Have you saw tutorial from TP-Link FAQ?

http://www.tp-link.com/en/faq-350.html

http://www.tp-linkru.com/article/?faqid=651

Yes, I have reviewed these as well as others. Unless I am missing something these show you how to limit access for one device to a specific list of websites (and for specific times). If I understand this correctly the device can only access the sites your specify and can only do so during the times you specify. This isn't terribly helpful to me. For starters, I would like to be able to limit the time that any devices can access the internet (eg. no more access after 10pm). Also, may want to deny access for certain devices to certain sites.

I have seemingly found a way to limit internet access to all devices to a certain time. Although I am not sure I have set it up in the best way. What I did was under 'Access Control's. There I used the wizard to setup a rule where the HOST is defined as a range of IP addresses (which appears to cover all the devices on my network), a SCHEDULE that is defined as up to 10pm, a target of 'Any' (left target IP address as blank - not sure if that is way to do it), and a DEFAULT FILTER POLICY of 'Allow'. This appears to work which is great, however, have I done this in the right place and in the right way? When would I use the this Access Control setup as opposed to seemingly similar rule setup over in the parental control area? Also now how can I setup a rule here that denies access to certain site - because it seems that all the rules you list here must have the same filter policy (allow or deny).

I am with you on this. I have a C8 and I previously had a Linksys. I could easily block internet per device by time/ day via the MAC address. I have seen, repeatedly in these forums, suggestions for people to check out links for other threads about this subject, but they are all domain based solutions. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I just don't see this capability you want in the system.

I want a simple interface where I can input a device MAC address and choose on a grid the times and days to block internet fully. It would help out families tremendously.

i'm working on this now - on and off. Used to use an ASUS router - much easier to set up but was more limited in scope.
fwiw, I have a C9 that has a very flexible (and confusing) rules based approach for access control. Is this what the C7 has?

Yes, c7 setup rules quite confusing. It is probably same/similar.

I have been able to block all devices manually while allowing 4 parental PCs (but not on a schedule). However, when I try to allow all domains that a given website uses (sons math website) the PC gets server not found in Chrome and firefox (only 2 I tried). it seems they cannot even resolve dns while the parental controls are enabled. Can someone help with this? if I could do this I would be fine with the parental controls. only other request would be to allow more than 4 parental devices since we have (Ipad, phones, work pcs, TVs etc that dont need to be blocked).

same issue on the C9

I was trying to set up an older 9980 for a friend's family, and it has the same problem: you can set up parental controls but have to whitelist every allowed site, although https can't be whitelisted at all.

That's a bizarre feature set to be sure.

In other places there are suggestions to use Access Control instead. Access Control configures devices by IP address rather than MAC address, so you'd need to enable DHCP on the router, set up a restricted dynamically-allocated range (say 192.168.1.2 - 200), and then specify the kids' devices explicitly by associating their MAC address with one of the remaining IP addresses (201-255). Then you should be able to specify the Access Control time limits for each. It's a bit more convoluted, but in principle (I can't speak for TP Link's implementation) pretty straightforward.

I hope this helps somebody out. Despite plenty of threads on this forum going back quite a way it hasn't been adequately dealt with, and often not even recognized by folks trying to be helpful.

laughingblade wrote

I was trying to set up an older 9980 for a friend's family, and it has the same problem: you can set up parental controls but have to whitelist every allowed site, although https can't be whitelisted at all.

That's a bizarre feature set to be sure.

In other places there are suggestions to use Access Control instead. Access Control configures devices by IP address rather than MAC address, so you'd need to enable DHCP on the router, set up a restricted dynamically-allocated range (say 192.168.1.2 - 200), and then specify the kids' devices explicitly by associating their MAC address with one of the remaining IP addresses (201-255). Then you should be able to specify the Access Control time limits for each. It's a bit more convoluted, but in principle (I can't speak for TP Link's implementation) pretty straightforward.

I hope this helps somebody out. Despite plenty of threads on this forum going back quite a way it hasn't been adequately dealt with, and often not even recognized by folks trying to be helpful.

You just summed up the problem perfectly. I'm happy with TP-Link, but everything points to the old problem of engineers designing something, but not taking into consideration of "normal" people. A perfect example is one of the verification questions to join this forum asked to name the author of a "Brief History of Time". I'm a fairly intelligent person, but that is not something I would know off the top of my head, but maybe it would be something a software engineer might know. It speaks volumes about the company.

So if any TP-Link engineers are reading this, we want a simple MAC address solution for time blocking. If you'd like to, download the LinkSys SmartWifi app and see how they do it. Put in a Mac address of a device, select the times and dates you want the internet off and it's done.

I'm pretty sure that we can do time blocking without white/black list of internet locations. Unless you are draconian restricted - you may only go to www.pandasarecute.com - then there is no easy way to locally list out sufficient internet connections. If you need to scope back access to the world wild web, I would take a look at opendns. It does a pretty good job, and the log files are very useful to support earnest conversations with straying children.

I know right now I can turn on and off the internet easily using mac addresses. God help me if they learn about mac address spoofing.