I like the recent trend to make higher-end Wi-Fi routers look interesting. Stepping away from the old-school canister or plain shell with antenna is especially pleasing. No one has embraced this more fully than D-Link, with the DIR-855L/R being one of the latest crop of performance routers. Sporting a dual-core 1.4GHz Broadcom BCM4709C0 SoC, this 4×4 stream AC3150 (1000Mbps […]
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NETGEAR touts the Nighthawk X8 AC5300 (R8500) Smart Wi-Fi router as “the next wave in Wi-Fi”. Generally, I am inclined to dismiss this sort of hyperbole, but the $350/£350 802.11AC includes features that are a reasonable step up from other models including: quad-streams, two 802.11AC radios, Wave 2 enhancements , and six Gigabit Ethernet ports, with two 802.3ad (link […]
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I love the idea of a home router hub that integrates all the radios necessary for home automation (HA) in the same box. I’ve heard mixed reviews of Securifi’s kit since it launched, but it’s great that they are inovating and bringing a cheaper model to market. Hit up AnandTech for the details on their newest, cheaper, model. Securifi […]
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To get the most out of Link Aggregation, you really need enterprise hardware. Well, that used to be true anyway. NETGEAR has had the technology in their consumer ReadyNAS line for a while, and recently brought it to their high-end Nighthawk X8 R8500 802.11AC router. If you’re curious about what that looks like in real terms AnandTech has tested it […]
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Just when you thought the pace of change in the 802.11AC market might be slowing, it looks like it’s time for another refresh – this time bringing AC3150 forward. The 2nd Ultra (read big-red-spaceship, which I happen to like BTW) model is a “MU-MIMO capable” device based on Broadcom’s 4×4 hardware. Like all the competative models running the same SoC […]
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Today NETGEAR announced the latest addition to their high-end consumer 802.11AC Wi-Fi routers; the $400 Nighthawk X8 R8500. Like other “AC5300” routers the X8 is based on a 1.4GHz SoC with tri-band Wave2 sporting one “1000Mbps” 2.4GHz and two “2166Mbps” 5GHz radios. Unlike previous generations of 802.11AC routers the X8 has two features which make it very unique compared to […]
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Staying on Wi-Fi’s cutting edge has been expensive over the last couple years, with the major improvements in software and features only coming to the top end of the market. Today NETGEAR took steps to reach more budget-minded users with the launch of the $150 R6400 AC1750 802.11AC Wi-Fi router. The R6400 is intended to slot into the R6300’s current […]
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It seemed absurd to pay a monthly cable modem rental fee when we lived in the US, so I always had my own sitting in between the wall and my router. This was convenient, but if you’re limited for space and want fast 802.11AC NETGEAR just launched a combination 24×8 (fastest DOCSIS channel bonding solution available) wireless router cable modem […]
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The pace of innovation in the 802.11AC space over the last couple years has been breathtaking. With the iteration from AC1750 -> AC1900, the main improvement was realized in 2.4GHz bandwidth, and not focused on enhancing the speed of the primary 5GHz radio. The recent release of “Wave 2” 802.11AC chipsets has changed this by adding features like Multi-user MIMO […]
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Amped Wireless doesn’t even start shipping its highest speed wireless router until next week, and it is already announcing yet another product with even more speed. Its latest offering, shipping sometime this summer, boasts an estimated 4 times the range of a standard router and 16 signal amplifiers to help maintain a blazing fast connection. If it comes anywhere close […]
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