topic Block access to specific site from specific network device in Nest Wifi

Block access to specific site from specific network device

JerryGYoungII — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 18:22:59 GMT

I have a Nest Wifi Router (Model H2D). I have a device for which I'd like to block access to YouTube from. I'm not finding anywhere that this can be done in the admin console for the wifi router.

Does the Nest Wifi Router not offer this capability? This seems like it would be a pretty basic one.

If not, are there any Google Wifi devices that do, maybe a newer model? Or, if I want that capability, am I going to have to move away from the Google ecosystem?

Re: Block access to specific site from specific network device

MichaelP — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:32:07 GMT

Hello @JerryGYoungII

This is something that turns out to be difficult to accomplish at the network level for various reasons. A more effective solution is to use operating system level features on the device itself. For example, Microsoft Family or Apple Screen Time. These features should let you configure the device to limit screen time, limit apps, and limit specific web sites. This should be more effective than attempting something similar from the network / router.

Re: Block access to specific site from specific network device

JerryGYoungII — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 18:57:12 GMT

This is actually from a Vizio Smart TV, which doesn't include any device-level management of apps. Thought was simply to block traffic to youtube.com from the IP address of the TV.

Re: Block access to specific site from specific network device

MichaelP — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 19:07:54 GMT

I understand the thinking. Unfortunately, it's just not that simple to do something like this at the network level. The TV may not even be using your network's DNS server to look up the youtube.com domain name, which would be the only reliable way to intercept something like this since youtube itself is served by a large pool of IP addresses, some of which may be serving parts of other Google services. So, there's no reliable way for the network to know exactly which IP addresses to block traffic to.