommodate all of the users and devices in your home. When the Internet speed you have is too slow for all the people using the Internet in your home, running into buffering and lagging is inevitable, which is never fun. Especially if you're trying to get work done and things are taking way too long to load. Did you know that with modern day technology, there are currently more online devices in the average home than ever before? This probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as we have Smart TV's, Smart Dishwashers, Security Systems, Gaming Consoles, Cellphones, iPads, Alexa’s, and many other devices that can connect to the Internet. Each device that connects to the Internet generally stays connected until you manually disconnect it. That means each device you connect is using your Internet connection simultaneously, even if you aren't presently using that device! When you put your phone down for a couple of hours, you'll come back to all those notifications, which means it was downloading data from online. It's pretty cool and convenient when you think of it, but since the demand for devices is so high, you'll likely want to ensure that you have a reasonable Internet speed to accommodate multiple users and devices in your home. Check out our Internet packages below for the most current and up to date options we have available:


Don't have CityWest Internet yet? Click here to see your options: Quantum Internet (citywest.ca)