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More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

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Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#11

Post by pearjuice »

Just $219.99 for a data harvesting and privacy invading glorified cylindrical router marketed as home decoration, with an obnoxious ASUS logo on top.

To be honest, this could be a great prop for some sort of Hollywood thriller, in which the protagonist, a family man portrayed as computer illiterate, buys a new router for his family. At first it's the best thing they ever purchased, but after the scene with the children going to bed and the OnHub™ emitting a strange fluorescing light, things seem to go awry for the family. His wife is getting really confronting targeted advertisements jeopardizing their relationship and his children end up really sick due to painful headaches which the doctor says only occur in nuclear zones of destruction due to intense radiation. Will he find out what's causing all of this or is it already too late? Coming soon in a theater near you.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#13

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

angryasian wrote: post #9

This is slightly confusing to me. Why did they release a TP-Link onhub and an asus onhub so close to each other ? For those interested in the difference , but I wish they would actually provide hardware specs somewhere. >OnHub is available from both ASUS and TP-Link. Both are powerful AC1900 routers and work with the Google On companion app. But each has a different elegant exterior design, along with two key differe…

For those interested in the difference , but I wish they would actually provide hardware specs somewhere.

https://on.google.com/hub/#specs

Click the "Specs" link at the top right.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#14

Post by fndrplayer13 »

Does anybody have any thoughts on how the hand wave feature works? I'm interested in the OnHub as a Nest owner and potential future developer. I like the addition of Thread and Weave, and the other future-enabled sensors on this thing. Still, though, hard to justify the $220 price tag without knowing what its really intended for.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#16

Post by jasonmp85 »

andybak wrote: post #4
Roritharr wrote: post #2

"With the ASUS OnHub, we’re also introducing Wave Control, which lets you boost the Wi-Fi speed for a particular device by simply waving your hand over the top of the ASUS OnHub—great for busy houses." This sounds like a horrible feature. "Honey, WiFis not working in the bathroom, could you wave over the router, that might fix something?"

On the contrary it sounds like an remarkably pragmatic feature which - assuming it works as advertised - will solve many actual real-life issues with wifi better than something less manual would have done.

No, it patches over actual real-life issues by requiring intervention from users. This is a terrible strategy. Pretty soon, every person in a crowded apartment complex will be waving over their router any time they need to do something.

Channel congestion is a huge problem in urban environments. From my home office I'm seeing 20 networks right now. Even a rudimentary dynamic channel-switching implementation could help a lot, but that's not what happens. Instead, a power outage occurs, all devices reboot, and some pathological combination causes my wireless to degrade because my router came up faster and picked a channel that my neighbor's stupid ISP-provided POS decided to squat after-the-fact. Used to be I could sidestep a lot of this by using the 5GHz band, but it appears that ISP-provided devices are starting to show up there, too (though I _think_ the newer 802.11 protocols have better behavior around channel congestion? Maybe?)

Anyways, that's my $2: this is an issue, and involving the user will just result in magic-thinking/cargo-culting being taught to non-techies for problems that could be solved through better standards. It's 2015 and the best I can get from my 802.11n network is still ≈ 50mbps, even in the same room. If wireless is the future, we need solutions, not band-aids.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#17

Post by wlesieutre »

MrQuincle wrote: post #7

According to the site 'Plus, it’s designed to last, even as the way we use Wi-Fi changes. It’s built to support a growing number of "smart devices" because it includes Bluetooth® Smart Ready, Weave, and Thread.' It's difficult to find more info on that as a developer. Can you guys help me out?

Bluetooth Smart Ready is a stupid branding mistake. It means "This device can talk to normal Bluetooth devices and Bluetooth Low Energy devices." Bluetooth LE is apparently "Bluetooth Smart" now.

I don't think Weave and Thread are really in play yet (Nest might use Weave?). Weave looks like a protocol for phones talking to smart home devices, and thread is a network layer built on the same radios as ZigBee.

https://developers.google.com/weave/

http://threadgroup.org/

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#18

Post by angryasian »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13
angryasian wrote: post #9

This is slightly confusing to me. Why did they release a TP-Link onhub and an asus onhub so close to each other ? For those interested in the difference , but I wish they would actually provide hardware specs somewhere. >OnHub is available from both ASUS and TP-Link. Both are powerful AC1900 routers and work with the Google On companion app. But each has a different elegant exterior design, along with two key differe…

For those interested in the difference , but I wish they would actually provide hardware specs somewhere. https://on.google.com/hub/#specs Click the "Specs" link at the top right.

thank you I missed that. They seem identical besides the antenna and the sensor. Personally I'd rather have the antenna as it seems like you should be able prioritize from the app if they wanted to enable an easy .. Prioritize feature.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#19

Post by 8_hours_ago »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

"With the ASUS OnHub, we’re also introducing Wave Control, which lets you boost the Wi-Fi speed for a particular device by simply waving your hand over the top of the ASUS OnHub—great for busy houses." This sounds like a horrible feature. "Honey, WiFis not working in the bathroom, could you wave over the router, that might fix something?"

"To make the Facebook fast, I keep the computer thingy pointed at a fan!" - My Grandmother, if she had this device.

Re: More Ways to Wi-Fi with the New ASUS OnHub

#20

Post by mikeash »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

"With the ASUS OnHub, we’re also introducing Wave Control, which lets you boost the Wi-Fi speed for a particular device by simply waving your hand over the top of the ASUS OnHub—great for busy houses." This sounds like a horrible feature. "Honey, WiFis not working in the bathroom, could you wave over the router, that might fix something?"

What exactly does it do? I can't figure out how to translate "boost the Wi-Fi speed for a particular device" into any technical process.
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