Those on the networking side will easily recognize ASUS and its routers of the recent times as the company is known to have unique products in its lineup, one of them including the ASUS RT-AC5300 with that crazy 8-antenna design. Now, the Taiwanese brand has come up with a rather different concept with the design of its new router – a big hole in the middle of the router, which is named “Blue Cave”.
The router looks different, to start with, and it looks beautiful. At first look, you might even confuse it with an air purifier from Dyson but it strictly is made to offer you with Internet connectivity and nothing else. It is the AC2600 dual-band WiFi router and it isn’t good by only its looks but also with the features offered.
To start with what is offered, ASUS claims that it can let you stream 4K videos at ease and there is support for IFTTT and Alexa out of the box and with that onboard, you can set a lot of automation if there are smart devices at home. To take it further and talk about its smartness, the controlling is possible through a smartphone app. The recent two that we talked about with something similar are the Google OnHub and the Xiaomi Mi Router 3C.
It is still the design that has got into my mind. Why would a router need to have such a design? ASUS has been trying to make the look better so that it no longer remains an accessory that you would want to hide with those antennas and a dumb design. Also, the router is said to be capable of handling more number of clients than a standard router these days would do, and that is thanks to the Intel technology.
Specifications of ASUS Blue Cave
- Network standard: IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, IPv4, IPv6
- Antenna: Internal antenna x 4
- Connectivity: MIMO technology, 2.4 GHz 4 x 4, 5 GHz-1 4 x 4
- Security: WPA2-PSK, WPA-PSK, WPA-Enterprise , WPA2-Enterprise , WPS support
- Firewall: SPI intrusion detection, DoS protection
- Access control: Parental control, Network service filter, URL filter, Port filter
- RJ45 for 10/100/1000/Gigabits BaseT for LAN x 4, RJ45 for 10/100/1000/Gigabits BaseT for WAN x 1, USB 3.0 port
- OS support: Windows XP, ME, 2000, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Mac OS X 10.1 and later, Linux
AiProtection, the commercial grade security for routers is what is offered in the Blue Cave. You can also easily monitor and control each family member’s internet and app usage from your mobile device.
Usually, one would want to see antennas all around the router for better signals and speed, but ASUS says that the internal antenna design on the Blue Cave is able to produce faster speeds comparatively.
The price? The router will cost you about $180, but it is not clear when will it launch.
Unique design, & if does what it says then awesome.. ✌️
looks super cool!!