Active Time Limits
Learn more about Active Time Limits with these frequently asked questions.
What is an Active Time Limit?
- An Active Time Limit provides awareness of how long a profile is active on your home network, to help your family promote healthy Internet usage habits. When enabled, a profile's devices can be automatically paused, restricting their Internet access on your home WiFi network for the rest of the day.
- Note: Access using cellular data, a public Shaw WiFi hotspot, or other available WiFi networks will not count toward active time. Also, pausing a profile will not block access through these channels.
How do I set up an Active Time Limit?
- Visit the profile you'd like to set an alert for, select Edit next to Active Time Limit. Choose Weekdays or Weekends and adjust the bar to set the active time limit. This will be the daily limit for the profile, starting at 12am each day.
- By default, the option to automatically pause devices is enabled when creating new active time limits. This will pause a profile’s devices will for the rest of the day (until midnight) once their active time limit has been reached. If you do not want the profile’s devices to automatically pause, be sure to disable this setting.
- Note: The automatic pause setting will not be enabled on any active time limits that were set up prior to the introduction of this setting. You will need to enable this option for each existing active time limit.
What counts as 'active time'?
- Activities such as streaming music or videos, surfing, shopping, gaming, and downloading books, pictures and videos, count towards 'active time.'
- Applications that you may not be actively using, but are running in the background, may count towards active time. For example, an app downloading an update would likely be considered active time, while a text message with no attachment likely won't. Devices may download updates overnight and this will count as active time. Some devices, like Chromecast, continuously download data, and are not recommended to be assigned to profiles where you set an active time limit.
What happens when the active time limit is reached?
- When the limit has been reached, the devices in that profile will be paused for the remainder of the day, until midnight. If you do not want the devices in a profile to automatically pause once the time limit is reached, disable this option in the active time alert.
Can I unpause devices after they have hit their active time limit?
- If you wish to unpause a profile’s devices after they have reached their active time limit, that profile and select Unpause All Devices.
- Why are some devices still paused from the previous day?
The device may still be paused under a separate pause rule or may be paused due a bedtime schedule. Check these settings to ensure that all pause rules have removed from the devices/profile, and that the bedtime mode schedule has ended.
Why is my iPhone or iPad not following the set active time limits?
Active Time Details
Learn more about Active Time Details with these frequently asked questions.
What counts as Active Time?
- All online activities on (web browsing, streaming, social media, etc.) count toward Active Time if they use the customer's home WiFi network (Cellular and public networks such as Rogers WiFi Hotspots do not contribute). This includes background activity such as app updates, and embedded content.
Can I view Active Time Details in both the mobile and web platforms?
- Yes, the Active Time Details feature is accessible in both the Ignite HomeConnect App and through internet.shaw.ca
Do private browsing sessions such as Incognito Mode show up in Active Time Details?
- Yes, they will, as long as the site in question is on our list of supported apps and websites (for example: twitch.tv). If it is an unsupported website the usage will not appear in Active Time Details but will still show as part of the total Active Time.
How can we request additional apps and websites to be supported by Active Time Details?
- Please review the list of supported apps and websites found here. If the app or website you are looking to have tracked by Active Time Details is not on the list, there is also an option to request its addition via the Active Time Details request form located here
Why is total Active Time different from the Active Time Details tracked under apps and websites?
- This is because not all apps/websites are supported. If an unsupported app/website is used the active time is logged for the profile usage but details of what apps or websites will not be included. Additionally, if a supported app is running in the background while actively using another, Active Time Details will concurrently track the usage of both apps at once.
Will Active Time Details provide a device breakdown for Active Time?
- No, it won't. Total supported app/website usage will be tracked at the profile level only. Profiles can be created with only one attached device, however. By doing so, you can be sure that all tracked profile activity is associated from that device.