The creators of the Flipper Zero “portable multi-tool device for geeks” have announced the Flipper One. This new pocketable gadget hugely expands the original's feature set with compute, modularity, and expandability to make what is claimed to be a different category of device. The Flipper One isn’t actually ready yet, though. Instead, the Flipper Devices team is asking for help from the community to help steer and finesse the final stages of Flipper One development to meet their ambitious goals.

“Flipper Zero taught us how much you can do with a tightly scoped, open product and a community that pushes it further than you can,” said Pavel Zhovner, Co-Founder and CEO of Flipper Devices. “Flipper One is what happens when we apply the same approach to a much bigger problem — building a fully open ARM Linux device that doesn't go obsolete the moment it ships. To be honest, it’s hard, and we can't do that alone, which is why we're opening the development process from day one.”

Before we go on, the team wanted to stress that the Flipper One isn’t an upgraded Flipper Zero. They assert that “Flipper Zero and Flipper One are completely different projects built for different tasks.” However, after digesting the announcement material, we’d probably sum up that the Flipper One is a device that adds a very useful chunk of Linux compute to the geek multitool form factor established by the Zero. Whatever the case, the Flipper team has created a side-by-side infographic to compare the two devices, and we’ve embedded that below.

Key to the Flipper One’s expanded abilities are the inclusion of an Arm processor capable of running Linux with about the same performance level as a Raspberry Pi 5, according to the press release, plus the addition of modular M.2 expansion capabilities. These are big additions, and at this stage, the Flipper team openly admits it is still wrangling with getting everything working as intended.

Some important foundational work has been done in preparing Arm Linux for the Flipper One. For example, the team has partnered with Collabora “to push full support for the Rockchip RK3576 SoC into the mainline Linux kernel.” This is a work in progress, though, with current effort focused on power management and USB DP Alt-mode support. Moreover, drivers for the SoC’s NPU, hardware video decoding, and other accelerators aren’t fully upstream yet.

To move forward with the above and related tasks, the Flipper team has created the Flipper One Developer Portal, a public wiki with all the development documentation for Flipper One. Due to the complexity of this new networking and computing multitool, the Wiki houses sub-projects focused on Hardware, Mechanics, Linux software, MCU Firmware, User Interface, Documentation, and Testing. Anyone can join and is welcome to contribute.

It sounds like there’s a lot of work left to do, but there’s a lot of potential in this new computing multitool. Its coprocessor architecture mixes the aforementioned octa-core Rockchip RK3576 SoC, which also packs Mali-G52 graphics, an NPU, and comes with 8GB of RAM. It is partnered by the RP2350 low-power MCU. Importantly, the MCU can work alone, bringing a lot of functionality to Flipper One without even getting into Linux. The CPU and MCU communicate and work together using an interconnect system.

To make the most of the power inside a Flipper One, the OS must be optimized for the task(s). So, the development team is making Flipper OS, based on Debian. A key project in this development is FlipCTL, a framework for interacting with the device on a tiny screen using just a D-pad and a few buttons.

If you have access to a big screen, Flipper One can charge, output video to a monitor, and connect USB peripherals — all via a single USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode cable. The built-in full-size HDMI port is also envisioned as a big-screen boon, with Flipper One connecting and becoming a “hacker’s TV media box.”

Flipper One’s open hardware module system with a widely compatible M.2 slot and GPIO port also boosts its capabilities beyond the network multitool skills it seems a natural fit for.

Lastly, no new device press release can neglect to mention AI. In this case, the Flipper One is touted as a device with a built-in AI accelerator (Rockchip's integrated NPU, remember) that can run LLMs locally. There are a couple of wrinkles to achieving this functionality right now. However, Flipper One will support external AI agents through integrations when you have internet connectivity.

Last week, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took the drastic step of banning the future import of consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers manufactured overseas. The announcement rang alarm bells, as nearly all consumer routers available are produced outside the U.S., leaving a potentially vast vacuum for anyone who needs to replace their router in the coming months. We reached out to TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, and Linksys for comment to get the deeper story on the ins-and-outs of the new measures.

What’s the purpose of the FCC’s actions?

So, why is the FCC taking this step? There's no secret that President Donald Trump and his administration have made national security a top priority, and the president's 2025 National Security Strategy determined, “the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished products—necessary to the nation’s defense or economy. We must re-secure our own independent and reliable access to the goods we need to defend ourselves and preserve our way of life.”

Now, it's debatable whether a Netgear Orbi 970 mesh router sitting on your bookshelf at home poses a direct threat to national security or the economy at large, but it's clearly on this administration's mind. In last week's announcement, the FCC added that foreign-made routers “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons.”

“I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign-produced routers, which were found to pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List,” added FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will continue to do our part in making sure that U.S. cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and supply chains are safe and secure.”

What are the immediate effects on consumer routers?

There are a few things to consider with this new directive, however. For starters, it doesn't affect routers that have already been imported into the U.S. and are currently available for sale (or those that have been sold and are currently in the hands of end-users). So, at least for the near-term, your average John or Jane Doe shouldn't notice any changes in availability when shopping for a wireless router from your favorite brick-and-mortar or online retailer.

However, things could change once the existing stock of routers depletes at various retailers, and even then, only if manufacturers haven’t secured a spot on the Conditional Approval list. If manufacturers aren’t able to secure Conditional Approval and consumer routers are banned from sale, we could see a shortage, which in turn would lead to price increases affecting all consumers. We've already seen what the AI craze has done to the supply of memory, which, in turn, has ushered in significant price hikes over the past year. There’s the potential for this type of scenario to play out in the router market if the U.S. becomes overly stringent with approvals.

These actions would also likely affect ISPs, which provide routers to customers when they sign up for new service. All in all, it’s a tricky situation for all involved.

What do Router manufacturers think of this move?

We reached out to several popular router manufacturers, including TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, and Linksys. Netgear and TP-Link provided statements to Tom’s Hardware on their respective positions. Asus posted a statement on its U.S. website. Not surprisingly, TP-Link, which has already been on shaky ground with the U.S. government in recent years for its ties to China, seemed almost upbeat about the announcement.

"This action from the FCC appears to affect virtually all new consumer-grade routers seeking authorization to be sold in the United States," wrote TP-Link in a statement to Tom's Hardware. "Because nearly every manufacturer in this sector produces hardware abroad or relies on a global supply chain, this new requirement will set a bar for the entire industry. Placing all manufacturers and their supply chains under the same scrutiny is a positive step in the direction of making the router industry more secure."

TP-Link has been singled out in the past by both the Biden and Trump administrations, and it has even established its headquarters in Irvine, California, where it employs several hundred people. However, with this new action from the FCC, TP-Link likely feels that it is no longer solely under the microscope, and all of its competitors will have to play by the same rules to curry favor with the U.S. government.

For its part, TP-Link adds that the majority of the routers sold in the U.S. are not produced in China, but instead in Vietnam. That still doesn't help TP-Link remove the U.S. government’s crosshairs, but the company adds that it "has already been planning to establish U.S.-based manufacturing to complement our existing company-owned facilities in Vietnam. TP-Link is well-positioned — in fact, possibly better positioned than any of its competitors — to succeed under the new guidelines and maintain its position as the leading U.S. vendor of secure network devices."

Netgear also issued a brief, optimistic statement: “We commend the Administration and the FCC for their action toward a safer digital future for Americans. Home routers and mesh systems are critical to national security and consumer protection, and today’s decision is a step forward. As a U.S.-founded and headquartered company with a legacy of American innovation, Netgear has long invested in security‑first design, transparent practices, and adherence to government regulations, and we will continue to do so.”

In addition, Asus struck an upbeat tone, writing, “Asus has proudly served U.S. customers since 1991, with a long-standing commitment to trusted innovation and strong product security. We are confident in the integrity of our supply chain and the security of our networking products. This FCC action has no impact on existing Asus router users, software updates, and customer support.”

FCC action may lead to security headaches for router users

I mentioned earlier that the ban doesn't affect routers already imported into the U.S. and that no masked individuals will show up at your door to take away your routers. However, the FCC has added another poison pill to the situation.

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology notes, “All routers authorized for use in the United States may continue to receive software and firmware updates that mitigate harm to U.S. consumers at least until March 1, 2027. These include all software and firmware updates to ensure the continued functionality of the devices, such as those that patch vulnerabilities and facilitate compatibility with different operating systems.”

In other words, if you currently own a router manufactured outside the United States and the company hasn't been added to the FCC "Conditional Approval" list, it would no longer be eligible for firmware updates within a year. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that discontinuing firmware updates would render a huge swath of routers unprotected, leaving them even more vulnerable to DDoS attacks and other serious security vulnerabilities. The very thing that the FCC wants to prevent could become even more problematic with the March 1, 2027, deadline.

What can router manufacturers do?

The administration is offering somewhat of a lifeline to router manufacturers in the form of a Conditional Approval from the FCC. Companies can submit an application, which will be subject to review by the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security.

Companies are asked to submit a wealth of information, including corporate structure, beneficial owners, foreign government interests, the country of origin for all components used in a router's design, and the location of final assembly (among other requirements).

However, one of the biggest and most costly requirements is for companies to provide an "onshoring plan" to "establish or expand" manufacturing capacity in the U.S. for their routers. Companies must also provide "a description of existing U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly for the router including: percentage of components assembled in the United States and current U.S. headcount and facilities (locations, functions, etc.).”

If granted, Conditional Approvals are in place for a team of up to 18 months.

What does this mean for consumers going forward?

In the short term, we don’t expect that the router market will be affected too harshly if you’re looking to purchase from one of the major players (which have significant resources) in this arena. Given the statements from Asus, Netgear, and TP-Link, they all seem pretty confident that it is a welcome development and that they should continue to provide hardware to customers, likely through Conditional Approvals from the U.S. government. This would likely also extend to other big names like Linksys. All of these companies should also be able to grease the wheels to avoid a ban on software updates for their routers.

Where things could get more problematic is for smaller, foreign-based companies that offer budget networking devices and have little to no existing corporate or manufacturing operations in the U.S. We’re talking companies like Cudy, Reyee, and OKN (among others). It remains to be seen how these companies will be able to appease the FCC not only to secure permission to sell within the U.S., but also to provide firmware updates beyond March 1, 2027.

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have developed a transceiver that works in the 140 GHz range and can transmit data at up to 120 Gbps, that's about 15 gigabytes per second. By comparison, the fastest commercially available wireless technologies are theoretically limited to 30 Gbps (Wi-Fi 7) and 5 Gbps (5G mmWave). According to UC Irvine News, these new speeds could match most fiber optic cables used in data centers and other commercial applications, usually around at 100 Gbps. The team published their findings in two papers — the “bits-to-antenna” transmitter and the “antenna-to-bits” receiver — on the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

“The Federal Communications Commission and 6G standards bodies are looking at the 100-gigahertz spectrum as the new frontier,” lead author Zisong Wang told the university publication. “But as such speeds, conventional transmitters that create signals using digital-to-analog converters are incredibly complex and power-hungry, and face what we call a DAC bottleneck.” The team replaced the DAC with three in-sync sub-transmitters, which only required 230 milliwatts to operate.

By comparison, a DAC that can keep up with 120 Gbps would consume several watts of power, making it unsuitable for smartphone and other mobile device use. “If we stuck to traditional methods, the battery life of next-generation devices would vanish in minutes,” UC Irvine Nanoscale Communication Integrated Circuits Labs director Payam Heydari said. “Our group’s answer is a transceiver that leapfrogs over current limitations by performing complex calculations in the analog domain, rather than the power-hungry digital domain.”

Aside from its efficiency, the researchers said that the silicon is fabricated on 22nm node, using fully depleted silicon-on-insulator technology, which is so much easier to manufacture than cutting edge 2nm and 18A nodes from TSMC and Samsung. This could make it so much easier and cost-efficient to mass produce, encourage quick adoption of this in consumer devices. Moreover, the group also said that their new technology is a suitable alternative to the miles and miles of cabling that data centers require, allowing them to reduce their set-up and operating costs.

However, this technology is not without its challenges. Current 5G mmWave technology, which can go up to 71 GHz, has a range of about 300 meters, so you can expect this to have an even smaller radius. So, unless we see new innovations that could extend the reach of this high-speed wireless technology, we may see a future where our cities are dotted with high-speed cell sites.

Back in January, Morse Micro achieved a world record of WiFi range using the HaLow (802.11ah) standard, by conducting a video call over a distance of 1.8 miles through a high-interference San Francisco beach area and proving it worked— and now, in the rural Joshua Tree National Park, they've broken the world record again, almost five times over, with a distance of 9.9 miles, or 15.9 kilometers. 

The connection speed of the earlier San Francisco beach test ranged from 11 Megabits per second at 500 meters to just a single Megabit per second at then-maximum 1.8 mile range. Meanwhile, the throughput of HaLow in this new testing topped out at 2 Megabits per second at 9.9 miles — likely a best-case scenario considering how little interference there is in a rural area like Joshua Tree National Park compared to a place as densely-populated as a San Francisco beach.

As noted by Morse Micro in their video, this seems to correspond to the theoretical maximum HaLow range of 15.9 kilometers — and starts making HaLow seem a lot more sensible for outdoor work including farming without needing to rely on expensive cellular data or poor cellular coverage. In urban scenarios, it's most likely an unnecessary technology due to the abundance of cell signals and existing hotspots — or at least, so prone to interference that it's only available in a much more limited form. 

But considering how much range even the San Francisco beach testing achieved while maintaining usability... even "just" two miles of Wi-Fi range is quite generous when one compares it to the standard router range. And if you're doing a lot on wireless data, it's typically best to be tied to a home Internet provider and Wi-Fi rather than a cellular provider that can and will charge you for consuming too much data.

Overall, this seems an impressive showing by Morse Micro. A new world record with Wi-Fi 802.11ah, or HaLow, that's unlikely to be beaten anytime soon is always nice to see. Maybe one day these maximum-range HaLow networks can get even faster— who knows? For now, all we can do is wait and see. 

Like last time I covered HaLow, though, I do hope to see its adoption become more commonplace — and could see particular utility for HaLow with public Wi-Fi hotspots and the such.

The Los Angeles Police Department has warned residents to be wary of thieves using technology to break into homes undetected. High-tech burglars have apparently knocked out their victims' wireless cameras and alarms in the Los Angeles Wilshire-area neighborhoods before getting away with swag bags full of valuables. An LAPD social media post highlights the Wi-Fi jammer-supported burglaries and provides a helpful checklist of precautions residents can take.

Criminals can easily find the hardware for Wi-Fi jamming online. It can also be cheap, with prices starting from $40. However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.

We have previously reported on Wi-Fi jammer-assisted burglaries in Edina, Minnesota. Criminals deployed Wi-Fi jammer(s) to ensure homeowners weren't alerted of intrusions and that incriminating video evidence wasn't available to investigators.

In LA's Wilshire area, the story seems pretty similar. However, the police share another common feature of the newer spate of burglaries. "These burglary suspects are known to enter via second-story balconies and seek high-end jewelry, purses, US currency, and other fine valuables." Furthermore, the group often had a getaway driver who doubled as a lookout.

Security checklist

The LAPD Wilshire force proactively provided a security checklist that could be useful to anyone, not just local residents. Its most obvious suggestion to address Wi-Fi security is for residents to think about hard-wiring their burglary alarm system. It also believes that complementary modern tech, like Apple AirTags and Ring Doorbell app networks, can help provide increased coverage and security. Moreover, it reminds users never to tell their Uber, Lyft, or taxi drivers that they are going away – and a similar "loose lips sink ships" warning applies to those who are habitual social media posters.

Outside the high-tech world, the LAPD suggests securing electrical circuit boxes, securing your home DVR recorder, installing better property lighting, and cutting back shrubbery or trees. Other tips regarding your home's physical security include keeping an eye open for suspicious people, vehicles, and activity and coordinating with your friends and neighbors to watch over your home if you are away for any extended period.

Some surveys suggest that home burglaries are most common in the summer months. Reasons for this seasonal uplift include warmer nights and people leaving their houses for extended periods for summer vacations.

The Raspberry Pi is a great go-to tool for all sorts of enthusiasts. Whether you’re into retro gaming or just take network security very seriously, you don’t have to look hard to find a tool to take your hobby to the next level. Today we’ve got an awesome music player to share that was put together by a maker known as Damaniel2. Instead of pulling music from a streaming service like Spotify, this setup is designed to play music over Wi-Fi sourced from an NAS device.

At the moment, it’s streaming the content using a wireless connection which makes it possible to move from room to room. However, Damaniel2 has plans to adjust the setup to a wired connection for better performance.  Despite the wireless connection, Damaniel2 assures that the setup has been working just as intended.

The hardware is housed inside of a 3D-printed shell that Damaniel2 created from scratch just for the project using OpenSCAD. According to Damaniel2, this was their first time creating something in 3D to print and the design needs some more adjustments and a future iteration with a little extra height is necessary.

