Video screenshot by Michael Franco/CNET

When it comes to spending time with their kids these days, dads have a lot of competition from smartphones and tablets. It seems many kids would rather have their faces buried in their screens than spend some face time with the man who brought them into the world.

Canadian advertising agency Grip Limited has a solution -- a tie that hijacks your home's WiFi signal and reroutes it so that it's only effective within ten feet of the wearer. When dad has it on, the kids in the house will have no choice but to get closer to their father if they want to continue surfing. It's called, logically enough -- TieFi (a mashup of Tie and WiFi).

Ah, home life in the 21st century. So sweet.

"With this particular product, I think you might have missed the point," says the family doctor who's interviewed in the video about TieFi (see below). But of course, that's the entire point of the Grip Limited invention, video and accompanying website. The mock campaign was developed to point out just how absurd it's getting that fathers might have to resort to this kind of measure to get their kids close to them.

Even though the TieFi was developed to get this point across (and draw some attention to Grip Unlimited, no doubt), the website does actually let you download the instructions for making one yourself at home. You'll need a Raspberry Pi, external battery, micro SD card and a few other bits of gear, but if you're a dad and things really are desperate in your home, you could give it a try.

Or, you could just what my father would have done were I still a bratty kid putting my iPad before my dad -- cancel your home's WiFi subscription. That'll teach 'em!

(Via DesignTaxi)