Huawei is getting into the mesh router business, unveiling the Huawei WiFi Q2, a multi-unit networking system that combines wireless and powerline backhaul. Announced at CES 2018 today, the WiFi Q2 also has an eye on the Internet of Things (IoT), promising a dedicated channel that will automatically shift connected device and smart home traffic into its own, separate lane.
Whether its playing a PC game or the game of life, one can’t afford to lose. Especially if the latter involves a wee little one. At CES 2018, network equipment professionals NETGEAR put on display their latest connected gear for all sorts of home users. Be it amateur or pro gamers who need the reliability of the Nighthawk Pro Gaming router and its companion LAN Switch, or the concerned parent who needs to see what the little one is up to from afar with the Arlo Baby Camera.
D-Link showed up to CES 2018 in Las Vegas with a bunch of new products in tow, with many of them focused on connectivity around the house. In all, the company announced three new routers, a new mesh networking system, and five new security cameras at the show, so it certainly had quite the stockpile on hand.
Linksys has revealed a more affordable version of its Velop mesh networking system, a dual-band model that's smaller and cheaper to take on Google Wifi and Eero. The Velop Dual-Band Whole Home WiFi Mesh System borrows the obelisk styling of its siblings, but drops the third wireless band and loses about two inches of height in the process.
When it comes to networking, there's arguably no group of users quite so demanding - and easily frustrated by lag - as gamers. That's just the cohort Linksys is targeting, and Xbox One players in particular, with the new Linksys WRT32XB, designed specifically with Microsoft's console in mind.
If you need to get a solid WiFi connection to the far corners of your home, mesh networking is generally the solution. What about times when you want your WiFi to extend to the boundaries of your property and not just be limited to your home? That poses something of a larger problem, as many mesh networking systems aren't really designed for outdoor use.
Razer has announced a new partnership with Ignition Design Labs, the end product being a new Portal WiFi router that has been optimized for gamers. The new router is mesh-capable, offering Gigabit connectivity and features that improve gaming over wireless. Razer says that a pair of these Portal routers are able to cover houses ranging up to 6,000sqft, among other things.
Comcast's xFi Advanced Gateway is now available in all of the service provider's Gigabit Internet markets, giving those customers a new way to get Gigabit speeds over WiFi. Comcast brags that its xFi Advanced Gateway offers its most advanced WiFi tech ever, giving subscribers super fast wireless speeds able to handle all the demands of a connected home.
Most mobile devices and operating systems these days include some form of parental control. Sooner or later, however, this per-device system becomes inconvenient and sometimes even ineffective. The best way to monitor, check, and curb Internet use is really at the source, which, in the case of a home network, is often the router. That is why NETGEAR and Circle Media have teamed up to install the Circle with Disney parental control system directly on NETGEAR’s Wi-Fi systems and routers.
With the increase in the number of connected devices in homes and especially in home or small offices, simple networking solutions, like home routers, can no longer keep up with the increased demand. Not to mention the sometimes complicated structure of buildings. For such challenging networks, you have a choice between using Wi-Fi range extenders or mesh networks, the latter of which is becoming more popular of late. Linksys is offering a sort of middle ground with the RE9000 Max-Stream Wi-Fi Range Extender that looks almost like a router itself and even acts like one when needed.
In that past, it was already enough to have a PC rig that was “good enough” to churn the numbers needed to produce high quality graphics on screen. As more games these days are played only or mostly online, it has come to past that gamers now also need “better than good” Internet connections as well. While Linksys can’t do anything about the quality of the connection coming into your house, it can at least do something about how that connection gets allocated to devices on the network. And with the WRT32X gaming router, you can make sure that your gaming PC gets the choicest packets, provided you have a Killer-enabled PC.
Back at CES in January, Norton unveiled an interesting new router called the Core. What makes this router interesting is not only its unique design, but also its stated focus: keeping your network of IoT devices safe. Seven months later, the Norton Core is now shipping out to US customers.