Inside you’ll find a Raspberry Pi 3B+ but you could get away with using another Pi like a Pi 4 or maybe even a Pi Zero. A HiFiBerry DAC 2 Pro was included to process the audio output while a 5-inch DSI touchscreen interface is used for user input. The HiFiBerry HAT provides audio ports on the back for connecting audio peripherals.

As far as software goes, it’s running Volumio OS. This is an application designed for those who want to stream their own media locally. There are two versions available—free and paid. The free version offers plenty of features to do what this project is capable of but the paid version has extra functions that might be worth paying for if you’re really into streaming music.

If you want to learn more about this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original thread shared to Reddit by Damaniel2 and consider following him for future updates or more cool creations.

Multi-display computer setups are quite popular these days. You get ample screen space compared to the smaller display on a laptop. But did you know that you can use a laptop as a second screen for another laptop or desktop? Microsoft offers Miracast support in Windows 10 and 11, enabling you to project your desktop over the Internet. 

You can repurpose a spare laptop and use it as a second display. Consider it a cheaper way to build a multi-display setup if you don’t want to purchase an additional monitor. You will need a Windows 10 or 11 laptop with a working Wi-Fi adapter for wireless connection. Both the computers must have a working internet connection. However, they can be connected to different networks. 

We will discuss the preparation process of configuring your laptop to act as a monitor and some settings to make the experience as smooth as possible. If you want to connect your laptop to an external monitor, see our guide on how to close your laptop and use an external monitor. 

How to Configure Your Laptop to Be a Monitor for Another PC

You must configure the projection settings on your Windows laptop to use it as a second display for your main system. 

1. Open Projection settings. You can do this by launching the Start Menu, searching “Projection settings,” and clicking on the first search result.

2. Change the following settings.

• Some Windows and Android Devices can project to this PC when you allow them to: Select the Always available on secure networks option.
• Ask to project to this PC: Select the First Time Only option. You won’t get a popup every time you want to project to the laptop.
• Require PIN for pairing: Select the First time option. Since it is your laptop, there is no need to enter the password every time.

3. Click the Launch the Wireless Display app to project to this PC option.

The Wireless Display app will open.

How to Project Your Main System to the Laptop’s Display

1. Open Display Settings on the main computer (the one that will be doing the projecting). The easiest way to do this is by searching “Display” using Windows Search and clicking on the first search result.

2. Click the arrow icon to expand the Multiple displays section.

3. Click the Connect button next to the Connect to a wireless display option. 

4. Select the laptop display from the list of available displays. 

5. Note down the PIN visible on the laptop’s display.

5. Type the PIN and click the Connect button.

6. Select the Allow mouse, keyboard, touch, and pen input from this device check box. If you ignore this option, you cannot use the input device connected to your main PC. Only the laptop’s trackpad and keyboard will work.

7. Click the Extend option.

8. Select the primary audio output device from the list. If you don’t do this, Windows will use the laptop’s speakers to play audio. After this, your main display will extend to the laptop screen.

9. Hit the Windows key + K and click the Disconnect button. It will disconnect the laptop display and free it up for other tasks.

Projecting your main display to a spare laptop helps you get more screen real estate while not spending a dime on an additional monitor. However, your second laptop will need a stand to adjust its height to match the main display. You won’t be able to use the spare laptop for other tasks unless you close the projection connection.

Liliputing shared details of a new Asus Mini-PC coming soon, packing one of  Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Meteor Lake CPUs. The system is known as the PN65 and features a very compact 120 x 130 x 58mm form factor. Furthermore, due to the new architecture, the system comes with the latest generation of connectivity standards, including 2.5G internet, Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, and DDR5 SO-DIMM memory support.

According to Asus' spec sheet, the mini-PC will be optioned with one or several of Intel's upcoming 28W mobile Meteor Lake processors featuring Intel Iris Xe graphics. Meteor Lake is Intel's next-generation CPU architecture with several key enhancements over Raptor Lake, like Intel's denser and more efficient Intel 4 node and the integration of a new packaging strategy known as tiles. Meteor Lake will be arriving very soon, and we've already begun to see several prototype Meteor Lake products at Computex.

The Asus Mini-PC will come with a texturized matte-black finish, sporting I/O at the front and rear of the chassis. The front will come with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a single Type-C port with the same specifications. The front will also include a single mic headphone jack combo and a single RGB indicator.

The rear I/O is far more expansive, with four USB ports in total, two of which are 3.2 Gen 2 ports, another two are older 2.0 versions, and finally, another 3.2 Gen 2 port with DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity integrated into a Type-C connection. For more display outputs, there are two standard HDMI outputs, and for networking there's a single Intel RJ45 ethernet jack with 2.5G connectivity. According to Asus' spec sheet, a single "configurable port" can be re-purposed as an HDMI port, DisplayPort, COM, VGA, or another 2.5G LAN port.

As is traditional with mini-PCs, this system also supports VESA mounting, to mimic an All-In-One system keeping the PC hidden away from sight. Storage configurations are plentiful with this system, with the option of two M.2 2280 SSDs and an additional 2.5' slot for laptop HDDs or 7mm SSDs. With all three drive slots populated, you can have as much as 6TB of storage capacity in this system while utilizing each slot's maximum storage capacity.

We don't know the PC's performance figures or its release date or price. Still, we can expect this system to be an excellent solution for professionals and businesses with a lot of power in a small package if Meteor Lake's rumored performance claims are legit.

Two big announcements are coming from the folks at Nreal today. First and foremost, the company is changing its name to Xreal. Nreal ran into a dispute over the Nreal trademark, which was resolved, but it wanted to avoid further confusion as it continues to grow its global brand.

The second and most significant news from Xreal today is the announcement of Beam. Beam is a portable device shaped (and somewhat designed like) an original Apple iPod. This device takes video from smartphones, laptops, game consoles, etc. and sends it to Xreal’s Air glasses.

The Beam features two USB-C ports onboard, one of which provides a direct connection to a pair of Air glasses. The second USB-C port charges the Beam's 4870 mAh battery (enabling up to three hours of runtime) or provides a direct data connection to a smartphone or PC. That second USB-C port was something that Xreal's customers requested to enable the ability to play and charge simultaneously.

While wired connectivity to a smartphone was expected, Xreal also added wireless connectivity into the mix and support for DTS: X Ultra audio support. Xreal notes that customers can watch YouTube videos wirelessly using the Beam initially and that it will support DRM content later (the company is being mum on an exact launch for that support at this time). However, Xreal's primary focus at launch will be on PC users and gamers that want a more immersive experience.

Xreal also announced that its Spatial Display technology, previously only accessible through its Nebula software for Android or macOS, is also available with Beam. With this augmented reality experience, you have access to three degrees of freedom (3DoF), allowing you to "place" a virtual display at a fixed point in space and have it remain stationary as you move your head around. 

For example, this arrangement would allow you to view a game or a Windows desktop while looking straight ahead with the glasses. However, turning your head to the left or right would remove the projection from your field of view, allowing you to see your surrounding environment fully.

When taking advantage of Xreal's Spatial Display experience, users feel like they're viewing content on a 201-inch display. Xreal also added two new display modes for the Beam: Smooth Follow and Sideview. Smooth Follow lessens visual anomalies using the mirroring function when you quickly move your head. On the other hand, Sideview reduces the size of the projected image in the Xreal Air, making it easier to navigate your surroundings. This would be beneficial if you're, say, walking in a crowded downtown area and want to see more of the real world while simultaneously looking at projected content with the connected glasses.

Xreal says it will open preorders for the Beam on June 1, but it has not announced pricing.

A new version of MicroPython has been released for compatible microcontrollers. This release. version 1.20, sees support for the Raspberry Pi Pico W and brings a new package manager.

Version 1.20 brings support for the Raspberry Pi Pico W's CYW43439 Wi-Fi chip, this means that stock MicroPython can now take advantage of the $6 boards wireless connectivity. Bluetooth support is still missing, in this and the official MicroPython release. Support for Bluetooth isn't too far away now. Bluetooth support was recently added to the Raspberry Pi Pico SDK, so MicroPython isn't too far away now.

The other addition to the release is a new lightweight package manager, mip. Mip is optimized for use with embedded systems. In MicroPython creator Damien George's release post they state that "It is intended to take over the role of upip and supports installing packages from micropython-lib as well as any URL. Mip can be run directly on a device (with network connectivity) or via mpremote." Raspberry Pi Pico W users would need to ensure that their Pico W is connected to Wi-Fi and that they have access to the Python Shell (REPL) in order to use mip directly on the hardware. Raspberry Pi Pico users will need to use mpremote, a command line tool that provides utilities to communicate between a computer and a MicroPython device over a serial interface.

MicroPython, is the creation of programmer and theoretical physicist Damien George and in broad terms it is a port of Python 3 aimed squarely at microcontrollers. MicroPython has been used with a diverse range of boards (ESP32, ESP8266, W600 etc) but for some it was introduced via the Raspberry Pi Pico. 

We were keen to see if the official Raspberry Pi Pico MicroPython firmware featured support for mip. It seems that it does, the latest firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico W, rp2-pico-w-20230427-unstable-v1.20.0-1-g82a59a824.uf2 does indeed feature mip. We were able to use mip to install a third-party MicroPython module and then directly use it, all from the Python Shell.

It seems as though many of us are finally getting used to Wi-Fi 6E, and now Wi-Fi 7 is nearly ready to hit the market. Several Wi-Fi 7 routers were announced at CES 2023, and now Netgear is the next in line with the $699 Nighthawk RS700. 

Unlike many traditional routers with relatively flat base units, the Nighthawk RS700 features a tower-esque design akin to the Asus ZenWiFi Pro ET12 or Netgear's high-end Orbi mesh routers. In addition, it's a tri-band router covering 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz bands. It is backward compatible with all the popular IEEE standards, including the most recent Wi-Fi 6E, with a maximum total throughput of 18.7 Gbps. 

Of course, the Netgear RS700 can take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7 features like multi-link operation, which allows a router to aggregate multiple wireless bands. For example, instead of a client connecting to a single 2.4GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz band, it could connect to all three simultaneously. This allows for reduced latency and increased data rates. Wi-Fi 7 also enabled preamble puncturing, allowing clients to better leverage wireless channels experiencing interference. 

In addition to its impressive wireless portfolio, the Nighthawk RS700 also packs one 10 Gbps WAN port, one 10 Gbps LAN, and four 1 Gbps ports. While the 10 GbE ports might seem like overkill at first, Netgear was quick to point out that AT&T Fiber and Frontier already offer 5 Gbps service to customers, while Google Fiber (8 Gbps) and Comcast Xfinity (10 Gbps) promise even faster speeds for customers. Thus, the Nighthawk RS700 can theoretically handle those high-speed pipes to your home or business.

The Nighthawk RS700 also supports LAN aggregation, combining two 1 Gbps ports for up to 2 Gbps. Internet aggregation is also supported between the 10 Gbps WAN port and one of the 1 Gbps ports. Netgear also includes a USB 3.0 port for attaching a printer or storage device for NAS duties.

While Nighthawk RS700's features can be accessed via the traditional web user interface, Netgear also provides a Nighthawk smartphone app for quickly setting up your router and maintaining it once operational. The company also includes one year of Netgear Armor protection for the router with Bitdefender security and a VPN (includes 200MB of daily traffic). After the first year, Netgear Armor costs $99 per year. 

Netgear says that the Nighthawk RS700 will be available during the second quarter, priced at $699 (you can preorder it now direct from Netgear), which is a hefty price for a Wi-Fi router. The Nighthawk RS700 also supports mesh operation, meaning you could add two more units in a home or office to increase coverage (and your financial outlay). However, this will be the company's flagship consumer model, and we're sure to see stripped down and cheaper options from the company in the coming months.

An LTE Raspberry Pi HAT aimed at developing IoT applications just hit its funding goal on Kickstarter. Known as the PiTalk, the HAT is compatible with all models of Raspberry Pi except Compute Modules and Picos, from the tiny Zero to the potent Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.

The creation of London-based embedded systems engineer Ravinder Singh, the HAT allows you to place your Pi out of range of Wi-Fi (though you’ll still need some way to power it). Built around a Quectel EG25-G Cat 4 module, capable of 150Mbps down and 50Mbps up, and backward compatible with earlier network types, it also supports global positioning (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou/Compass, Galileo and QZSS).

While it could be used to build your own smartphone, as it supports voice calls and SMS messages, the HAT-wearing Pi can also be configured as a Wi-Fi hotspot, video streaming device or to simply surf the web. It also has potential uses in digital signage, allowing the upload of new content to a sign without requiring a Wi-Fi network or physical access. Versions of the HAT that can only talk to a 2G network are also available.

Singh is also developing a USB 4G dongle for Windows and Linux systems that connects via USB. All his 4G products require nano-SIM cards and get their power from a USB port - a Type-C port in the case of the HAT, and the host Type-A port for the dongle. Various bundles are available, including some that contain Raspberry Pi boards, the HAT, various cables, and combinations of the HAT and dongle. LCD screens, a battery-powered UPS, relay connections and a PoE HAT are also available.

Complete details, including pinouts, can be found on the Kickstarter page. The product ships worldwide and should begin delivery in February 2023. The Kickstarter campaign runs for another 29 days at the time of writing.

Remember that crowdfunding a project is not a guarantee of receiving a finished product. Backing a crowdfunded project is akin to an investment; you believe in the project and want it to succeed. You are not purchasing a retail product.

Have you ever wished your smartwatch was more of a computer and less of a fashion item? Have you ever felt the need to type on keys that are surely too small for normal human fingers to use? The dream of the 1980s was a computer the size of a watch, and in the 21st century we are gifted with this and more. Chinese company Lilygo, whose products we’ve featured before, harks back to the 1980s aesthetic with this tiny Bluetooth keyboard, as spotted by CNX Software.

It's cute, but the amount of actual use you can get out of it is questionable. And sadly, you'll require a specific smartwatch, so there's no turning your Apple Watch into a productivity machine this time. The Watch-Keyboard-C3, as it's snappily known, connects to an ESP-32 C3 microcontroller and a LilyGo T-watch. The watch is included with the keyboard bundle if you don't have one. There's also an optional audio module with a mic and speaker.

The mini keyboard connects over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 4 for all your wireless networking needs, and a USB-C port for power and data. There's also a three-axis accelerometer on board, really designed for counting steps but with the right code it could be used as a gesture control input system. The tiny computer can be programmed via Arduino tools; there's no desktop OS on this one. In addition, there's some sample code on GitHub in two repositories, but not much else regarding documentation or tools. 

The ESP32-C3 was announced in November 2020 and it is part of the larger ESP32 range of boards which started way back in 2016. The ESP32 microcontrollers have become popular thanks to its low cost, plentiful supply and ease of use. The many models of ESP32 come in various configurations. Some offering single or dual-core CPUs with speeds reaching 240 MHz and up to 512KB of SRAM. With faster CPU speeds and more RAM than a Raspberry Pi Pico W, ESP32's are a good choice for the established maker.

The Keyboard-C3 is available right now from AliExpress for just shy of $50, and you can probably get it for less with an AliExpress promo code, if you want the whole package and don't already have a compatible smartwatch.

Intel has proclaimed that “the Wi-Fi future is here” after successfully demonstrating Wi-Fi 7 technology with partner Broadcom. In the over-the-air demos, a Wi-Fi 7 connection between an Intel Core-powered laptop and a Broadcom access point achieved a steady 5 Gbps transfer speed. This is a worthwhile upgrade versus Wi-Fi 6, which maxes out at 1 Gbps.

As the Intel news blog highlights, industry collaboration is essential to ensure the widespread adoption of Wi-Fi 7 and its practical benefits. Having one Wi-Fi 7 in one category of devices but no other is pretty useless.

Broadcom chimed in to assert that “the ecosystem is ready.” It highlighted the value of Wi-Fi 7 goes beyond simple speed increases to deliver greater network capacity and the benefits of much lower latencies. The reduced latencies will be invaluable for immersive experiences over Wi-Fi, with the most obvious applications being online gaming and reduced latency wireless VR headsets. For media streamers, it also opens up the eye-popping possibility of UHD 16K streaming (or more people on the network streaming 4K or 8K videos). Last but not least, the newest Wi-Fi standard could help reduce wireless network traffic jams in busy homes and offices.

The underlying technologies behind Wi-Fi 7 include wider 320 MHz channels in unlicensed 6GHz spectrum and higher order 4K QAM data modulation. Intel’s blog also outlined the importance of multi-link operation and improved channel utilization efficiency.

Video: demo compares Wi-Fi 6 on the 5 GHz band, vs. Wi-Fi 6E on the 6 GHz band, vs. Wi-Fi 7 on the 6 GHz band.

These are still early days for Wi-Fi 7, as it isn’t expected to be certified until next year, with products bearing the Wi-Fi 7 logo perhaps not appearing until H2 2023. However, last month an Intel exec was quoted as saying Wi-Fi 7 will start to be “installed in PC products such as laptops by 2024.” As one (code)name is never enough, Wi-Fi 7 devices will also be referenced as featuring the “Wi-Fi 802.11be” connectivity protocol.

