As of June 11th, the Active Time Alert in xFi has been renamed to Active Time Limit. With this change, we also introduced the ability to automatically pause a profile's devices once their active time limit has been reached.
An Active Time Limit provides the ability to set time limits for profiles on your home network to help your family promote healthy Internet usage habits. Once enabled, the Xfinity primary user will receive a text message, email and/or push notification (depending on your xFi notification preferences) when a profile’s devices are close to reaching their active time limit on your home network.
To set up an Active Time Limit, select a profile and 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. If you do not want the profile’s devices to automatically pause once the time limit is reached, be sure to disable this setting for the active time limit. This means, once the profile's devices are paused, they will stay paused for the rest of the day (until midnight). You can unpause the profile by going into xFi, selecting the profile from People and then selecting "Unpause All".
If the profile has a bedtime schedule, all of the profile's devices will pause until midnight and then remain paused until the scheduled wake time the following day.
If you have paused a specific device, selecting "Until I Unpause", that device will remain paused until you go into xFi and unpause the device.
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 (for example, an app downloading an update) may count towards active time. Access using cellular data, a public Xfinity WiFi hotspot, or other available WiFi networks will not count toward active time.
To receive Active Time Limit notifications, be sure you have Network Activity notifications turned on in xFi. Learn about notification preferences .
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Active Time Limit? An Active Time Limit provides the ability to set time limits for profiles on your home network to help your family promote healthy Internet usage habits. When enabled, the Xfinity primary user will receive a text message, email and/or push notification (depending on you xFi notifications preferences) when a profile's devices are close to reaching their active time limit on your home network. Devices assigned to the profile can be automatically paused for the remainder of the day once the time limit is reached. How do I set up an Active Time Limit ? Visit the profile that you'd like to set a limit for and 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 12:00 AM 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 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 for the active time limit.
**Note**: The automatic pause setting will not be enabled on any Active Time Limits that were set up prior to the introduction of this feature. 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.
**Note**: Access using cellular data, a public Xfinity WiFi hotspot or other available WiFi networks will not count towards active time.
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 remained of the day, until midnight. When this time limit is close to being reached, a text message, email and/or push notification will be sent to the Xfinity primary user depending on your xFi notification preferences. Be sure that you have Network Activity notifications turned on to receive these alerts.
**Note**: If you do not want the devices in a profile to automatically pause once the time limit is reached, be sure to disable this option in the active time limit.
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, you can open that profile and 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 to a bedtime schedule. Check these settings to ensure that all pause rules have been removed from the device/profile and that the bedtime mode schedule has ended.
To learn more about setting Active Time Limits, visit Personalizing and Controlling Your Home Network with xFi or the Active Time Limit section in the xFi FAQs.
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