Firewalla Feature: Users

Firewalla's Users feature can help you to organize devices and network services by person. A User is like an enhanced device group with human characteristics. Firewalla's Users feature can show you when, what, and for how long people are watching videos or playing games on your network. Additionally, you can set time limits to control how long a User has access to certain apps. 
 

Users include activity detection and time limits for:

• Netflix
• YouTube
• Fortnite
• Roblox 
• TikTok 
• Instagram 
• Facebook
• Disney Plus
• Amazon Prime
• Twitch
• Hulu 
• League of Legends
• And many more apps are planned – see the table at the end of this article.

For a quick video overview of what you can do with Firewalla Users, see our tutorial video.

1. What is a User?
2. User Activity Tracking
3. User Activity Time Limits
4. How do I create a User?
5. Activity Information For Devices and Device Groups 
6. What Apps Can Firewalla Measure?

What is a User?

A User is Firewalla's representation of a person in your network. You can assign different devices to a User – for example, if your child has a phone, a tablet, and a laptop, you can assign them all to one user.

Firewalla will track app usage across devices for each user, making it easy to see when and for how long someone is doing certain activities.

User Activity Tracking

Firewalla will show you how different Users are spending time on your network. For example, you can easily see if your child is sneaking YouTube time while they're supposed to be asleep or if an employee is gaming during the workday.

Firewalla will also show real-time user activity. If a user is using a specific app, a blinking green dot will appear next to the app icon. Tapping on a user's detail page will tell you when the activity started, and you can tap on it to learn more.

App usage data from Users is generally accurate. However, some factors might affect what you see:

• Users Activity Tracking won't double-count your activity time if you're using multiple apps or devices simultaneously. For example, if you play 1 hour of Fortnite while watching YouTube, you will only see 1 total hour of activity time. However, if you go into the usage detail of each app, you'll see that you used each app for 1 hour.
• Users Activity Tracking can only collect data on activities that go through your network. If someone is watching videos or gaming off the Firewalla network, that activity won't get tracked. For example, if someone has downloaded a video, it's impossible for Firewalla to know if a user is watching it.
• If you want to account for off-network activity, consider combining Users with a local application like Screen Time, which can track anything that happens on a device.

User Activity Tracking will work for both app and website streaming.

User Activity Time Limits

You can control when and for how long each of your Users has access to certain apps with Time Limits. For example, you can limit your kids to 2 hours per day of Fortnite on weekends or set a daily 1-hour limit for YouTube or Netflix. There are two ways to set time limits for Users:

• Directly from the User's detail page
• By creating a new rule

To set a time limit from the User's detail page, scroll down and tap Add Time Limit under the activity chart, select an app, and set a daily or weekly time limit.

To set a time limit by creating a Rule, tap on Rules from your box's main screen, then tap Add Rule. Choose Time Limit as the action, select an app, select a User, and then set a daily or weekly time limit. Time Limits can only be applied to Users.

If you create a Time Limit and set the schedule for Every Week, the limit will apply to each day individually. For example, a 2-hour Roblox limit for Saturday and Sunday means that the user will have 2 hours of Roblox access each day.

How do I create a User?

To create a User, tap Create User. There are two ways to assign devices to a User:

• Create from scratch – manually add devices to your new User. If you add devices that already belong to other Device Groups or Users, they'll be removed to join the new user.
• Create from a group – select an existing Device Group to build your User from. All the devices in the group will be assigned to the User, and the group will retain all its rules, policies, and feature settings.

Finally, give your User a name and tap Save.

If you tap on a User, you'll see a chart of their app usage across devices. You can tap the Flows tab to see a summary of their Flows.

If you tap Activities, you'll see a chart of their app usage across devices over today. Swipe on the chart to see usage for different days. Tap on the Week tab to see app usage over the previous week.

Tapping on a specific app lets you drill down on when and for how long your User accessed the app. You can also see which device your User was using. To isolate a specific device, tap on All Devices in the top left corner and select a device.

Tap User Name to modify your User's name.

Activity Information For Devices and Device Groups 

To see app usage activity information for individual devices and device groups, tap into the device/group detail page, then tap the Activities tab. You'll see when and for how long certain apps were used. Tap Activities at the bottom of the chart to see a detailed breakdown of app usage over time. 

If you don't see the Activities/Flows tabs on your device or device group detail pages, it means there has been no app activity detected over the past 7 days.

What Apps Can Firewalla Measure?

To access the features in early access, update your box using the instructions here. We'll update this table as we continue building this feature. We have even more apps planned!