A positive from the lengthy sounding rollout timescale is that Wi-Fi 7 speeds could be further enhanced in the interim. Hopefully, Wi-Fi 7 will catch on quickly, inspired by the attractive transfer speeds and latency benefits. It will also be welcomed if Wi-Fi 7 device rollout isn’t hampered by the component shortage problems, which slowed Wi-Fi 6E device availability.

Asus is looking to advance the networking space with its latest offering, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 gaming router. At first glance, it looks like the typical over-the-top best gaming routers with spider-esque 8 antennae. However, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 stands apart from the rest of the pack because it is the first gaming router with quad-band Wi-Fi 6E support.

There’s a single 6 GHz band to handle your bleeding-edge networking devices (up to 4,804 Mbps) along with two 5 GHz bands (4,804 Mbps each). The fourth band is dedicated to 2.4 GHz devices and provides a total of 1,148 Mbps of bandwidth, bringing the grand total to 16,000 Mbps. We should mention that while Asus makes the distinction that this is the first quad-band “gaming” Wi-Fi 6E router, the Netgear Orbi 960 Series emerged last year as the first quad-band Wi-Fi 6E router.

Asus keenly points out that the second 5 GHz band can be used as a dedicated backhaul when connecting with AiMesh compatible routers. This would be helpful if you need to extend Wi-Fi coverage in hard-to-reach areas of your home or in, for example, a detached garage/workshop.

However, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 doesn’t just excel at wireless networking; it also features a plethora of wired ports to handle your devices. There are four GbE (supporting port bonding) and two 10 GbE ports along with a 2.5 GbE WAN port. All of the ports are configurable for WAN usage, which allows you to support [atypical] consumer-centric scenarios like receiving service from multiple ISPs at once. Running the show is a 2 GHz quad-core processor.

Not to be left out, Asus also gave some attention to the existing ROG Rapture GT-AX11000, which sees several improvements and the addition of “Pro” to its name. This tri-band router features two 5 GHz bands (4,804 Mbps each) and a single 1,149 Mbps 2.4 GHz band. Asus also opened the 5 GHz band by adding a third high-power 160 Hz channel to join the previous two.

While not as generous as Asus’ flagship router, the ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Pro offers up four GbE, one 2.5 GbE and one 2.5 GbE WAN port for wired duties. It also gets a brain transplant by using the same 2 GHz processor from the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000.

Asus has not yet indicated when the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 or GT-AX11000 Pro will be available for sale, or for how much. However, the existing GT-AX11000 carries an MSRP of $449.

As home networks get more complicated (and packed with more wireless devices) wired networking starts to feel almost dated. Who needs a wired connection from one of the best network switches when you can get Gigabit speeds or better from one of the best gaming routers?

But a wireless connection introduces several variables. Protocol compatibility, interference, signal-obliterating wall materials, or even poorly-designed radios and antennas can slow a speedy gigabit connection to a comparative crawl. For much more on this, see our how-to choose a gaming router feature.

Conversely, a good wired connection can cut out these and other shortcomings of an over-the-air signal, while providing faster speeds and a reliable, stable connection. But with most mainstream routers only offering just four Ethernet ports - or sometimes fewer - the best network switches step in to fill the gap, giving you more ports to plug your wired devices into. Not only that, but they can also spread out some of the load on your network, freeing your router up to carry out its primary mission of getting internet service to all the wireless devices on your network that need it.

Like the Ethernet hubs that came before them, one of the best network switches can add several ports to your network, letting you plug in more devices to your network than would otherwise be possible using the router's limited number of built-in ports.

What’s more, the best network switch can filter your LAN traffic, moving prioritized packets to the front of the line to keep things like games or 4K HDR streams running smoothly. And most normal networks don’t require more than the simple solution of an unmanaged switch.

We did some hands-on testing with several different (mostly unmanaged) network switches to see which ones are the best for most people. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these network switches perform well and are solid options for each given use case.

Shopping Tips for Best Network Switches 

When looking for the best network switches, consider:

Number of Ports: You can get anywhere from four all the way up to 48 or more Ethernet ports. Some also have USB ports.

Managed or Unmanaged: If you just need to get wired internet access to a few devices, then you’ll want an unmanaged network switch, which we recommend for most users. This doesn’t mean the switch has no features -- unmanaged switches can often do plenty of fancy things, from traffic prioritizing QoS to loop detection.

Managed network switches are more secure and can monitor traffic for troubleshooting purposes or separate chunks of your network into their own virtual local area networks, or VLAN. If going this route, you’ll also want to make sure your router is compatible with VLANs -- a non-bridged setup using Amazon’s eero mesh routers, for instance, makes VLANs unusable.

Power Needs: Most won't need it, but certain devices can get power over Ethernet if your switch supports it.

Network Speed: Gigabit Ethernet is the minimum speed, but you should consider going with 2.5 GbE or higher, even if you don't need it right now, because future devices may benefit.

Best Network Switches You Can Buy Today

When it comes to 8-port network switches for the home or small office network, it’s hard to beat the TP-Link TL-SG108. It’s compact, has a fanless metal enclosure, plus dimmer and less distracting LEDs than some of its competitors (Don’t worry; there are still two per port, each informative based on color and/or blinking pattern). The TL-SG108 also features traffic-prioritizing QoS, full duplex flow control, auto-negotiating ports for choosing transfer speed up to a gigabit, and a simple, plug-and-play setup. This best network switch performed at rough parity with the other 8-port switches we tested and ran cool.

The one notable omission from this network switch is loop detection, which prevents your network from being slowed to a crawl or disabled entirely by looped network traffic. This can be a very important troubleshooting tool in a complicated network, with visual indicators on a switch that tell you which Ethernet ports to investigate for issues.

If loop detection is a requirement, we recommend either the ProSAFE Netgear GS108 or the Cisco CBS110-8T-D. However, each of those switches, at $40 and $68 respectively, is also significantly more expensive than the less-than-$20 TP-Link. And we do not feel that, for most people, loop detection justifies the extra cost.

Lastly, the TP-Link features a nice limited lifetime warranty, providing a nice peace of mind that you wouldn’t get from, say, the similarly inexpensive Netgear GS308, which only has a 2-year warranty. On the whole, even if you only need 5 extra ports, we recommend this switch for its price, feature set, and build quality to expand the wired capability of your network now and in the future.

After what seems like an eternity, network devices are finally beginning to embrace faster-than-gigabit connections. From routers to modems, computers to NAS, big data pipelines are starting to enter the mainstream. And that’s a good thing, particularly as we now use more data than ever before. It’s even possible to get a 2 Gbps connection now if you live in one of the cities where Google is now offering the service.

Of course, you needn’t have a connection that fast to get use out of one of the recent 2.5 GbE network switches. File transfers, home media servers, and high-capacity, high-bandwidth NAS setups can all stand to benefit from a high-bandwidth switch, and as they come out, we’ll try to put our hands on the latest and greatest to let you know how they fare. That brings us, today, to the TP-Link TL-SG105-M2: a super-fast unmanaged 5-port, 2.5 GbE switch that, while bigger than your average 5-port gigabit switches, should still fit into just about anyone’s setup - and budget, for that matter.

Along with its 8-port sibling - the TL-SG108-M2 - the TL-SG105-M2 is low-profile, easy to set up, and features a fanless design and metal enclosure that will keep it as quiet as it is fast. And because it’s a 2.5 GbE switch, you might not need to buy new cabling; as long as you’re already using Cat 5e cabling in your network, you’re good to take advantage of the 802.3bz network protocol, which promises 2.5 GbE or 5 GbE connections over 100 meters of cable. In testing, this bore out, with superfast file transfers that didn’t even blink when we loaded the network down with as much traffic as we could muster. The switch ran a little warm, though, topping out at about 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

This switch supplants our previous choice for the best 5-port switch, the QNAP QSW 1105-5T, for a few reasons. First, the TP-Link just has a bigger pipe for data, pushing a consistent 2.34 Gbps, where the QNAP, in our testing, only barely got over 2 Gbps in real-world use. It also has a slightly more space-friendly form factor. And perhaps most importantly, where the QNAP’s warranty ends at 2 years, the TP-Link TL-SG105-M2 falls in the company’s business class of switches, giving it a generous limited lifetime warranty. Lastly, the TL-SG105-M2 sports QoS - a feature typical of most unmanaged switches that is conspicuously absent on the QSW 1105-5T.

If we had to pick a couple of things that aren’t ideal about this neat little switch, it would have to be the lack of loop detection and the fact that the power supply plugs into the side opposite the ports - of course, the latter is entirely personal preference, but it can also complicate installation in some setups. The TP-Link’s list price is $129.99 - although as of the time of this writing, you can actually get it for $109 at Amazon, which is the same price as the QNAP. The TP-Link is the choice either way, but with the current price, it’s a no-brainer.

This is a complicated recommendation. Recent news concerning a privacy breach at Ubiquiti notwithstanding, we believe the Unifi USW-Flex to be the best network switch for anyone looking to bring PoE to the edge of their network. This affordable, 5-port wonder can supply up to 15.4 watts of power to each of its four output ports. Note the use of “up to” here; once you’ve got all ports occupied, the 46-watt power budget will prevent 15.4 watts going to all four ports at once. So if you are using up all of that power at every port, the fourth port gets reduced priority and lower wattage. The PeE features also only apply if the Unifi USW-Flex is powered by a proper PoE injector. If you’re uncertain which injector to buy, Ubiquiti sells a fairly inexpensive one.

Although it’s a managed switch, the Unifi USW-Flex lacks certain key features like Spanning Tree Protocol, which helps prevent switch loops, or the ability to use SSH for extensive command-line-management (although you can SSH in for some basic functionality like firmware updates), it works well as an edge-of-network device to power things like IP cameras or sensors that you may want to have minimal wiring going to.

Additionally, the USW-Flex is built for outdoor use and comes with multiple mounting options - either magnetic or pole/wall mounts - as well as a hood that can be affixed over the Ethernet ports to help prevent moisture ingress when it rains. As a quick aside, part of this switch’s outdoor-friendly design is its recessed ports, which can be hard to remove an RJ45 connector from, as there isn’t much room for your fingers to squeeze the connector’s release clip.

In testing, we found that, when using the Flex without configuration, it worked about as well as any other in this list: Transfer speeds were solid and faster than other gigabit switches tested under load. It’s worth noting here, however, that the Ubiquiti does get quite hot, sitting easily over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at idle and getting as warm as 118.7 degrees F with every port in use -- and that’s in a cool room, with plenty of air movement. It’s rated to operate in temperatures up to 149 degrees F (at 25W output - 131F at 46W), but it would still be a good idea to keep it in a shaded area if using outside, as direct summer sun could shorten its lifespan or impact performance.

The USW-Flex comes with other caveats, too. The switch is managed via a browser-based GUI (the same general-purpose interface that is used for all other UniFi gear, which is nice if you have an all-UniFi network, but irritating and confusing if you only have this switch. And though it can function without ever touching its settings, there are some you’ll have to change to access the promised capability. For instance, the switch does not default to the 802.3bt protocol that provides for the full 46-watt power budget, so you must change the power source under settings to PoE Injector.

You’ll want to be certain that the device powering it is outputting with the 802.3bt protocol, or you will not be able to get all 46 watts. The final note is applicable to managed switches in general: If setting up and using a virtual LAN, you would do well to first ensure that your router supports VLANs - Amazon’s eero, for instance, currently does not. In spite of all of this, the convenience of bringing both Gigabit Ethernet and 802.3af PoE power from four ports to anywhere in or out of your home for a hundred bucks is quite a weighty item in the “pro” column in our opinion.

In between 8-and 16-port switches, you have some funky units like this ZyXel XGS1010-12. It’s billed on the box as a desktop switch with 8 gigabit ports and four bonus ports in the form of two 2.5 GbE and two 10 GbE SFT+ uplink ports. The latter fiber Internet customers would recognize as the data port on a fiber ONT (Optical Network Terminator -- think of it like a Fiber modem for customers without last-mile copper).

Physically, the XGS1010-12 has a solid metal enclosure, a fanless design, and an external power supply, with all the ports on one edge, while the power supply connects in the back. Each port has two LEDs for power and status, with colors to indicate the speed of connection being provided. It boasts QoS, Auto MDI/MDIX in all ports, and flow control.

The switch did well in testing, putting up numbers slightly better than the QNAP on its 2.5 Gb ports, while its gigabit ports performed very well. Under heavy traffic, we saw no performance loss, which is to be expected given its total bandwidth of 66 Gbps. The ZyXel was the second-hottest of the switches tested, peaking at 100 degrees Fahrenheit under load, which is definitely going to be warm to the touch, but not concerningly so. Just make sure the box has a bit of ventilation.

Though the ZyXel XGS1010-12 will run you $150 when bought at its MSRP, the addition of two 2.5 GbE ports and two 10 GbE SFP+ uplink ports makes this a very good deal relative to similar switches, which typically go for hundreds of dollars and lack this much versatility. If you have a high-speed NAS or need a super-fast connection between a couple of your computers, this switch lets you do that on the cheap, while still serving as a great hub for your other devices.

Lastly, it is somewhat unclear what the warranty terms are for this switch (the included documentation only refers the buyer to the website, where it’s not explicit under which warranty it falls, Standard or Limited Lifetime). But we contacted Zyxel and were able to confirm that while XGS1010-12 falls under the 2-year Standard Warranty, this particular switch is among those that have had their term extended to 5 years. That still isn’t amazing, but it’s better than what you’ll get from many cheap switches.

TP-Link is once again the best network switch choice here because of its affordability. At $50 it’s not quite as much a deal as the TL-SG108, but finding a lower-cost 16-port unmanaged switch with the kind of reliability, warranty, and proven performance offered by TP-Link would be challenging and perhaps involve some good fortune.

With the TL-SG116, you’ll get the same benefits as the 8-port version: IGMP snooping, flow control, QoS, etc. It also has the same unobtrusive LEDs, metal housing, and fanless construction, and a limited lifetime warranty. Like its 8-port sibling, however, it lacks loop detection, which may be a bigger issue when you’re the type of user looking for a 16-port switch.

The TL-SG116 performed as well as can be expected in testing, with a small drag in transfer speed under load, but otherwise maintaining at least near-gigabit speeds while testing with iperf and normal file transfers, streaming, and gaming. If you have more complicated network needs, we recommend the D-Link DGS-1100-16V2. Easy Smart Managed Gigabit desktop switch, which features an approachable GUI management interface and a well-rounded feature set for $109.99.

The new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is an exciting successor to the original Pi Zero W, but some makers insist it has a few areas of improvement that need to be addressed. Brian Dorey has taken matters into his own hands by upgrading the latest board to use an external antenna for wireless connections.

The modification is possible thanks to a U.FL connector. This module is responsible for bridging the connection between the external antenna and Pi Zero 2 W. According to Dorey, it was able to detect 14 Wi-Fi networks with an external antenna but only four without it.

Dorey explains that the copper line connecting to the PCB antenna must be severed. This can be done using a Dremel tool or sharp blade but either way, caution must be taken to be precise.

The module can then be soldered into place on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. As far as the software side goes, Dorey breaks down exactly how to get started on his official website. Performance results will depend on things like location and environmental factors surrounding the antenna.

The best Raspberry Pi projects are the ones you can make at home and Dorey was kind enough to share a full external antenna mod tutorial on his blog for curious parties and a video of the process on his official YouTube channel. Be sure to follow Dorey for more cool creations and future Pi projects.

Anyone who’s had to set up a printer before knows it can be an infuriating process. There’s a reason why the printer-smashing scene in “Office Space” still resonates with so many people even though that movie came out in 1999—it doesn’t feel like the experience has improved much in the intervening decades. Microsoft has done what it can to make adding a printer as straightforward as possible in Windows 11, though, so at least we have that going for us.

This guide won’t cover every aspect of setting up a printer. The category is simply too broad in terms of available features, underlying technologies, and manufacturer-specific quirks to go into that much detail. Instead we’re going to explain how to add a printer to Windows 11 after it’s already been configured. We’ll still have to generalize somewhat because the process can vary from device to device, but the primary aspects of the process should be pretty similar.

How to add a printer in Windows 11 with a wired connection 

Here’s the part that feels like magic: Windows 11 can handle printers connected via USB or Ethernet like a champ. This is more about confirming that the printer’s been added than anything.

1. Connect your printer to your PC. The available physical connections will vary by printer. We used an HP DeskJet 3630 All-in-One for our tests and it only supports a USB 2.0 Type-B connection on the printer side and a USB 2.0 Type-A on the PC side. Other printers will vary, so make sure you have the appropriate cable and corresponding port on your system before you commit to relying on a physical connection between the devices.

2. Open the ‘Printers & scanners’ page in Settings. The quickest way to do this is to open the Start menu, search for “Printers” and select “Printers & scanners” from the results. You can also open the Settings app, select “Bluetooth & devices” from the sidebar, and then click “Printers & scanners” from the list of options. Either works. 

3. Locate your printer. In our case it appeared as “HP DeskJet 3630 Series” right away. Windows 11 automatically identified the device and connected to it.

Once your printer appears here it should be available as a print destination across Windows as long as nothing happens to the cable that’s connecting your devices.

