About Holte
The Story Behind Holte
I've always been a tinkerer. For years, I was the classic tech hobbyist, building home backups, setting up media servers, deploying ad-blockers, and finding creative, budget-friendly solutions to everyday problems. I learned a lot along the way, even if my experiments occasionally disrupted the family internet!
Those late-night projects highlighted a real problem: modern households are suffering from digital overload. Between smart TVs tracking what we watch, children scrolling late into the night on tablets and consoles, and everyday apps harvesting household data, it has become harder to set sensible digital boundaries at home.
As a hobbyist, I could build complex setups to filter this out. But reducing unwanted tracking and managing family screen time shouldn't require you to become the family IT specialist. I built Holte to package those capabilities into a simple, affordable device for everyday UK homes, without replacing your broadband provider.
How Holte Works in 3 Simple Steps
- Plug Holte into your router: Connect Holte to power and plug the included Ethernet cable into a spare port on the back of your Wi-Fi router.
- Change one DNS setting: Using our step-by-step visual guide for your specific router, point your local network's DNS setting to Holte.
- Manage your home from one screen: Open your Holte dashboard on any phone, tablet, or laptop to group devices by family member, set bedtime routines, block known tracking domains, and check your broadband speed history.
Filtering out the noise (The "Digital Sorting Office")
Every time you open an app, stream a show on a smart TV, or click a link, your device looks up a domain address to find where to load that content (using DNS, the Domain Name System). Think of Holte as a private sorting office inside your home:
- When a device tries to contact a known advertising network or background tracking domain, Holte blocks the request before it loads.
- Because Holte only checks the domain lookup and never slows down or inspects your actual video streams or file downloads, your broadband speeds remain untouched.
See Holte in Action: Your Home Today
Privacy and household control shouldn't be invisible. Holte shows you clearly what is happening across your home network in plain English (example household data shown below):
- Home Status: Protected ✓
- Mum's iPhone & Dad's Laptop: Protected (Standard filtering active)
- Tom (Phone, PlayStation 5, Laptop): School Night Bedtime active (21:00 → 07:00)
- Living Room Smart TV: Background tracking domains blocked
- Weekly Summary: 12,429 unwanted tracking/ad requests stopped • 8 devices protected • Broadband averaging 152 Mbps ↓
👉 Launch the Interactive Dashboard Demo
(Explore a simulated UK family home in your browser—try pausing Tom's gaming console, naming a new Smart TV, or running a live protection check).
Honest Protection: What Holte Does (And What It Doesn't)
There is a lot of exaggerated cybersecurity marketing online. We believe in being unusually candid about what Holte helps with and where its boundaries lie.
What Holte Helps With ✓
- Blocking connections to many known advertising and tracking domains across your whole home.
- Grouping devices by family member to pause internet access or set daily bedtime routines.
- Showing clearly which devices are connected to your Wi-Fi and which smart devices are generating tracking requests.
- Recording independent broadband speed checks during quiet hours so you can verify your ISP's performance over time.
- Extending selected DNS filtering to family phones when away from home (with optional Holte Plus).
What Holte Is Not ✗
- It is not antivirus software: Holte does not scan downloaded files or remove malware already on a computer.
- It cannot inspect inside encrypted apps: Holte can block access to a platform's domains (such as TikTok or Roblox), but it cannot read private messages or see inside encrypted apps like WhatsApp.
- It does not guarantee scam prevention: It is a helpful household control layer, not a replacement for conversations about online safety.
- It is not a conventional VPN: Our optional away-from-home feature directs DNS lookups back to your home filters on 4G/5G; it does not hide your IP address or route all of your web traffic.
No Compulsory Subscriptions
Your home shouldn't stop working if you don't want a monthly bill:
- Holte Core (£59 one-off): Whole-home ad and tracker domain blocking, people profiles, device pauses, bedtime schedules, automated broadband speed checks, and 5 years of essential security updates are permanently included with your hardware at no recurring cost.
- Holte Plus (£29/year optional or £79 Family Bundle with 12 months included): Adds out-of-home mobile DNS protection on 4G/5G, extended broadband evidence exports, and priority setup support.
