Same shelf as Bark and Circle.
A different machine underneath.
Bark and Circle sit beside your router and try to look like it. Modern phones often see through the trick. Braintech replaces your router as the gateway — so there’s nothing to see through. Here’s what changes, in plain English.
How it actually controls your network
The cheapest way to filter traffic is to sit beside your router and pretend to be it. Modern phones, game consoles, and mesh systems often see through the trick and route around it. Braintech replaces your router as the gateway — there's nothing to see through.
Yes — it is the gateway.
No — sits beside the router and intercepts.
No — same beside-the-router approach.
Inline. No bypass works — there's no “gateway” to fake.
Static-ARP tricks, MAC changes, and some mesh setups escape it.
Same evasion surface.
Reviews don't fight re-pairing battles. Fails closed.
Drop-outs in reviews — needs restarts.
“Escaping” devices recur in reviews.
Plug-and-play. Your existing Wi-Fi switches to access-point mode — Bri walks you through it in about a minute.
Plug beside the router, change nothing.
Plug beside the router, change nothing.
Privacy & bypass resistance
You want strong control without spying on your kid's messages or installing a certificate that reads everything they type. All three boxes filter by destination (the domain the device is reaching) — none of them read the words inside encrypted traffic. Where Braintech goes further is on the bypass tools kids actually try.
Yes — as the gateway, it's enforced cleanly.
Limited — relies on the beside-router trick holding.
Same limit.
Domain block + IP block on known DoH endpoints. Updated regularly.
Patchier — Chrome's secure DNS often slips by.
Same patchiness.
Filters destinations only.
Filters destinations only.
Box doesn't. (The separate Bark phone app does — that's a different product.)
What you actually pay for
Some boxes sell you hardware first, then a subscription on top. Braintech is one line item: the device is included. If you cancel, the device goes back — nothing stranded on a shelf.
Yes — $0 hardware barrier.
$129 box up front (first-year sub bundled).
$79 box + ~$99/yr Bark sub required on top.
$0
~$129
~$79 + sub
The thing only one of us does
Every parental-control product on the shelf is some flavour of block-and-limit. Braintech is the only one where your kid earns screen time by finishing a learning task — a TED talk, a Khan Academy lesson, twenty minutes of reading. Time stops being a battle you ration and starts being something they grow into.
Yes. The differentiator nobody else ships — block, plus a way out through learning.
Block & limit. A “bonus minutes” toggle exists, but no learning loop.
Block & alert. Center of gravity is monitoring, not screen-time economics.
The two-sentence pitch.
Bark and Circle sit next to your router and try to look like it — kids’ devices slip past them all the time. Braintech is the gateway. Everything behind it has to pass through.
And it’s the only one where your kid earns their screen time by completing a learning task — with the device included in the subscription, nothing to buy up front.
Three reasons families pick us.
- 01Earn-to-unlock
Kids earn screen time by completing learning tasks — the one feature nobody else has.
- 02Enforcement that doesn't break
Inline gateway vs. beside-the-router tricks. Set once, stays put.
- 03Device included
One subscription, the box is in it. $0 today vs. paying for hardware AND a sub.
What you’ll actually spend.
Competitor list pricing as of 2026. Promos vary — check before buying.
The honest small print.
Two things every home parental-control box has in common — worth knowing whichever one you pick.
Any home box can only protect what’s on the home network. When a kid’s phone is on cellular at school, that’s the phone’s screen-time controls’ job (Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link). Every box on this page has the same limit — we’ll be honest about it.
Because Braintech is the gateway (that’s why it works so well), your existing Wi-Fi router needs to switch to access-point mode for the first 60 seconds of setup. Bri walks you through it for your specific router — it’s one menu toggle, then plug-and-play.
Different machine. Different outcome.
Drop your email, save 10%, and your founding spot is held.