How to add a printer in Windows 11 via wireless protocols 

Who wants a cable running from their printer to their PC? It’s a lot more convenient to have a wireless connection. (At least when the network itself is working properly… if not a wired connection is best.) Just note that both your printer and PC will need to support compatible versions of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi for this to work; setting all of that up is outside the scope of this guide. We’re going to focus on Wi-Fi, but the steps are similar for Bluetooth-capable printers.

1. (Wi-FI) Make sure your devices are on the same network. There’s nothing quite like troubleshooting printer errors only to discover the only problem was that the printer was connected to the “Tom’s Hardware Rules” network and the PC was connected to the “Tom’s Hardware Rocks” network. It’s much easier to check that first. 

2. Click ‘Add device’ from the ‘Printers & scanners’ page in Settings. This button should appear directly above the list of currently available printers, scanners, and fax machines. Clicking it will make a progress indicator and drop-down menu appear. 

3. Click the ‘Add device’ button next to your printer’s name. The original “Add device” button you clicked to discover this printer should be replaced by a “Refresh” button. If your printer was found (and it should be if you’re on the same network) you can now click the new “Add device” button that appears next to it in the list of discovered devices. 

4. Enter a password, PIN, or other authentication method if prompted. Some printers will require authentication before they’ll connect to devices on the same Wi-Fi network. The default information usually appears somewhere on the printer’s box, case, or a test sheet printed when it’s first set up. In our case we weren’t prompted for anything.

5. Confirm your printer has been added. It should now appear in the list of devices on the “Printers & scanners” page in Settings. Our particular model uses different names for printing via wired or wireless connections so it’s easy to distinguish between the two. 

Now your printer should be available as a print destination as long as both devices are connected to the same network. Windows 11 can also detect if a manufacturer has made a management app available via the Microsoft Store, and if it has, it will say “App available for this device” and show a button leading to the right page in the marketplace.

How to add a printer in Windows 11 via Wi-Fi Direct… potentially 

Not all printers have to be connected to an existing Wi-Fi network to enable wireless printing via the protocol. Many also support Wi-Fi Direct, which enables peer-to-peer connections between devices, and this option can be useful if you don’t want to have a printer available to everyone on a network but don’t feel like configuring it to prevent that kind of accessibility.

1. Enable Wi-Fi Direct pairing on your printer. Again, this is the kind of thing that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model, so you’ll have to refer to your user manual. But this is often a distinct option (and button) from general Wi-Fi access.

2. Click ‘Add device’ from the ‘Printers & scanners’ page in Settings. This step is the same as when we connected via an existing Wi-Fi network, but we’re looking for something new.  

3. Click ‘Show Wi-Fi Direct printers’ in the drop-down menu. This option only appears if there are Wi-Fi Direct printers available; otherwise there’s only an “Add manually” button. To learn about that, skip to step 7.

4. Click ‘Add device’ next to your printer.

5. Enter any requested credentials. In our case a window appeared asking for a WPS PIN. You’ll have to find yours somewhere on the printer, its packaging, or potentially the test sheet we mentioned before. Once you have it, enter it.

6. Rejoice or keep going to the next step. Ah, printers. Maybe it’s a problem with our hardware, perhaps it’s a pre-release bug in Windows 11, but entering the correct WPS PIN still prompted Windows to display the error message shown below. But we don’t have to reach for a bat yet—this is where the manual option comes in.

7. Click the ‘Add manually’ button from the drop-down menu. You know the whole “two roads diverged in the woods…” line? We’re going to pick the other one. Follow the first two steps in this section and then click the “Add manually” button.

8. Select ‘Add a Bluetooth, wireless or network discoverable printer’ and then click the ‘Next’ button. There are a variety of options presented here, but we’re interested in this one, so select it and then hit “Next” to move forward.

9. Select your printer. A window called “Add a device” should appear with a progress bar and the results of its search for available devices. If your printer is listed, select it and then click the “Next” button. (Note that in our example it specifically lists DIRECT-E7-HP DeskJet 3630 Series, which is going to be relevant soon.)

10. Rejoice or accept your fate.

We tried this process multiple times after removing the non-direct Wi-Fi-connected iteration of our printer. The first time we were greeted by a notification that Windows was installing necessary files, and it appeared the installation was successful, but DIRECT-E7-HP DeskJet 3630 Series wasn’t listed. Its non-direct counterpart was. Here are those screenshots:

And the result of our second attempt:

Again, this could be a hardware problem, but it seems that adding a Wi-Fi Direct printer is hit or miss. (And yes, we modified various settings, power cycled both devices, double-checked our info, etc. before we ascribed these issues to anything other than user error.) Hopefully it works better for you. Otherwise, using the regular Wi-Fi option is preferable.

More Windows 11 Tutorials:

• How to Get a Windows 11 ISO File and Do a Clean Install
• How to Enable God Mode in Windows 11 or 10
• How to Uninstall Windows 11 and Return to 10
• How to Clean Install Windows 11, No Product Key Required
• How to Install Windows 11 in a Virtual Machine

The Netgear RAXE500 is an early entry into the Wi-Fi 6E router space, and on paper at least, it looks like a wireless network powerhouse. It also looks good and is easy to set up--at least on the hardware side--with no antennas to attach. But as we’ll see in testing, it struggles a lot on a congested network. And despite it’s very high price, Netgear charges extra for ongoing security support.

But before we jump deep into the router’s details, a quick cutting-edge Wi-Fi primer: While it may seem like Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is still new, Wi-Fi 6E is the latest generation of standards to feed our wireless data needs. The names of these standards can certainly get confusing, in part because Wi-Fi 6E also gets designated as 802.11ax. However, 6E has even faster potential speeds on the 5 GHz frequency. The big change, though, is an entirely new frequency -- 6 GHz -- which should be a lot less crowded, at least until all of your neighbors upgrade their gear as well. But don’t expect any of your existing tech got get much benefit from 6E. Until you upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E on the device side, you won’t be able to take advantage of these advancements. Check out our feature for much more on the differences between Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. 

Design of the Netgear RAXE500 

The Netgear RAXE500’s body is made of solid black plastic, that’s simple to deploy because there are no antennas to screw onto the body. The hardware setup is as simple as unfolding the two wings--the design certainly saves time and effort. The overall aesthetic appears somewhere between an Imperial TIE fighter and an ocean-dwelling manta ray. In case you’re worried about quantity affecting performance, the wings hide a total of 8 antennas inside.

The router’s size isn’t the biggest we’ve seen, but is by no means small. At 11.7 x 3.07 x 8.3 in (298 x 78 x 211 mm) and weighing 3.2 lb (1.45 kg), the Netgear RAXE500 feels substantive, without being overly bulky.

The back of the router includes four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, along with a WAN Gigabit Ethernet port, and a 2.5G Multi-Gig port. The Netgear RAXE500 also supports link aggregation of the Gigabit ports, for even faster speeds. For adding network-accessible storage, there are also a pair of USB 3.0 ports.

Specifications of the Netgear RAXE500

Under its plastic shell, the RAXE500 houses a 1.8 GHz quad core processor with 512MB NAND flash and 1GB of DDR3 SDRAM. With its formidable hardware and support for Wi-Fi 6E, the router sports some impressive speed specs. We are talking about 2.4 GHz up to 1.2 Gbps, 5 GHz up to 4.8 Gbps, and 6 GHz up to 4.8 Mbps, for a total theoretical bandwidth of 10.8 Gbps. This makes it a Tri-band router, with three distinct frequencies.

Netgear’s RAXE500 also includes some of the lesser-known latest wireless technologies, such as support for 1024-QAM ( which has better 25% data efficiency and faster speeds than 256-QAM routers), additional DFS channels to reduce interference, support for WPA3, and 4X4 MU-MIMO. 

Setup of the Netgear RAXE500 

Setup of this router could certainly have gone smoother. We chose to us the browser, but there is also an option for installing and using a smartphone app.

Things started out well, as the router informed us on initial setup of a firmware update and began downloading it. We were then informed that the upgrade was complete after waiting a few minutes on the setup screen. However, when we went back into the router software, the firmware was in fact on the same version number as when we started. We had to trigger it manually and wait all over again for the upgrade process. This would be really easy to miss if you were a novice, or just not paying close attention. For a router in this price category, we’d expect much better. That’s a feeling we’ll come back to shortly.

Security

The RAXE500 does have security, but we were disappointed that it comes at an additional charge, despite claims that it is “built in” to the router. After a 30-day trial period, it is a $69.99 annual fee. The software can work on the network level via the router to scan all traffic and keep it secure. However, some competitors, especially on higher end gear, offer security without an additional payment. That said, users who do pay up get not just Bitdefender Security, but also Bitdefender VPN, so if you were going to pay for a VPN anyway, the price is quite fair. 

Performance of the Netgear RAXE500  

We put the RAXE500 through the usual battery of tests, starting with looking at throughput. Testing is done with an Asus gaming laptop, with an Intel WiFi 6 AX201 card. Unfortunately it does not support WiFi 6E, so we cannot test performance on the 6 GHz frequency. The 2.4 GHz speed was a solid 210.3 Mbps on the near test, and dropped to 160.1 Mbps on the far test. The 5 GHz test was more impressive, with a 1398.5 Mbps close test, and a drop to 951.8 Mbps on the far test.

To overcome the lack of a WiFi 6E card on our laptop, we tested further with Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S21 Ultra 5g. This was performed using the SpeedTest app that can measure both on the upload and download side of the speed equation. While it confirmed the fast throughput of this router, on the 5 GHz frequency, we easily maxed out on both the upload and download side, as our internet connection is officially a 300/35 connection, which is typically mildly overprovisioned to ensure bandwidth. This explains the speeds we obtained of 341 Mbps download and 36.8 Mbps upload using 6E on the test phone. 

The network congestion testing showed that the RAX500 could really benefit from implementation of robust Quality of Service (QoS), which allows a router to prioritize traffic to smooth out gameplay, and allow a video to play smoothly. 

When this router is in an uncongested environment, for example, when connected via Ethernet with no background videos, our game of Overwatch achieved a respectable 142.83 FPS, with no Pingplotter spikes (which signify dropouts). We also had an in-game latency of 68 millisecs in Overwatch. 

However, add in the congestion, in our case ten 8K YouTube videos, which saturate our Optimum Online cable connection, and the game’s FPS precipitously drops to 21.88 FPS, and even went down to 0 FPS during gameplay-- essentially becoming a frozen game. Confirming the congested situation, the PingPlotter spikes went to a very high sixteen during our short gameplay session, and the dropped frame rate on the 8K videos was at a high 37.2%.

An analogous situation was created each time for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless frequencies with a minimum FPS of zero, and high dropped frame rates on the 8K videos.

We ended up with a situation where the raw throughput was impressive, but the congestion testing revealed a significant drop in performance. Of course, we wondered if there wasn’t an issue with this particular router (be it in the hardware or firmware). But after getting our hands on a second version of the Netgear RAXE500, things didn’t really improve. \

We set it up once again, including updating to the latest firmware version, and putting it through another round of testing to verify. With the lack of QoS, we once again replicated the results, with the game freezing on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz network congestion tests, and this time both with over 50% of the frames dropping on the 8K videos. Ouch.

Bottom Line

We expected better performance from the RAXE500, and that was before we factored in the price. While it’s of course true that ongoing Covid-19-related issues have inflated the price of many products, the $599 MSRP and $529 street price of the RAXE500 puts it solidly at the high end of the high end category of consumer routers. Early adopters often overpay for the privilege of bragging rights. But in this case you’d be paying more than double the price of a solid midrange router, mostly for the privilege of being able to tell your friends and relatives that you have a 6 GHz wireless network.

Even if that’s important to you, keep in mind that even Wi-Fi 6 devices won’t connect on the 6 GHz frequency unless they specifically support Wi-Fi 6E. At the moment, such devices are few and far between, largely including recent high-end phones. So you probably won’t make much use of that 6E network, as most of your devices will still be stuck on the 5 GHz band. Making matters worse, for such an expensive router, the RAXE500 is missing some features that we’d consider fairly basic in a high-end router, like QoS for better traffic control, and included security without an additional yearly fee.

Overall, the Netgear RAXE500 is a bleeding edge product that feels like it needs more work. Perhaps it was rushed to market, but it simply lacks the high-end performance that a router at this level should deliver. For now, it is a glimpse into the promise of the next generation of Wi-Fi 6E wireless, with high throughput scores, but that promis proved hollow when we tested performance in a crowded environment. We don’t recommend purchasing this router based on our results, but we can’t wait to see how the next wave of WiFi 6E routers will perform, companies get past these 6E teething pains.

Widespread flaws affecting Wi-Fi have been disclosed to the public by security researcher Mathy Vanhoef nine months after he tipped the Wi-Fi Alliance off about the problem. The vulnerabilities, reported by Gizmondo from a site set up by Vanhoef exploit mistakes in the implementation of Wi-Fi standards, and can affect any Wi-Fi device no matter how old, and running any level of security including WPA 2 and 3. 

The ‘fragmentation and aggregation attacks’ - FragAttacks for short - are 12 different vulnerabilities that see Wi-Fi devices leak user data if probed in the right way. Three of the flaws are baked into the Wi-Fi standard itself, while the others flow from programming errors in specific products. The flaws have likely been lurking since Wi-Fi was first released in 1997, as even the venerable WEP protocol is vulnerable - though you really should have moved on from WEP by now, as it’s easily broken. 

By taking advantage of the way some routers accept plaintext during handshakes, for example, or the way some networks cache data, intruders could intercept personal data, or even direct users to fake websites. Vanhoef talks us through the attacks in this YouTube video, remotely controlling a smart plug and compromising an outdated Windows 7 PC.

“The biggest risk in practice,” Vanhoef writes, “is likely the ability to abuse the discovered flaws to attack devices in someone's home network. For instance, many smart home and internet-of-things devices are rarely updated, and Wi-Fi security is the last line of defense that prevents someone from attacking these devices. Unfortunately, due to [these] vulnerabilities, this last line of defense can now be bypassed.”

There is some good news, however: most of the flaws are hard to exploit, patches are available for many devices, including three from Microsoft going all the way back to Windows 7, and from all major router manufacturers (though not all models have received new firmware yet). At the time of writing Vanhoef said he wasn’t aware of any attacks in the wild using the exploits. This could be a good time to ditch your service provider’s router for the latest and best routers.

Update 2/11/2021 05:18 ET: This article has been updated to include wireless connectivity details that were not present in the press release but have since been added to the product website.

Original Article

Are you old enough to remember the Rubik's Cube? Well, SolidRun's latest SBC, the Cubox-M, may just remind you of that 1980's sensation. Announced today by SolidRun, the Cubox-M is a 2-inch cube SBC with either a dual- or quad-core Arm processor packaged into a compact and rather slick plastic enclosure, so there are no bare boards on display, unlike the Raspberry Pi.

Being just 2 inches cubed does not mean that the Cubox-M lacks power. The onboard NXP i.MX8M Plus Dual- / Quad-core Arm Cortex A53 can run at up to 1.8Ghz and features "an integrated neural processing unit for enhanced AI and machine learning capabilities at the edge" (per SolidRun's press release).

Cubox-M comes with 4GB of LPDDR4-4000 RAM as standard, but this can be configured to up to 8GB of LPDDR4-4000, and given the size of the board, this is not user-configurable.

Boot media and storage are handled via 8GB eMMC flash storage, and a MicroSD slot is around the back.  Due to the size of the Cubox-M, there's a limited selection of ports. There are only two USB 3.0 ports and a single full-size HDMI 2.0 port providing up to 1080p at 60Hz. A Gigabit Ethernet port provides wired network connectivity,
and wireless comes in the form of 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 5.0. Just under the USB 3.0 ports is what looks to be a micro USB port, but we have not found any documentation to indicate this port's purpose. It could be a USB OTG port, or a means to flash a new operating system to the onboard eMMC storage.

What operating systems are supported? Well, at the time of launch, we are told that there is support for Linux Kernel 4.9 and above, so in theory, distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro are compatible – but this remains to be seen. Android 11 is also compatible with Cubox-M.

The front of Cubox-M is relatively sparse, with just a power button on display. Still, there is an indicator LED and an infrared receiver for use with a remote control, which is available separately.

Power is provided via a 12V DC supply. Still, there is an optional Power over Ethernet upgrade, which means that Cubox-M can be embedded into a remote location without the need for a dedicated power supply.

The Cubox-M will retail for $99, and the POE upgrade will be from $120.  

Squeezing a 9th Gen Intel Xeon/Core based computer into a package 5.78i by 4.01in (146 by 102 mm) is no small feat but Advantech who are a provider of IoT (Internet of Things) and embedded platforms have done just that and released the 3.5” SBC MIO-5393. 

To cut to the chase, this is not a “Raspberry Pi killer” the two boards are focused on different users and markets. The MIO-5393 is offered as a micro server / kiosk platform for industrial use or scenarios involving demanding environments, but this board could be easily used in the home if that were your wish.

