Router recommendations

[TiredMum30]

Hi, does anyone have any router recommendations, preferably one that can be used with an app, so I can disable Internet access for certain children who continue to defy me when i ask them to come off their headset as they kept us awake till 2am the previous night with their yapping and then continued to be defiant tonight and waited until he thought we was asleep and then start up on their headset again, despite going to him numerous times he continued to do it so by 1.30am I gave up, logged into the admin website for our router and disabled his access but I have inadvertently blocked all our access after following a website blindly that said to disable DHCP which seems to have blocked all access to the router so now I can no longer access the router to turn it back on 🙈 I'm hoping a factory reset will fix it in morning but it has made me realise we could probably do with a router where we can just set up parental controls easily through an app instead.

Just to say, he's 16 and I have no issues with him staying up a little later during the holidays or weekends but when he's continuing to keep the rest of the house up talking on his headset, when we've asked him not to then I get a little annoyed, especially when he's being so defiant and thinks he can do as he wishes 😏

Is it wifi access? If so, you need a router that has the ability to run two wifi networks. You can then set up one for him and have it timed to switch off / on at certain times.

Mine is an Asus Ac68u, although it's quite old now. The technical name for the name of the wifi network is an SSID, and I would name his the same as your existing one and give your own network a different name to throw him off the scent. Also, make sure you change your admin password to stop him resetting anything.

If his room is wired there are still things you can do, but it is more complicated.

It is a really old router and when I logged into the settings there didn't seem like there was many options to change or add anything but if I can manage to get back in tomorrow I'll see if I can set that up, otherwise when I buy a new one I'll make sure it has that option, thank you.

I did disconnect his xbox through the wireless connection on the router settings to begin with but unfortunately the router is in his bedroom and 5 minutes later he was back up and running again as he'd plugged it in through the ethernet cable instead, so then I got even more annoyed and tried to disconnect the ethernet cable 🙈 tomorrow I'll be removing the wire so he'll no longer be able to do that.

If the router is in his bedroom, you will always struggle as he will be able to just reset it and undo your changes.

Is there a way you can move it out of his room? Another phone socket? (Assuming you have ADSL and not cable?)

This is the link to the manual so you can have a look and see what is possible

https://www.asus.com/us/networking-iot-servers/wifi-routers/asus-wifi-routers/rtac68u/helpdesk_manual?model2Name=RTAC68U

I'm not sure what those are but its fibre and it's attached to the wall in his room and then that feeds through to another box directly on the outside of the house, so it doesn't use phone sockets 😬

Thank you, I'll have a look

If it's fibre, this router may not work for you I'm afraid. There will be an equivalent though.

Do you know the make / model of your current router?

Thinking laterally, your other option is to turn the electricity off to his room.

Depending on how your house is wired, you may be able to flip the circuit off on your fuse board but it will mean all the sockets on that ring going off. It would mean nothing in his room works apart from lights.

The eero router can be easily controlled through an app.

Factory reset does nothing 🙈 Does anyone know if I can just go out and buy a new router or will I have the same issue because I've disabled the dhcp?

Oh I've managed to factory reset it.

I've remebered that we have a deco mesh system from the old house, if I change the password for the main router and plug in the mesh system and force all devices to go through the deco instead of the router I can then control his Internet through that right? We previously used the deco just to boost the wifi through the old house so i'm not 100% sure how the app works though and I'd probably have to superglue some tape over the factory reset button on the router to stop him resetting it whenever he likes though 🤣 but this may work temporarily while I buy a router that let's me do all this through an app instead lol

Oh the stresses of teenage sons 🙈 His sisters are a few years younger and thankfully they switch off their devices when told to.