Items tagged with WiFi
Netgear has announced a new product called the Orbi Voice Smart Speaker and WiFi Mesh Satellite with Built-in Amazon Alexa. That is a very long name to describe a product that can play music for you and answer questions thanks to Amazon Alexa integration. The device is also a mesh hotspot to extend your WiFi network. Orbi Voice can work with any Orbi WiFi system to expand your wireless network around your entire home covering up to 4,500 square feet. Wireless speeds up to 3Gbps are supported. Harman Kardon premium sound is integrated for high-quality music to be played. Netgear says that this...
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Sometimes you need to see inside something to check if all is functioning well. That might be while you are rebuilding your car's engine or working on an AC system. Whenever you need to get a look at the inside of something in tight quarters, an endoscope/borescope comes in handy. Amazon has the Depstech Wireless Endoscope on sale right now and it is Wi-Fi enabled with a 2.0MP camera on the end. The camera's "neck" is rigid, so you can bend it and cram it into tight spaces even if the only way to gain access is from underneath. The Depstech Wireless Endoscope works with Android or iOS devices including...
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Mesh networking is starting to take a foothold in the home market, but the technology has actually been around for quite sometime. In fact, you have most likely been connected to a mesh network at some point in time without even realizing it. Hotels, universities, and malls have been using the tech for years to keep their students and customers seamlessly connected to the internet over large areas. The cost of setting up and maintaining a large, mesh network is worthwhile for the enterprise and major institutions, but for the rest of us -- until recently -- mesh networks have simply been out of...
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TP-Link has been making mesh routers in the Deco range for a while now that are designed to give you WiFi access all around a home or office. Last year, the company launched the Deco M5 mesh router and now the company has announced the new Deco M9 Plus. This mesh router is notable because in addition to offering WiFi coverage, it also has an integrated smart home hub for IoT devices. The M9 Plus supports AC2200 speeds and tri-band WiFi with dedicated 5GHz backhaul for faster speeds and dependable connectivity for over 100 devices across the entire home. The router uses TP-Link Mesh technology to...
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Rivet Networks, the folks behind the Killer networking products, has announced a new feature for its Wi-Fi chips already inside desktop and notebook computers. The tech is called Killer Wireless xTend and will be offered in desktop and laptop systems from MSI, Dell, Acer, Clevo, and Zotac. The xTend tech creates a mesh network by taking advantage of an available Killer Wireless-AC 1550 WiFi module inside notebooks and desktops. xTend allows the WiFi module to seamlessly clone and extend a home network, essentially turning all your computers with the Killer Wireless-AC 1550 hardware inside into...
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An updated version of the Raspberry Pi Model B has launched, and this new "Plus" version offers a number of upgrades. The official name is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and it is on sale now for the same $35 price as the previous version of the developer board. Updates include: A 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2 Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0) Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT) Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting Improved thermal management The maximum CPU clock for the B+ is 200MHz...
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Alexa is constantly gaining new skills with some coming directly from Amazon, and other skills coming from third-party programmers. One of the latest skills that Alexa has picked up is one that can help you control your wireless network. At MWC 2018, McAfee announced a new Alexa skill that lets you check on the security of your router and network without having to launch an app or go to your computer. The skills enable voice controls for McAfee network security features and include commands like: "Alexa, ask McAfee to scan my network" "Alexa, ask McAfee how many devices are online right now" "Alexa,...
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Most of us have had a love-hate relationship with wireless networking. It’s a wonderful technology when all your devices remain connected and perform well in every room of your house, but that’s not always the case. When your devices intermittently drop off or can't find a strong enough signal strength for reliable web browsing, or even if you're suffering through endless video buffering, there isn’t much you can do in that moment, but accept you’re at the mercy of your wireless router. Networking companies sought to fix that with wireless network extenders, but most of...
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Anyone around back in the '80s when rabbit ears were the main way of tuning in to your favorite shows will know that foil improved reception. A group of researchers has now found that we can apply similar tech to our WiFi routers. The team of researchers used a 3D printer to produce a cheap and customized reflector that directs wireless signals in the direction you need them most. The solution might be just what is needed for enhancing signal strength in certain areas of a home or office. "Through this single solution, we address a number of challenges that plague wireless users," said Xia Zhou,...
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This morning we talked about a researcher from KU Leuven University in Belgium who had discovered a major security vulnerability in the WiFi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that is used to secure wireless internet traffic. That vulnerability could be used to allow a nefarious attacker to glean confidential details sent over WiFi such as usernames and passwords for secure websites. At least one software company didn't waste any time with an update, with Microsoft confirming that it released an update on October 10th that addressed the exploit. Microsoft has released a patch that will fix the...
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External storage is commonplace now, but traditional standalone storage products sometimes leave a large number of devices hanging. I've got a 2TB external drive plugged into a USB 3 port, for example, which is great for the main PC, but it doesn't help much with the laptop, iPhone and iPad. That's where some of the latest wireless storage products like the WD My Passport Wireless Pro we're going to be showing you here come in. Through creative piggy-backing onto your Wi-Fi network, you can add multiple terabytes of additional storage that can be accessed by any wirelessly-connected device, giving...
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Consumer WiFi router products are generally classified by three major performance characteristics: overall throughput or bandwidth, multi-client performance, and range. Although throughput and multi-client bandwidth has scaled-up nicely over the years, range perhaps hasn't improved quite as robustly and even the most powerful WiFi routers, like Netgear's own beastly Nighthawk X8, with its active antennas, can still leave dead spots in large home or office installations. That's where the recent crop of mesh router technologies, that startups like Eero and Google with Google WiFi, are making significant...
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Google is rumored to be launching a number of new hardware products at its October hardware event including new Pixel Nougat smartphones and its Google Home speaker. Rumor also has it that Google plans on announcing a $129 Wi-Fi router at this event. Although the Google Wi-Fi router is shrouded in mystery, a few tidbits of gossip have been recently swirling around the internet. For starters, the Google router is supposedly dual-band, offers AC 1200 speeds, and includes Bluetooth connectivity. It is also expected to have much better range than your typical router, along with the ability...
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At this point we've reviewed quite a few high-end AC routers, including tri-band routers, flagship dual-band models, and even the latest MU-MIMO devices too. However, the one portion of the market we haven't covered much is the one that exists on the more affordable end of the pricing spectrum. We all know there are quantifiable differences between a $100 GPU and a $300 GPU, but is that also true for 802.11ac routers as well? After all, they're all branded as AC routers, and have similar features and specifications. This time around, we'll be taking a look at the $75 Tenda AC15 AC1900 router....
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