The MIO-5393 comes in four configurations, each with a CPU ranging from an Intel 8th Gen Core i5 8400H to a Xeon E-2276ME. Each configuration can use up to 64GB of DDR4-2400 (ECC for the Xeon model) and thankfully RAM is easily upgraded by the user.

Storage comes in the form of one PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive slot and two SATA III ports. Four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports offer just enough ports for basic use. It is possible to connect up to three displays to the board, two via DisplayPort and HDMI and a third via a LVDS connector.  The Intel Gen 9 onboard graphics support up to 4096x2160 @ 30 Hz (HDMI), 4096x2304 @ 60Hz (DP) and 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz (LVDS).

As standard there is no wireless connectivity but there are two M.2 expansion slots which can be used with WiFi and 4G / LTE modules. Wired network connectivity is provided by two Gigabit Ethernet ports. An RS232/422/485 port is on hand in case an external serial connection is required. Audio is supplied via a Realtek ALC888S chipset, and instead of built in audio ports an audio cable is used to break out the connections from the board.

This is a lot of power for such a small board, and this is reflected in the price, which is available on request from Advantech.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on January 3 that it will accept public comment on its decision to prevent wireless network providers from using the Universal Service Fund, a federal subsidy program meant to reduce the costs of expanding network coverage in the U.S., to purchase Huawei equipment.

According to the FCC, which issued the relevant order in November 2019, relying on Huawei's equipment could pose a national security risk. Rather than banning that equipment from American networks outright, the FCC's decision to withhold federal subsidies gives telecoms a financial reason to seek alternative suppliers.

Huawei challenged the FCC's order in December 2019. The company filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit claiming the FCC's order stood "in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act and other laws" because it lacked the evidence to back up its claims of national security risks.

Now the American public will have the opportunity to comment on the FCC's claims. The commission said last Friday that "comments are due February 3, 2020 on initial designation of Huawei Technologies Company, its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries as a covered company in National Security Supply Chain Proceeding."

The full text of the FCC's announcement can be found on its website. Huawei's response to the FCC order, which the company said "is threatening the improving connectivity in rural America," can be found on its corporate website. Details about the order--as well as comments on it--are available via the Federal Register.

Researchers from Brigham Young University, Washington University and University of Utah revealed new software yesterday that can reportedly extend the Wi-Fi range of smart home devices without requiring any changes to the underlying hardware.

The researchers named their software the On-Off Noise Power Communication (ONPC) protocol. It's built on top of existing Wi-Fi protocols, and its marquee feature is the ability to function with data speeds of just 1 bit per second (bps).  Wi-Fi requires at least 1 Mbps to maintain a signal; the researchers said ONPC can get away with one-millionth the amount of that speed because smart devices don't require a lot of data.

BYU explained in the announcement that "1 bit of information is sufficient for many Wi-Fi enabled devices that simply need an on/off message, such as a garage door sensor, an air quality monitor or even a sprinkler system." The researchers were able to prove this by using ONPC with an app they dubbed Stayin' Alive to extend the range of smart devices by up to 67 meters (roughly 220 feet) in their experiments.

Here's how it worked:

"[The researchers] adjusted the transmitter in a Wi-Fi-enabled device to send wireless noise in addition to data. They programmed into the Wi-Fi sensor a series of 1s and 0s, essentially turning the signal on and off in a specific pattern. The Wi-Fi router was able to distinguish this pattern from the surrounding wireless noise (from computers, televisions and cell phones) and therefore know that the sensor was still transmitting something, even if the data wasn’t being received."

So does that mean ONPC is about to improve Wi-Fi for most uses? No. The Wi-Fi protocol requires data transfer speeds of at least 1 Mbps for a reason. Nobody's going to want to stream videos, play games or even visit websites if they can only receive a single bit per second. Nor will the protocol make it any easier to maintain a wireless connection in large homes or other buildings that Wi-Fi networks can't totally cover.

ONPC's value comes from its use with Internet of Things (IoT) devices. As the researchers explained, many of these devices simply require a binary on/off command to function. Their protocol is there to make sure those devices can work on the edges of a Wi-Fi network's range or when the network is technically down. It's a fallback--hence the Stayin' Alive companion app--meant to make smart devices more reliable.

Updated, 9/13/19, 6:23 a.m. PT: Radxa responded to our request for comment, saying it currently has Windows 10 booting on the Rock Pi X and is working on getting the wireless connectivity working.  It's also planning to add support for an additional display to the Rock Pi X with another DisplayPort connector. The company said it's hoping to have the device ready for a global launch by Christmas.

Original article, 9/12/19, 9:22 a.m. PT:

The single-board computer market is dominated by Arm processors. But there could be another Intel option available soon because CNX Software reported Wednesday that Radxa had developed a new device called the Rock Pi X, and it features an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 CPU.

CNX Software spotted benchmark results for a new device in the Hackerboards database for the Rock Pi X on September 11. There are reportedly two models on the way: a Model A that serves as the baseline product and a Model B with additional features. Those features include built-in 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 support, as well as Power Over Ethernet (PoE), managed by an extra HAT.

The Rock Pi X Model A and Model B are otherwise identical. They feature the previously mentioned Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor clocked at 1.44 GHz; 1, 2 or 4GB LPDDR3-1866 memory; and one USB 3.0 port, three USB 2.0 ports, and one USB OTG Type-C port. Neither model includes any storage. They do offer a MicroSD card slot and eMMC socket, though, for people willing to supply their own storage devices.

CNX Software said the Rock Pi X would measure roughly 3.3 x 2 inches (85 x 52mm) without any casing. The device will reportedly feature a "40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header with GPIOs, 2 x ADC, 2 x PWM, 2 x I2C" for people who already own Raspberry Pi accessories but want to see what a single-board computer featuring an Intel processor is like. There's a headphone jack and camera connector as well.

The biggest draw for the Rock Pi X would likely be the ability to install operating systems like Windows 10 and x86-optimized Linux distributions. It's technically possible to install Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi, sure, but it's not a particularly compelling experience. A single-board computer featuring an x86 processor could theoretically fare better, but we can't pass judgment without trying it ourselves.

CNX Software reported that the Model A runs $39 (1GB), $49 (2GB) or $65 (4GB) while the Model A costs $49 (1GB), $59 (2GB) or $75 (4GB). It's not clear when Radxa plans to launch the device; its website hasn't yet been updated with information about the Rock Pi X. 

TP-Link today announced its first router to support Wi-Fi 6, the Archer AX50. The company said this new router features the Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset to "deliver a premium Wi-Fi 6 Gig+ experience to more families at an affordable price point."

Intel Wireless Infrastructure Group general manager Doron Tal said in today's announcement that "Wi-Fi has seen its greatest advancement in the last decade with the introduction of Wi-Fi 6" and the release of routers like the Archer AX50 "make it possible for a broader set of consumers to start experiencing the full potential of Wi-Fi 6.” (Provided, of course, people are also purchasing devices that support the new protocol.)

So what is Wi-Fi 6? Well, it's technically called the 802.11ax protocol, but it was fortunate enough to debut after The Wi-Fi Alliance switched to a new version numbering system to help consumers. It's also equipped with improvements to pretty much every aspect of the protocol: Intel said in a fact sheet that its Wi-Fi 6 Gig+ platform offers 3x max wireless throughput, 4x capacity for devices and 75% reduced latency over previous generations.

TP-Link didn't offer pricing information for the Archer AX50 or say when it would debut. More information about the router can be found on the company's website. The Wi-Fi Alliance also has further information about Wi-Fi 6 and how you can spot devices that support it on its website.

Marvell today announced that it's selling its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Connectivity Business to NXP in an all-cash deal valued at $1.76 billion.

“NXP has built a broad consumer footprint and an optimized platform for IoT applications," Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said in the announcement, "making it an ideal home for our innovative Wi-Fi technology and team.” The business unit includes Marvell’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology portfolios and related assets, as well as approximately 550 people. It generated roughly $300 million in revenue in Marvell’s fiscal year 2019.

For its part, NXP expects to double the unit’s revenue by 2022, with CEO Richard Clemmer commenting: “We are excited to be able to combine Marvell’s world-class connectivity with NXP’s industry leading embedded processing, we can offer our customer base the broadest portfolio of Edge solutions which includes tailored security and a full suite of wireless connectivity spanning WiFi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, Thread and NFC.”

This news follows two other major transactions in May involving Marvell. Earlier this month the company acquired Aquantia for $452 million to strengthen its position in automotive in-vehicle ethernet networking. It also bought Avera Semi from GlobalFoundries for $650 million, aiming to become the world leader in infrastructure ASIC solutions. 

The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, but the companies expect it to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

Qualcomm announced at MWC Barcelona 2019 the Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform to allow PC manufacturers to connect their devices to 5G wireless networks. The hope is that releasing products that support next-gen wireless tech "will modernize how people connect, compute, and communicate with their PCs."

The company has banged this drum before. It revealed the Always Connected PCs category alongside Microsoft in 2018, and despite repeated efforts, the initial run of Snapdragon-powered laptops was a disappointment. (Although some of the blame for that lies with the delayed launch of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.)

But that hasn't stopped Qualcomm and its partners, such as Lenovo, from embracing the Snapdragon 8cx 5G. Lenovo said it plans to release the first laptops built on top of the platform in 2020. Other partners are likely to follow--the Always Connected PC debuted with devices from HP, Asus, Samsung, and other companies.

The promise is pretty much the same as before: Qualcomm wants to blend "smartphone-like capabilities with the power and performance of a premium thin and light PC." That means it's shooting for "multi-gigabit connectivity, multi-day battery life, and performance computing on a mobile device" with the new platform.

Qualcomm claimed the Snapdragon 8cx 5G platform would result in the popularization of private 5G small-cell networks among business users to "allow for a more security-rich, high-performance data link for the next generation of connected applications and experiences for the modern connected worker."

That depends on a lot of factors: the deployment of large-scale 5G networks, businesses seeing the value in using small-cell networks instead of Wi-Fi, and shifting perceptions of Snapdragon-powered PCs. Even then, it's telling that Qualcomm's announcement focused so much on enterprise users. Consumers seem to be an afterthought.

Qualcomm said the Snapdragon 8cx 5G is currently sampling to its customers and that the first commercial devices featuring the platform are expected to debut in "late 2019." Maybe by then people will have finally come around to Qualcomm's vision for a Snapdragon-powered, always connected future of personal computers.

Huawei isn’t having a great year so far. Governments around the world are considering banning the company’s equipment from next-gen wireless networks, and Politico reported today that the U.S. is poised to do the same this month.

The report indicates the ban wouldn’t only affect Huawei; other Chinese telecommunications companies, like ZTE, would also be affected. But Huawei in particular has become something of a focal point for the U.S. after it asked Canada to arrest Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou for allegedly violating sanctions against Iran.

Politico said U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order banning Chinese equipment from U.S. networks before this month's MWC Barcelona 2019, the wireless industry’s biggest event. It’s clear what Trump wants attendees to be thinking about.

This wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. banned these companies: Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in August 2018 to prevent government agencies from using products made by Chinese tech firms. The difference now would be that the products can’t be used by private companies either.

Australia and New Zealand  have also banned Huawei and ZTE. Germany is said to be considering it, as is the European Union as a whole, over concerns that using the equipment would enable spying by the Chinese government.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei warned employees in late January that “mediocre employees” might lose their jobs in the coming months. Zhengfei (who is also Wanzhou’s father) said the company had to prepare for “times of hardship” as it faced increasing scrutiny from countries around the globe.

A security firm called Embedi recently revealed critical vulnerabilities in the ThreadX real-time operating system firmware used in Marvell 88W8897A, a Wi-Fi system-on-chip (SoC), seen in everything from laptops to consoles.

Embedi called special attention to one flaw that “provides an opportunity to exploit devices literally with zero-click interaction at any state of wireless connection (even when a device isn’t connected to any network).” This would allow attackers to compromise a device that has just been turned on, Embedi said, before its owner even had a chance to realize they were being targeted.

As if that's not bad enough news, it gets worse:

1. The hack doesn’t require any user interaction.
2. It can be triggered every 5 minutes in case of GNU/Linux operating system.
3. It doesn’t require the knowledge of a Wi-Fi network name or passphrase/key.
4. It can be triggered even when a device isn’t connected to any Wi-Fi network, just powered on.

Sounds fun, right? Well, we haven't even gotten to the fun part yet. Embedi said the flaw was discovered in firmware used by Marvell’s Avastar Wi-Fi SoC products. Embedi said those products are used in Samsung Chromebooks, Microsoft Surface products, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles and other devices, (including Valve’s Steam Link hardware, which is what this exploit was demonstrated on, but that device was discontinued in 2018).

This isn't a great look for Marvell and its customers. But the reality is that exploits like this are probably going to be found continuously where wireless connections are used. Being able to experience the magic of beaming information through the air—at least when the Wi-Fi is actually working—means exposing yourself to potential attack. Even if there’s always going to be some risk, though, research like this is vital because it can help mitigate it.

More information about Embedi’s discovery is available on its blog.

Marvell, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony and Valve have yet to respond to the security company’s findings. Hopefully that's because they're busy tightening up their security and not because they know that people won't stop using Wi-Fi any time soon. What are we supposed to do, use up all of our monthly cellular data or find an Ethernet dongle for every device we own? Please.

Ever feel like your smartphone is spying on you? It's uncanny how often an ad will start popping up shortly after that product comes up in a conversation, for example, or how phones never seem to lose track of you even if you disable all of their wireless connections. Apparently, the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce (E&C) agrees that something here is at least a little suspicious, because it's asked executives at both Google and Apple to respond to a series of written questions regarding the privacy of Android smartphones and iPhones by July 23.

E&C said in letters to Google and Apple that it's concerned about November 2017 reports alleging that Android smartphones collect information from nearby cellular towers, Wi-Fi hotspots and Bluetooth beacons even when they're supposed to be offline. That data is then said to be sent to Google, which the E&C said defeats the purpose of disabling those protocols. The Committee said it's not aware of similar allegations for iPhones, but the reports about Android devices raised questions about phones with other operating systems, so it decided to involve Apple too.

It's not clear why E&C waited more than six months to ask Google and Apple about these specific problems. Yet the committee's other concern, which involves reports that phones constantly listen to "non-triggered data" until they hear a phrase like "OK, Google," is more recent. It also comes as companies like Amazon work to expand the reach of their digital assistants, many of which rely on such keywords (Amazon's Alexa has recently gone from the company's Echo product line to laptops, TV sets and several of the company's other products).

Companies have long explained that devices "listen" in two modes. The first is constantly running but supposedly deletes audio that doesn't contain one of the trigger words. Once those words are "heard," audio is sent to another part of the system that does the natural language processing, web searches, etc. that allow these voice assistants to function. The problem, according to E&C, is that third-party app developers have quietly received access to the "non-triggered data" that is never supposed to be shared or stored.

If that is the case, people may have been unwittingly providing app developers with access to any conversation their phone happened to hear. The basic principle behind this problem and the wireless data collection revealed last November is the same. People trust their smartphones, and if those devices continue to gather information and share it with others without their owners' knowledge or consent, they won't have the privacy they think they do. Is a lack of privacy really the cost of being able to participate in a modern, smartphone-dominated society?

E&C plans to find out. The committee sent one letter to Larry Page, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, and Apple CEO Tim Cook. In addition to providing written responses by the July 23 deadline, E&C also asked the executives to "make arrangements to provide Committee staff with a briefing on these topics."

You can read the full letters to Google and Apple by following those links. E&C's announcement of the letters and its interest in this issue can be found on its website.

There has been several times in this life as a technology journalist when expanding my wireless network would have helped what I do. However, as is usually the case, my single wireless connection in my device is the one picking up the other Wi-Fi available, and cannot be used as an access point itself. Similarly, in a home, using a device to temporarily extend a wireless network for a better connection has obvious uses. Rivet Networks, the company behind the Killer networking controllers, now has the hardware and software in place for its Killer AC 1550 module to both connect to an access point and become an access point without an additional radio.

Extending a network without laying cable is typically done through Wi-Fi repeaters, extenders, or powerline adaptors with additional wireless radios. In order to get additional coverage, more radios are needed. Rivet Networks believes that the wireless modules within a PC can help bridge the gap, by making them act as access points to the network without the need for additional hardware.

What Killer xTend on the AC 1550 does is, either by connecting with wires or wirelessly, will extend the network by creating an additional mesh point with the same SSID and password. With the Wi-Fi in and Wi-Fi out mode, the radio performs its duty in a time slicing multiplexer/de-multiplexer mode, giving both the incoming and outgoing signal 50% of the time but maintaining both. On top of this, Killer can implement its prioritization protocols to enable sustainable gaming performance on the Killer machine when others are streaming or downloading.

The Killer optimization tool, to recap, splits traffic into one of six priority levels. Based on a constantly updated whitelist, and a bandwidth learning tool that can detect if a user is in a game or video or download just by looking at the traffic, the Killer hardware will adjust the queue of traffic for higher priority items. By default, the system uses the following six priorities:

1. Game Traffic
2. VoIP (TeamSpeak, Discord)
3. Video on Host Machine
4. Web Traffic, Unknown Traffic / Traffic from Guest Machines
5. Update services, HTTP Downloads
6. Other Downloads, Torrents

With all the devices connected through the Killer PC, their traffic will default to a priority four, while the Killer PC will keep its priority levels for its traffic (which can be adjusted).

Up to this point, Killer xTend has been enabled on motherboards with multiple wired network ports, allowing users to connect nearby consoles and Ethernet storage to the same network through a single machine, but now the xTend philosophy can be invoked through wireless connections. It should be noted that a Killer wired connection is required if the input from the main DHCP router is through a physical connection.

The interface is designed to be simple, with users available to extend the network (in Wi-Fi mode), or create a wireless hotspot (in wired and wireless mode). Users can adjust between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz modes, as well as define an SSID and password in the wireless hotspot mode, however other standard networking features are on the to do list. Connected devices can be seen, with a maximum of eight supported. Currently the interface shows the total traffic of the connected devices (not the host system), and there are plans in the works to improve the configurability of this.

As with the previous announcements like this, the main drawback is the loss of the connection when the host machine is in a sleep mode or turned off. The response to this from Rivet Networks is that this feature is not designed to be as a replacement for a proper home mesh – the point is that nearby devices can connect to the laptop or PC in a room and all piggy back off of a single signal to the wireless router rather than relying on their own connection as it adjusts when they move about with their own smartphones and such. The way Rivet is promoting this technology is to turn around and say that the AC 1550 works as normal, but this is an extra feature that can be used if needed at no additional BOM cost.

From our perspective, such a device allows a single editor at a show to give a hotspot to everyone, if they are the ones that have paid for the hotel Wi-Fi (because in the US, it usually isn’t free for some reason). Or if one of our editors does not have a local SIM card, it solves that issue. This is more of a by-product of the feature, but a positive that I can use either way.

Partners on board with the Killer Wireless xTend feature include Dell, MSI, Acer, Clevo, and Zotac, who is a new customer with Rivet and we might see some new mini-PCs with Killer networking at Computex this week.

The Killer xTend Wi-Fi tool will first be available for users with the latest AC 1550 module, manufactured by Intel. If you didn’t catch the story that Intel is now making the Killer modules, check out our coverage here. The software will also be available for AC 1535 users, such as Dell XPS users, at a later date.

This story originally appeared on Anandtech.

This tutorial was written by Tom's Hardware Community member viveknayyar007. You can find a list of all their tutorials here.

Wi-Fi Sense is a feature in Windows 10 that saves you from the hassle of manually connecting your device to an open Wi-Fi hotspot and to those managed by your Facebook, Skype, and Outlook contacts. Wi-Fi Sense does this by sharing the secret passkeys that your contacts use to connect to the wireless networks, or by sharing your passkeys with your contacts to allow them to connect to your wireless network.

Although Wi-Fi Sense is enabled in Windows 10 by default in an effort to provide a hassle-free experience, using the feature could also be a security concern.

Here is how you can disable Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10:

• Sign-in to your Windows 10 computer.
• Click the Start button from the bottom-left corner.
• From the displayed Start menu, from the left pane, click Settings.

• On the opened SETTINGS window, click Network & Internet.

• From the left pane of the opened NETWORK & INTERNET window, make sure that the Wi-Fi category is selected.
• From the right pane, click the Manage Wi-Fi settings link.

• From the opened MANAGE WI-FI SETTINGS window, move the Connect to suggested open hotspots button to Off.

• Move the Connect to networks shared by my contacts button to Off.

• Close the MANAGE WI-FI SETTINGS window and restart the PC.
• Start using your secured Windows 10 PC normally.

Zotac's newly established brand, Zotac Gaming, announced a slim form factor gaming PC called the MEK1. The company said this slim gaming PC is modeled after "future robotics and mechanical anatomy."

In addition to its 7th Generation Intel Core i7-7700 processor running at speeds up to 4.2GHz, this slim form factor gaming PC features a Zotac-branded GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB, 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, a 240GB NVMe PCIe x4 SSD, and a 1TB 2.5” HDD for storage.

Other features include a mini-ITX motherboard, a low-profile direct contact CPU cooler, full-body LED lighting, and an 80 Plus 450W small form factor power supply. Thanks to the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card, display output consists of three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b and one DL-DVI-D port. Connectivity includes dual gigabit Ethernet jacks, 3.5mm audio plugs, a half dozen USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. Wireless connectivity is handled via 802.11ac/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2.

Select models are bundled with a full-size LED-lit keyboard, optical gaming mouse and mousepad combo. The MEK1 is available in both white and black and features Zotac’s all new Spectra lighting system to control the RGB lighting with multiple lighting modes including static, strobe, breath, and cycle, and eight brightness levels.

Unfortunately, Zotac did not provide information on pricing and availability. We have reached out the the company for more details.

Gigabyte has taken the wraps off the latest edition to its Z370 powered line of Ultra Durable motherboards, the Z370N WIFI.

The Mini-ITX motherboard supports Intel's 8th Generation (Coffee Lake) processors, Optane storage and memory, and dual-channel DDR4 RAM up to 4,400MHz (OC). It has dual M.2 slots that work with both standard SSDs and Intel Optane Memory and offers RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 support for storage devices.

This motherboard features support for Intel's built-in graphics via the onboard DisplayPort and HDMI outputs. HD audio is provided courtesy of Realtek’s ALC1150 chip via gold-plated audio jacks, and networking duties are performed by dual Intel GbE LAN and 802.11AC wireless connectivity.

Water cooling aficionados and performance enthusiasts alike will no doubt take advantage of the Z370N WIFI's built-in temperature sensors and dedicated fan/ ater pump headers. Gigabyte bundles its Smart Fan 5 software with this motherboard, thereby giving you the ability to interchange fan headers to reflect different thermal sensors at different locations on the motherboard.

Thanks to the inclusion of a 4-pin RGB lighting header, you can employ either 5v or 12v digital LED strips. Gigabyte's RGB Fusion software with Digital LED support allows each LED (up to 300) to be digitally addressable.

Information on pricing and availability is not available at this time.

Features & Specifications

Feature-packed motherboards often exceed the ATX specification out of necessity, and the Z370 Godlike Gaming follows that concept with a slew of slots and on-board controllers packed tightly on a 10.7”-deep board. Because it's over an inch beyond the 9.6” (or 9.625”) depth of standard ATX, MSI affixes the EATX label so common among boards around this size. Far short of the 13” full EATX specification, it also fits any ATX case that has the extra inch of clearance at the front edge, as well as XL-ATX cases. We’ve been adding motherboard depth to ATX case reviews for a few months, just to assist builders in assessing their complete options.

But what exactly does all that extra room get us?

Specifications

Based on its ability to support four-way CrossFireX with a graphics card in the bottom slot, XL-ATX may appear to be the best (safest) choice in cases. On the other hand, that fourth slot shares PCIe pathways with so many other devices that we’re reluctant to use it. Among the Z370 Godlike Gaming’s premiere features, Killer xTend requires all three network controllers.

That’s right, we said three Killer E2500 PCIe network controllers. Add to that the Killer Wi-Fi, and you’ll get the options to use the on-board components as a network switch and access point in addition to the regular Killer features of packet and bandwidth prioritization. The label “xTend” pays homage to the typical remote placement and cable connection of a gaming PC, as the additional access point could eliminate the need for a range extender.

Other I/O-panel features include the expected pair of USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A and Type-C ports, six USB 3.0 ports (aka USB 3.1 Gen1), a CLR_CMOS button, five 1/8” analog audio jacks, digital optical audio, and a ¼” jack driven by an ESS Sabre 9018 DAC through an ESS headphone amplifier.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming’s top-front corner features a button to force entry into the UEFI interface, a button to force a retry after a boot hang, a two digit status code display, a row of voltage detection points (for your voltmeter), power and reset buttons, a “Game Boost” knob with seven factory-defined overclock configurations, and a row of LEDs that show which device is being initialized during the boot process. That last feature allows users who don’t remember status codes to understand where the boot process “hung” without looking up those codes.

The bottom edge features a selector switch for the backup firmware ROM, and a set of switches to disable any of the three upper (CPU-based) PCIe x16-length slots, just in case your GPU overclock goes wrong. Keen eyes will also notice two of the 2-pin thermistor headers nearby (the other is next to the 24-pin power socket), along with two of the board’s 10 fan connectors, three USB 2.3 headers, one USB 3.0 header, and two RGB headers along that same bottom edge. One of the RGB headers is designed for 12V RGB strips, the other for 5V “Rainbow” strips.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming feeds the upper three x16-length slots from the CPU, automatically switching from x16-x0-x0 to x8-x0-x8 and x8-x4-x4 modes as those slots are populated. SLI excludes the use of four-lane slots, but the bandwidth benefit of direct PCIe 3.0 connections should make these adequate for three-way CrossFireX. Unfortunately, the USB 3.1 front-panel header for Type-C ports limits the length of the second card to 10.1”. And while you could move that card to the bottom slot, doing so would force it to share bandwidth with other chipset-connected devices (including storage and networking), give up the features described several paragraphs above, and likewise lose access to the second USB 3.0 front-panel header located on the bottom edge.

Shared pathways also force builders to choose between U.2 connector and a second M.2 slot. A slow-mode jumper is found behind the U.2 connector, which forces the CPU to clock down at boot to overcome “cold bug” boot failures when using extreme cooling (such as liquid nitrogen). A “flashback” button above the back edge of the U.2 connector forces firmware updates using an onboard ASIC, which gets around the problem of updating for newer processor compatibility without having an older one handy.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming installation kit includes a driver disc, six SATA cables (four short, two long, three with a single 90° end), an I/O shield with two additional decorative covers, a USB expander connection cable, three cable-mounted thermistors, an RGB lighting Y-cable, an HB-SLI bridge, two Wi-Fi antennas, an internal USB 2.0 hub (labeled Xpander) with adhesive-backed Velcro mounting tape, an RGB strip, MSI’s Xpander-Z M.2 adapter, a case badge, and a large pile of documentation including cable label stickers.

M.2 Xpander-Z image ID: 708492

The M.2 Xpander-Z supports two M.2 drives using eight PCIe lanes. For optimal performance (and to support both modules), we’d recommend using it only in the third x16-length slot, and only with a single graphics card.

The included RGB LED is a rainbow model from Phanteks. Both accessory I/O shield covers are magnetic, and the USB “Xpander” breaks out a single two-port header to four two-port headers.

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Software & Firmware

Killer XTend adds a page to the familiar packet and bandwidth prioritization software that comes with Killer network gear. The name refers to its ability to extend your wireless network through your wired network, assuming your gaming system is distanced from your home’s primary wireless transceiver. We’re basically looking at an onboard Killer-enhanced router/access point, with traffic priority for the local PC among its benefits.

MSI App Manager provides a handy menu for most of MSI’s own applications, including Command Center, DPC Latency Tuner, Fast Boot, Gaming APP and Xboost for performance tuning, Mystic Light onboard lighting configuration, MSI’s RAMDisk utility, Smart Tool for adding drivers to a Windows 7 installation drive or ISO, and SuperCharger for USB, which unfortunately wasn’t compatible yet with this motherboard model.

The great news on MSI Command Center is that similar technologies have allowed it to work immediately, without requiring further post-launch updates. We had complete control of the CPU core multiplier, base clock, and core voltage from the time we installed it.

My initial intent to include completely new descriptions of the advanced menus of MSI Command Center gave way to the sheer number of unchanged screen shots, to the point where I decided that previous descriptions would be just as beneficial, while substantially reducing the load time of this page. Even the old Skylake model numbers remain on the Game Boost menu: Actual Game Boost frequencies for Coffee Lake are 1x-7x above the stock Intel Turbo Boost ratios in seven steps, each step likewise increasing CPU core voltage by ~50mV, culminating in a 5.4 GHz max O/C at a 1.50V max voltage when “dialed up to 11.” The actual Game Boost “levels” are numbered 1-2-4-6-8-10-11, where the 5.1 GHz “Level 6” gave us 5.0 GHz with a single-core fully-loaded, scaling down to 4.7 GHz as more cores were loaded. Progressively higher Game Boost levels caused progressively quicker thermal throttling.

MSI DPC Latency Tuner is a far more limited overclocking utility compared to Command Center.

MSI Gaming App also includes an overclocked mode, which is drawn from the “Level 1” settings of MSI Game Boost. Additional features include system status overlay for 3D apps, a digital screen control menu with “Eye Rest” mode to reduce blue light, a macro recorder with additional hot key options, a mouse configuration menu, and MSI VR Ready for quick shutdown of certain (unspecified) background processes.

MSI Dragon Eye allows overlaying online videos atop the play screens of certain games, which may be good for tutorials.

After using MSI Live Update to update all of the system’s drivers and applications, its menu serves as a reminder of the installations that failed (Intel SGX and MSI Super Charger), as well as the ones a user didn’t want to install.

MSI Mystic Light is still broken, although it now adds a feature to sync its lighting with that of other machines. I was able to make a few changes somewhat randomly before the program locked up completely. Its settings appear to be stored on a portion of system ROM that isn’t cleared when using the CLR_CMOS button, so the only way to restore default settings after a complete software failure was to uninstall and reinstall the program.

Each Z370 Godlike Gaming motherboard includes a full license for Nahimic 2 audio solution, which adds virtual 3D to stereo headphones, virtualizes 3D from non-encoded sources to multi-channel speaker systems, and adds visual source tracking to certain games.

MSI also includes a one-year subscription to XSplit Gamecaster, a three-month sub to TriDef VR, and a two-month license for WTFast VPN.

Firmware

We talked a bit about Game Boost on the previous page and above, and here’s the trick: It’s programed into the firmware. That means the knob works even without software, and the software settings simply call up the programming that’s associated with the knob. So, the knob is a human interface device for firmware.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming enters UEFI the first time to its EZ Mode interface, after which it remembers which mode was used at the previous interface exit. EZ Mode controls include storage controller settings and XMP-enable for performance memory.

We reached 4848 MHz at 48x 101 MHz on our Core i7-8700K using 1.30V, and DDR4-4040 at 15x 4/3x 101 MHz (x DDR, of course), with two modules installed. The maximum stable DRAM frequency dropped to DDR4-4000 with all four of our DDR4-3866 modules installed, and the closest DRAM setting to our desired 1.350V was 1.330V, which measured 1.346V at the DIMM slot. The next higher VDIMM setting—1.340V-set—produced 1.356V-measured, violating our 1.355V limit.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming includes a complete set of DRAM timing controls, but users should be aware that the board responds to overclocking past XMP-ratings by automatically loosening timings. We also found our memory stable at DDR4-4000 using its rated timings.

We were able to achieve a 1.30V core under load by using the Z370 Godlike Gaming’s 1.295V CPU core setting, in concert with its Mode 3 Loadline Calibration. A 72K temperature delta when running 12 threads of Prime95 prevented testing at higher voltage levels.

The Memory Z submenu goes several levels farther to display both SPD and XMP values.

The M-Flash option forces reboot to a special firmware updating mode.

MSI’s firmware ROM has enough space to store up to six custom configurations as overclocking profiles, and users are welcome to save and share their overclocking profiles by transferring them to and from a USB flash drive.

MSI’s hardware monitor menu has gotten extremely complex over the past few months, and still allows users to set their own fan maps if desired. All 10 fan headers can also be manually switched between PWM and voltage-based RPM control, or left to the motherboard’s automatic detection.

MSI Board Explorer shows our CPU, M.2, and memory, but doesn’t appear to notice whether the USB or SATA interfaces are connected.

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How We Test

Since this is the first Z370 motherboard in our review series, we’re including the data for one motherboard that hasn’t yet been reviewed, along with the data for two of the Core i7-8700K’s predecessors: The four-core Core i7-7700K that it replaces, and the six-core Core i7-7800X that features additional PCIe lanes and DDR4 channels at a similar price.

Back during the X299 launch, I upgraded my test bed to handle the tremendous heat produced by the Core i9-7900X. Our award-winning Fractal Design S24 liquid cooler system sample serves the same purpose for the newer, lower heat Core i7-8700K. Cooler Master’s HAF-XB provides an optimal layout to blow the Celsius S24’s fans sufficiently over each motherboard’s voltage regulator.

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

We collected a second Core i7-8700K data set for today’s motherboard analysis, and the review of the contributing motherboard is forthcoming. Data from the 8700K’s predecessors is an average of all previous tests from this lab, which includes every Z270 and our initial batch of X299 motherboards (later X299s were tested exclusively using the higher-model 7900X).

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetic benchmarks are great tools for finding weaknesses in specific hardware or configuration errors, but in the era of X299 platforms they’ve also highlighted the manner in which most enthusiast-class motherboards ignore Intel’s specified TDP, even when all of the CPU’s power management technologies are enabled. CPUs that lack that tendancy typically perform very similarly across different motherboard models, unless one of the manufacturers has snuck in an overclock.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming appears to be clocked a little higher than the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7, and that’s indeed the case: MSI’s 100 MHz BCLK is actually 100.5 MHz, which doesn’t sound like much, but the test result differences aren’t that big either. Clock differences are far greater for the earlier Core i7-7800X, which shines only in applications that can leverage its quad-channel memory bandwidth.

3D Games

The Z370 Godlike Gaming approximately doubles the lead imparted by its small overclock across most games compared to the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7. Differences between the Z370 platform’s Core i7-8700K and the Z270 platform’s Core i7-7700K are less clear in F1 2015, though motherboard drivers are as old as the review of each motherboard.

Talos Principle is supported by Nahimic audio solution, and while the software adds some nice virtualized 3D and even a handy tool to show you the direction from which a noise emanated (such as an opponent’s footsteps), it taxes the game’s framerates. The faded portion of the Z370 Godlike Gaming’s chart bars show the FPS available after disabling the audio software.

Timed Applications

The Z370 Godlike Gaming’s slight overclock pushes it to the forefront of most timed applications, although the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 beat it in After Effects. Then again, so did the Core i7-7700K.

Power, Heat, & Efficiency

The Z370 Godlike Gaming is a real miser compared to the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7. Z270 tests include “lightweight” boards in compact form factors and lower feature markets (remember, it's an average), and the Godlike Gaming’s additional controllers can each eat several watts.

The Z370 Godlike Gaming’s lower power consumption enabled lower heat and better efficiency compared to the Gigabyte board. Meanwhile, the poor efficiency of the Core i7-7800X shows why buyers should consider the upgrade only if they need the extra PCIe lanes or additional memory bandwidth.

Overclocking

We’re accustomed to additional cores limiting our overclocks, yet the six-core Core i7-8700K used in our Z370 tests clocks better than the quad-core Core i7-7700K. We don’t see a difference between motherboards either, and having approached our thermal limit, couldn’t have appropriately applied more voltage.

We started adding an overclocked memory bandwidth chart after realizing that some manufacturers were using extremely loose secondary and tertiary timings to top the O/C chart. We don’t see that problem in any of the current boards, although Gigabyte does a better job than MSI of retaining the performance advantage of its memory O/C.

Value Conclusion

The Z370 Godlike Gaming has so many added features that it targets a higher market than the Z370 Aorus Gaming. Were we to go feature-by-feature through the list of triple gigabit Ethernet networking, plus Wi-Fi, four-way CrossFireX, Nahimic Audio (for those who use it), a freebie Rainbow light strip, an included USB 2.0 hub, and even PCIe x8 to dual M.2 adapter card, we’d still have a hard time justifying its doubled price. That still leaves room for an Editor’s Choice award however, since those are based only on product superiority.

Unfortunately, a plethora of features must be disabled so that others may be enabled, due to the limitations of Intel’s Z170/Z270/Z370 chipset (the rumored “hidden lanes” of the Z170 were made active in the Z270, and the Z370 doesn’t even pretend to be a new development). Those who can’t understand the true constraints of the Z370’s 30 HSIO connections need only look at the chart MSI publishes in its Z370 Godlike Gaming manual:

Those aren’t switching hubs folks, they’re regular “or” type switches. In fact, the only two ways we could think of to enable all Z370 Godlike Gaming features simultaneously would have been to use a giant 64-lane (PEX 8764) multi-casting switch, or to split the CPU’s lanes into x8/x8 and use separate switching hubs for the card slots and M.2/U.2 slots. I’m not even sure the CPU would support booting M.2 through such a device. And that just means that if this editor had to choose an ultimate motherboard based on these integrated features, the chosen board would need a 44-lane CPU. Fortunately, this editor’s needs aren’t that grand!

If all you need is a 6-core CPU, and you’re willing to pay for an abundance of features that can’t all be used at once, we have great news: The Z370 Godlike Gaming’s feature set is far above the average of X299 motherboards, and the savings on CPU cost puts it within reach. The Z370-compatible Core i7-8700K is also clocked much higher, and even overclocks better than the X299-compabile Core i7-7800X. It’s a great board with features that exceed the limitations of incorporation.

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Verizon Wireless doesn't have a great sense of timing. Shortly after tech companies, digital rights organizations, and individuals banded together in support of net neutrality, the wireless network provider has reportedly capped data transfer speeds from video services like Netflix and YouTube.

The Verge reported that several Reddit users have complained about Verizon Wireless capping Netflix data transfer speeds. We were able to confirm this ourselves using Fast.com, which is Netflix's download speed tester. When we were connected to Verizon Wireless our download speeds peaked at 12Mbps; over Wi-Fi they hit 46Mbps. Testing via Speedtest.net, however, resulted in almost identical download speeds over cellular and Wi-Fi.

That means Verizon Wireless is currently throttling data transfer speeds from Netflix to about one-fourth of their potential, at least on our connection. (We suspect the company is shooting for 10Mbps and that it's just a coincidence that our home Wi-Fi is roughly four times faster.) Others have said that Verizon Wireless is also throttling download speeds from YouTube, too, so it seems the company is targeting popular video services.

It makes sense for wireless network providers to want to cap streaming video download speeds. Watching something on Netflix or YouTube puts much more of a strain on their networks than, say, scrolling through Twitter. But this throttling violates the tenets of net neutrality, which insists that a byte is a byte and that data shouldn't flow slower or faster based on its source. Limiting Netflix and YouTube is the exact opposite of that position.

Like we said at the top, this wasn't a great time for Verizon Wireless to limit Netflix and YouTube. Earlier this month, more than 100,000 "websites, internet users, and organizations" protested the FCC's plans to roll back Obama administration net neutrality protections. Supporters included Twitter, Amazon, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among many others. (And, yes, Netflix was one of the companies backing this protest.)

We've reached out to Verizon Wireless to learn more about the extent of the download speed limits and why they were put in place. The company hasn't responded to our request for comment. Netflix told The Verge that it isn't responsible for the download limits, which means it's taking place on Verizon Wireless' end. We'll update this post if the company gets back to us. In the meantime, it seems Netflix and YouTube will be just a bit slower.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Qualcomm of using the popularity of its baseband processors, which are used to manage connections to wireless networks, to weaken competitors and bully manufacturers into "onerous and anticompetitive supply and licensing terms." Qualcomm said the FTC's complaint is based on "a flawed legal theory, a lack of economic support, and significant misconceptions about the mobile technology industry."

There's no question that Qualcomm dominates the baseband processor market. ABI Research said in February 2016 that Qualcomm held roughly 65% of the LTE baseband market. Samsung, its closest competitor, represented just 12% of the market after it decided to create its own basebands for its smartphones. The runners-up, Huawei and MediaTek, managed to nab just 9% of the market each. None are even close to competing with Qualcomm.

Nor could one debate the costs of doing business in the smartphone market. One report, The Smartphone Royalty Stack: Surveying Royalty Demands for the Components Within Modern Smartphones, said the hypothetical manufacturer of a $400 smartphone might expect to spend $60 on royalty demands for LTE compatibility even though the baseband processor itself costs roughly $10. Qualcomm had the highest public royalty rate in the report.

So it's clear that Qualcomm is simultaneously ubiquitous and well-paid. The FTC alleged that at least part of the company's status results from it using essential patents to negotiate unfair terms from smartphone makers. The commission said that Qualcomm asks for elevated royalties and license terms for those patents, which equates to a tax on manufacturers that use competitive baseband processors, and effectively holds critical tech for ransom.

Here's the FTC on why this is a problem:

Increased costs imposed by this tax are passed on to consumers, the complaint alleges. [...] By excluding competitors, Qualcomm impedes innovation that would offer significant consumer benefits, including those that foster the increased interconnectivity of consumer products, vehicles, buildings, and other items commonly referred to as the Internet of Things.

The FTC accused Qualcomm of violating the FTC Act. It said that it's "seeking a court order to undo and prevent Qualcomm’s unfair methods of competition" and "has asked the court to order Qualcomm to cease its anticompetitive conduct and take actions to restore competitive conditions." Qualcomm, for its part, said that the commission doesn't understand the smartphone component market well enough to make this complaint.

This is what Qualcomm general counsel Dan Rosenberg said in a statement:

In our recent discussions with the FTC, it became apparent that it still lacked basic information about the industry and was instead relying on inaccurate information and presumptions. In fact, Qualcomm was still receiving requests for information from the agency that would be necessary to an informed view of the facts when it became apparent that the FTC was driving to file a complaint before the transition to the new Administration. We have grave concerns about the two Commissioners' decision to bring this case despite a lack of evidence supporting the allegations and theories in the complaint. We look forward to defending our business in federal court, where we are confident we will prevail on the merits.

The outcome of this complaint might have a meaningful effect on the smartphone market. Qualcomm's dominance could be threatened, and if competitors offer more favorable terms as they scramble to get a bigger share of the component market, phones might even get cheaper. Perhaps more interesting devices will be introduced: the authors of The Smartphone Royalty Stack said that the cost of patent royalties and other non-hardware expenses "may be undermining industry profitability — and, in turn, diminishing incentives to invest and compete." That's not good for consumers.

Or maybe the FTC will get its first loss right as it starts to transition from the Obama administration to the incoming administration. This case is likely to have broad implications for the smartphone market either way, given the importance of both the FTC and Qualcomm to the devices in our pockets.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced that the next version of its nigh-ubiquitous wireless technology is now available.

Bluetooth 5 boasts many improvements over its predecessor. It's said to offer twice the speed, four times the range, and eight times the broadcasting message capacity of Bluetooth 4. This new version is also supposed to work better while other wireless signals like Wi-Fi are active. All of these improvements combine to allow Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other connected products to be far more reliable than they were in the past.

Here's what Bluetooth SIG had to say about Bluetooth 5 and IoT devices in an emailed press release:

“Bluetooth is revolutionising how people experience the IoT. Bluetooth 5 continues to drive this revolution by delivering reliable IoT connections and mobilising the adoption of beacons, which in turn will decrease connection barriers and enable a seamless IoT experience,” said Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “This means whole-home and building coverage, as well as new use cases for outdoor, industrial, and commercial applications will be a reality. With the launch of Bluetooth 5, we continue to evolve to meet the needs of IoT developers and consumers while staying true to what Bluetooth is at its core: the global wireless standard for simple, secure, connectivity.”

These changes arrive just as companies like Apple have started to remove physical connections from their devices. The iPhone 7 lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, for example, and the company also removed many useful ports from the newest MacBook Pro. Besides requiring people to buy dongles to use any products that rely on these forsaken connections, these decisions also necessitate the development of better wireless connectivity.

Bluetooth 5 also debuts amid the IoT revolution. More people are buying connected toys, cameras, and other gadgets than ever before. These products have their advantages, but they also often have security vulnerabilities anyone can exploit if they're connected to the internet. Exploiting that insecurity can do everything from compromising the privacy of children and the people around them to bringing down some of the world's largest websites for a while.

Those problems could be mitigated if these devices aren't connected to the internet. This would limit their utility--some products are supposed to be controlled from anywhere in the world, for example--but it would also make them more secure. Why should a "smart" doll connect directly to the internet rather than only working with a phone? And what's wrong with a security system that uses Bluetooth to send its recordings to another device?

Neither option would be all that compelling with Bluetooth 4. The protocol simply doesn't have the range or reliability people want from their wireless connections. (I sometimes have audio problems with an iPhone 7 that's connected to Bluetooth headphones not three feet away.) If this new version is able to deliver on its promises, though, limiting these devices to a local network becomes a much more viable option for security-minded consumers.

Bluetooth SIG said products with Bluetooth 5 support could debut within two to six months. The group said it expects 13.9 billion wireless products to ship by 2020, and its goal is to make sure as many of those devices as possible support Bluetooth. Given how popular the standard is today, the fact that one of the world's largest tech companies seems to have a vendetta against physical connections, and Bluetooth 5's improvements, that shouldn't be too hard.

Alphabet's Access subsidiary announced that it's "pausing" the expansion of the fiber-optic internet service commonly known as Google Fiber. Access CEO Craig Barratt also said that he will be stepping down, though he will continue to advise the company at the request of Alphabet CEO Larry Page, and that an unspecified number of Access employees will be laid off as the company reconsiders its strategy for making fast internet available to consumers.

Google Fiber will remain available in the cities where it's already debuted, and Barratt said the company will continue work in the cities where construction on its fiber-optic network has already started. Progress in the following cities will be halted by the changes to Google Fiber's expansion:

• Dallas, Texas
• Jacksonville, Fla.
• Los Angeles, Calif.
• Oklahoma City, Okla.
• Phoenix, Ariz.
• Portland, Ore.
• San Jose, Calif.
• Tampa, Fla.

Access is likely making these changes because fiber-optic networks are expensive to set up and maintain. The company will instead look to an alternative that could be cheaper, easier to roll out, and more appealing in certain areas: wireless networks. A filing with the Federal Communications Commission from August 2016 shows that Google wants to test high-speed wireless networks in multiple counties throughout the United States.

The filing is heavily redacted because Google believes disclosure of the "confidential and proprietary information" could "cause significant commercial, economic, and competitive harm." But the filing does reveal that Google wants permission to test Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) tech in up to 24 areas throughout the country for 24 months. The tests would help the company determine the viability of wireless networks for high-speed internet.

It's worth noting that the filing, and other filings made with the FCC, are issued by Google Inc. and Google Fiber Inc. This is likely a holdover from the project's beginnings and the recent corporate shuffle that made Google just another subsidiary of the new Alphabet Inc. Although the filing could be meant for a system totally unrelated to Fiber, chances are good that Alphabet will use these tests to help wean Access off of fiber-optic networks.

That's supported by Access working to develop new technologies. Here's how Barratt explained the reasoning behind the changes in the announcement:

Now, just as any competitive business must, we have to continue not only to grow, but also stay ahead of the curve — pushing the boundaries of technology, business, and policy — to remain a leader in delivering superfast Internet. We have refined our plan going forward to achieve these objectives. It entails us making changes to focus our business and product strategy. Importantly, the plan enhances our focus on new technology and deployment methods to make superfast Internet more abundant than it is today.

These changes could be seen as the end of an era. Despite numerous delays, Fiber was a welcome competitor to the almost-monopolies that offer high-speed internet access in much of the United States. It offered great speeds at affordable prices and even led other ISPs to increase their own internet speeds without hiking up their prices at the same time just so they could compete with Fiber's combination of affordability and performance.

Yet the August filing shows that Alphabet, Access, and Google haven't given up on Fiber's goal. Halting the network's expansion might frustrate people who live in the affected cities, but there is some comfort to be found in knowing that the mission of making better-than-decent internet available to more people remains the same. The technology almost doesn't matter: As long as the country's internet infrastructure is improved, few will complain.

Introduction

Bluetooth is everywhere—you'll find it in smartphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, cars, security systems, computer peripherals (mice, keyboads, headphones), smartwatches and more. A great many manufacturers in every sector of the tech industry have adopted Bluetooth for reliable and ubiquitous short-distance communication. But while most of us can decode the intricacies of a Wi-Fi connection by the standard's nomenclature, recognition of Bluetooth capabilities usually ends with the version number.

Bluetooth is fascinating, though—not just for its technical operation, but for the multi-national conglomerate of corporations standing behind it, and the work they do behind the scenes to makes sure Bluetooth is the standard. This article is an in-depth look at everything Bluetooth: the science, the tech, the security and the standard.

What Is Bluetooth?

In a nutshell, Bluetooth is a wireless communication specification operating on the unlicensed 2.4GHz band. It could be considered a short-range sibling of Wi-Fi. Where Wi-Fi enables wireless local area networks (WLANs) and ties together devices around some venue, Bluetooth enables wireless personal area networks (PANs) to enable communication in a 10-meter range (for Class 2 and Class 3 Bluetooth devices) and more than 100-meter range for Class 1 devices, mostly used for industrial applications. Even the low-power Class 2 and Class 3 devices are capable of greater than 10-meter range with the new networking and modulation schemes introduced by the Bluetooth standard in March 2016.

Wi-Fi, microwave ovens, drones and Bluetooth all operate on the 2.4GHz band. This frequency is categorized as "unlicensed" in most areas of the world. Unlicensed, however, does not mean unregulated—there are limits on the amount of power that can be transmitted, modulation schemes and unintentional out-of-band RF interference. Fortunately, operating a transmit/receive system does not require a user license. Otherwise we'd all have to take a radio operator course before enabling the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth functions on our smartphones, or even to turn on our microwave ovens.

Like all wireless communications technologies, Bluetooth requires a transmitter and receiver (with antennas on each), and modem-like control chips to modulate and demodulate the digital signal. These functions are usually integrated into one SoC that includes a transceiver, antenna and control chip. For more complex systems like smartphones, Bluetooth is often integrated into a multi-communication SoC that handles other wireless specifications as well.

Current implementations of Bluetooth come in two flavors: Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) and Bluetooth low energy (LE), also called Bluetooth Smart. The former establishes short-range connections for continuous data transfer (think headsets streaming music from a smartphone). Bluetooth LE is designed for short bursts of small data packets over a longer range in order to conserve battery life. Sensors, "smart" lightbulbs and other "smart home" devices are the ideal use-case for Bluetooth LE. Finally, some laptops and smartphones require both LE modes and BR/EDR modes, and this capability is offered by so-called "dual-mode" Bluetooth solutions.

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A Short History Of Bluetooth

In the tenth century, the Viking king Harald Blåtand (Harald Bluetooth in English) united large swathes of modern-day Norway and Denmark under his rule. Fast-forward to 1994, when Ericsson's R&D teams started investigating ways to connect computers and the "smartphones" of the day without cables. In 1997, Jim Kardach proposed the name "Bluetooth" for the new technology that would unify communications protocols like King Harald had united Scandinavia.

But Ericsson soon realized that implementing such a far-reaching, near-universal protocol would require cooperation on a vast scale. So, in 1998, along with Nokia, IBM, Intel and Toshiba, Ericsson founded the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). The first formalized Bluetooth technical specification arrived in 1999. The standard's logo is a ligature of two runes from the Younger Futhark runic alphabet: Hagall (ᚼ) and Bjarkan (ᛒ), Harald Bluetooth’s initials.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group

The Bluetooth specification was conceived as a worldwide communications specification. The founding members of the SIG, apart from being the multi-national companies with the most to gain from Bluetooth's adoption, also represented geographic regions: Ericsson and Nokia were from Europe, Toshiba hailed from Asia, and IBM and Intel represented North and South America.

The SIG's day-to-day tasks involve Bluetooth advocacy to governments, legal issues, managing test processes and compliance, and publishing the Bluetooth specification.

Microsoft, Motorola, Lucent Technologies and 3Com also jointed the SIG, and these nine companies formed the upper-level SIG administrators, the "SIG Promoters." The current list of promoters includes Apple, Ericsson, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nokia, and Toshiba.

"Associate Members" sign a legal document and pay an annual membership fee that allows them to participate in marketing and technical activities. They're also allowed to see draft documents 0.5 and above. With new Bluetooth specifications surfacing every few years, early drafts of the regulations provide Associate Members and the SIG Promoters an advantage in product design and deployment lead times. A third tier, called "Adopters," join for free, but still sign a legal memorandum of understanding. They have access to draft document versions 0.9 and above.

SIG membership is mandatory if a manufacturer wants to use the Bluetooth specification in products, or use the Bluetooth logo or other intellectual property.

IEEE, FCC, CE And Other Regulatory Acronyms

In the United States, the FCC allocates frequency bands for specific uses, the transmission power of devices in various configurations (narrowband vs. spectrum spread), modulation requirements and product certification for any product that has the potential for RF interference.

Most countries require some sort of licensing or approval of low-power devices operating on the 2.4GHz band, and also set limitations on power levels, modulation and other technical specifics of operation. Industry Canada (IC) handles this in Canada, there's CE for Europe and so on. And there are also country-specific requirements. For example, France sets geographical constraints, and Lithuania requires user licenses. Each regulation may also dictate the minimum and maximum number of channels Bluetooth can operate on.

The IEEE, a governing body that develops worldwide consensus standards on electronics, incorporated Bluetooth as standard 802.15.1. Wi-Fi is 802.11, in comparison.

Bluetooth Versions And Profiles

Bluetooth Versions

The SIG is continually modifying and updating the Bluetooth specification to keep up with demand and new technologies. Early access to these updated specifications, extended to the two top tiers of SIG members, can make a large difference in the time-to-market of consumer devices, and therefore long-term profits and market positioning of a company.

For consumers, upgrades to the Bluetooth standard introduce many benefits—greater security, more functionality (as with the enhanced data rate addition, and then the Bluetooth Low Energy specification for wearables), improved power consumption and paring reliability. All versions are backwards compatible, and the flagship features of each version are considered optional.

Bluetooth 1.x was plagued with a number of implementation and security problems, and is now obsolete. Bluetooth 2.x opened the gates to mass adoption of the standard, improved interoperability, and quick-pairing, and it introduced the Enhanced Data Rate capability. Bluetooth 3.x tacked on a High Speed feature by adding support for a lower layer link protocol where all Bluetooth capabilities could be run from an alternate radio in the device, like Wi-Fi. Finally, Bluetooth 4.x introduced Low Energy support for devices like wearables and smart sensors with very low data overhead.

Bluetooth Profiles

A Bluetooth profile is a set of pre-determined capabilities and a customized stack, determined by the type of operation intended. Profiles make it much easier to design for, implement and manage the very wide variety of Bluetooth operations needed for an application. For example, a car with Bluetooth capability would most commonly only implement the Hands Free Profile, containing a very customized protocol stack, but not implement the Serial Port Profile. Meanwhile, a sensor used for laboratory measurements would only implement the Serial Port Profile for collecting data, but would completely ignore the Audio/Video Remote Control Profile.

As of this writing, there are more than 33 profiles listed in the latest Bluetooth specification, and it allows for the addition of many more—as many as required for each new application class that may emerge in the coming years.

Certain profiles are usually implemented by all Bluetooth devices. For example, the Generic Access Profile (GAP) forms the basis of all other profiles and determines how two Bluetooth devices establish a connection. Other profiles are more specific, for example the Health Thermometer Profile (HTP) that facilities protocols for medical device data exchange.

Profile and device-specific APIs are a key element of many Bluetooth profiles, and implement the customized methods by which the protocol layers may interact.

Bluetooth Operation

Piconets

Bluetooth is designed for communication over a small network called a piconet. The simplest configuration is a point-to-point piconet, with one device designed as a "master" and the other a "slave." The master initiates the communication link, and in general, has control over the network's timing. Up to seven slaves can be connected to a master in a point-to-multipoint configuration. An example of this kind of operation is a smartphone (master) connecting to multiple Bluetooth slaves—a Bluetooth headset for streaming music, a Bluetooth keyboard as an input and a second smartphone for Bluetooth-based file transfers. This kind of system implies an ad-hoc network with no fixed roles or designations. Also, a Bluetooth master can dissolve its piconet and then go join a different piconet as a slave. Here's an example of Bluetooth network organization; Network 1 is a piconet in standalone mode, Network 2 is a scatternet:

A Bluetooth device can be a slave in more than one network (an example would be a multi-point Bluetooth headset that connects to a smartphone and a laptop simultaneously, and the data input from each source device switches the operation of the headset), or a slave in one network and a master in another. Configurations that go beyond the master-and-seven-slave setup are called scatternets.

Establishing A Bluetooth Piconet

Initiating a piconet is done by a master, and the Bluetooth protocol establishes a universal method for establishing links:

1. INQUIRY: the master sends out an inquiry to determine which devices are in range
2. INQUIRY RESPONSE: the devices hearing the inquiry respond with specific information (their paging parameters)
3. PAGE: the master then pages the specific device it wants to connect to
4. PAGE RESPONSE: the paged device acknowledges and responds
5. LINK PARAMETER EXCHANGE: now the two devices exchange their link parameters, and bi-directional data transfer can begin.

Each Bluetooth device can be in a number of states, depending on the commands sent to it (either internal, or based upon the type/commands of received data packets over the radio) and the type of operation that is expected of it. The three overall states are "standby," "connection," and "park." Each device maintains its own state, and the master maintains a list of its slaves' states (or expected states). There are also a number of sub-states: page, page scan, inquiry, inquiry scan, master response, slave response and inquiry response. 

Bluetooth Wireless Communication

While a detailed presentation of key RF transmission modulation techniques is outside the scope of this article, we present the basic skeleton of pertinent RF information required to gain a good understanding of Bluetooth communications.

If a digital signal composed of ones and zeros must be sent, the easiest way to do it would be to flick a switch "on" and "off"—any voltage-sensitive device connected to the circuit can then receive this data. Called the "baseband signal," this raw data needs to be bundled into a wireless RF carrier wave for it to be transmitted by a radio instead of over wires. There are many ways to handle this: the classic "AM" (Amplitude Modulated) and "FM"(Frequency Modulated) signals of analog radio, and Phase-Shift modulation.

Putting information onto a carrier RF wave is called modulation, and extracting the data (on the receiver’s end) is called demodulation. Incidentally, this is exactly what a modem is: a modulator and demodulator of signals. The act of modulating a signal is called "keying," and the individual schemes go by the acronyms that reflect this: FSK (Frequency-Shift Keying), PSK (Phase-Shift Keying) and so on. Each scheme has its own advantages and disadvantages, namely hardware requirements and the inherent error rate (BER, or Bit Error Rate) at a given power level. Either way, the schemes use a single bit (one or zero) to make a change in the symbol being sent in the carrier wave, so the symbol rate is also the bitrate of the signal.

Decoding the specific modulation requirements of the Bluetooth specification are also beyond the scope of this article, but for completeness, they are:

1.  GFSK with a Bandwidth-Time product of 0.5
2. Symbol rate of 1Ms/s (bitrate of 1 Mb/s)
3. Modulation index 0.28 < k < 0.35
4. Convention: 1 is positive, 0 is negative in terms of frequency delay
5. Symbol timing greater than 20ppm
6. A "zero crossing error" (i.e. the error in the times the frequency fluctuates between positive and negative ) no greater than 20 percent of the total time it takes to transmit one symbol.
7. A minimum frequency delay of 115kHz
8. Frequency delay of a 1010 sequence must be, at minimum, 80% of a delay of a 00001111 sequence.

It is disingenuous to claim that error rates drove the modulation scheme for Bluetooth—any modulation scheme is capable of low error rates and high data density, but the trade-off is a matter of SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). In order to meet the low-cost goals of the project, the Bluetooth specification settled on FSK. Amplitude modulation consumes the same amount of power as frequency modulation, however it must be designed to handle double the peak powers, which means expensive components. And though PSK has a far better SNR, the hardware components required for phase detection rule it out as a Bluetooth-enabling method of modulation. So, the Bluetooth specification takes FSK, adds Gaussian Baseband Filtering (a filter that cuts out certain frequencies in order to smooth out the jagged power transitions in the FM signal) and implements Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK) as a modulation technique. But with enhanced data rate operation implemented in later versions of the Bluetooth specifications, two separate modulation schemes are used—GFSK for basic data rate tasks (or the basic data rate portion of the packet) and DPSK (Differential Phase-Shift Keying) for the enhanced data rate additions to the transmission.

The next core RF technique that is integral to Bluetooth operation is Frequency Hopping. While the 2.4GHz band extends from 2.4GHz to 2.483GHz, Bluetooth transmits on a channel with a bandwidth of 1MHz. So Bluetooth can utilize up to 79 channels in the band, starting at 2.402GHz and going up in increments of 1MHz. Frequency Hopping means continually changing channels while transmitting a stream of data. This is one of the techniques (in fact, the core of almost all techniques) used to mitigate interference effects in the crowded 2.4GHz band. It also assists in forming the Bluetooth security strategy. Channel hopping rates, timing synchronization between devices and channel set protocols are all defined in the Bluetooth specification.

The final area pertinent to Bluetooth operations is transmission power. The transmission power of the transmitter, the sensitivity of the receiver, the RF bandwidth available and the actual RF frequency of the transmission determine the data transmission rate and the distance an RF link is operated over. Given that the channel bandwidths and the actual frequency are pre-determined by the Bluetooth specification, this leaves transmission power and receiver sensitivity, as variables that determine the effective range of Bluetooth devices.

The SIG defines three classes of Bluetooth devices based on transmit power. These mirror the classes of radios allowed on the ISM band by the FCC (maximum power limits in Europe are lower than those of North America, and the SIG uses the maximum worldwide allowable power to determine power thresholds). Class 1 devices are usually Bluetooth add-on modules for desktop computers, powered hubs, industrial equipment and other devices that need to maximize range. Capable of reaching up to 100 meters, Class 1 devices are restricted to a maximum power of 100mW (20dBm).

Class 2 devices have a typical range of 10 meters. They're the most common Bluetooth modules in headsets and peripherals. Battery life is important here, and the maximum permitted power for Class 2 devices is 2.5mW. Class 3 devices are designed for very short-range communications (typically within 1m). Wearables are a common application well-suited to Class 3 modules with a maximum permitted power of 1mW.

The range of a Bluetooth device is also determined by receiver sensitivity—Class 1 and Class 2 devices generally share about the same level of sensitivity (-75 to -60 dB), but ranges greater than 100m can be accomplished when two Class 1 devices, or Class 1 and Class 2 devices with very high-sensitivity receivers are linked together.

Even the guideline 10m range is not a constant—physical obstacles, walls and multiple reflections all affect the distance a signal will travel. Sometimes the impact is positive, but it's usually negative.

Interference

There are many, many different classes and sources of interference for Bluetooth on the 2.4GHz band. RF signals bounce off walls, internal device components and furniture, creating a "multipath" problem at the receiver. In some cases, the signal strength of a reflected RF wave may be stronger than the direct line-of-sight signal! So, a real-world multipath scenario may be used to enhance the signal strength and range of a Bluetooth transmission (as in the case of a long, narrow corridor). More often than not, though, it'll act as a source of interference and signal loss due to the time delay between the primary and reflected signals, leading to confusion at the receiver. Yes, a Bluetooth device can interfere with itself.

Then there is Bluetooth interference from other piconets, or even other devices within the same piconet. Since each master-slave connection synchronizes its channel-hops and timings, there is low probability that a packet will be mistakenly accepted from a foreign piconet or device, but it will be received nonetheless.

The final class of interference comes from other protocols on the 2.4GHz band—microwave ovens and, a more likely culprit, Wi-Fi. A number of studies were done to determine the effect of Wi-Fi interference on Bluetooth and vice versa, and most conclude that two meters  between a Bluetooth transmitter and Wi-Fi node reduces interference to operable levels. However, a Class 1 Bluetooth transmitter in close proximity to a Wi-Fi receiver can, and does, pose significant problems in maintaining a low BER, choking the data rates for both standards.

The core of most passive interference mitigation strategies is channel hopping. If a Bluetooth device determines that there is narrowband interference on a channel, the next hop will solve the problem. And since the channel hops of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are not synchronized, the likelihood of a receiver listening at the exact time and frequency channel that a foreign device is sending drops significantly.

Active interference mitigation can be handed either collaboratively or non-collaboratively. A non-collaborative approach used in cases where the source of interference is completely unknown is rejecting signals below a certain threshold determined by the very first packet that established the signal and link. Other non-collaborative strategies can be considered filtering-based as well. Forward error-correction is also used to mitigate some of the problems arising out of interference.

Collaborative interference mitigation is used most often in devices like smartphones, where Wi-Fi, cellular and other sources of RF radiation sit on the same chip as the Bluetooth module. This is an intensive and expensive approach, requiring close coordination and high-level control. Essentially, the host device’s controller manages several important parameters in order to make sure each radio operates without interference from another in close proximity. This allows strong Bluetooth transceivers and antennas to coexist within a few square centimeters of powerful Wi-Fi transceivers.

The Stack And Packet Exchange

The Bluetooth Stack

The Bluetooth stack is a set of hierarchical protocols designed to deal with the data required to make a successful Bluetooth session. These protocols can be divided into two areas. First is the lower stack, also called a “controller stack”, which contains the timing and radio control protocol (where the Bluetooth header information is used to determine channel-hopping synchronization, for example, or rejecting a channel for too much interference). Then there's the upper stack, also called the “host stack,” which deals with the higher-level data, for example the “how” of dealing with a two-way VoIP call’s audio requirements over a Bluetooth connection.

The controller stack is most commonly implemented in the hardware of the Bluetooth module/chip itself. The relevant protocols are:

1. ACL, or Asynchronous Connection-Less, a protocol for sending error-sensitive data like a document. The connection is asynchronous because the receiver and transmitter take turns sending while the other receives. ACL implements forward error-correction and retransmission of a data packet in the absence of acknowledgement.
2. SCO, or Synchronous Connection-Oriented, a link protocol used for voice data, where each transmitter in the link simply sends data during its time slot without waiting for acknowledgement. There is no retransmission of data, but forward error-correction can be implemented.
3. LMP, or Link Manager Protocol, used to handle link establishment between radios, queries and power control.
4. LE LL, or Low Energy Link Layer, an equivalent of LMP for Bluetooth Low Energy links.
5. HCI, or Host Controller Interface, a standardized communication protocol used to bridge the host stack and the control stack. There are multiple standards for HCI, and multiple hardware implementations.

The host stack most commonly sits at the operating system level of a PC, smartphone or other advanced device. In certain cases, like Bluetooth headsets, there may be no host stack at all, or a simplified host stack implemented in the device firmware. Protocols inherent in the host stack are:

1. L2CAP, or Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol, used to pass packets from the host to the HCI, or, when the HCI is omitted, directly to the LMP. L2CAP multiplexes data between different higher-layer protocols (voice data for a phone call transmitted alongside data input from a Bluetooth keyboard, for example), segments and reassembles Bluetooth data packets.
2. BNEP, or Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol, used to deliver network packets above L2CAP.
3. RFCOMM, or Radio Frequency Communication, a protocol used to emulate RS-232 serial ports.
4. SDP, or Service Discovery Protocol, used to allow devices to discover each others' service parameters and which Bluetooth profiles are supported.
5. TCS, or Telephony Control Protocol Specification, used to set up and control calls (voice and data) between devices.
6. AVCTP, or Audio/Video Control Transport Protocol, used to transfer Audio Video Control over the L2CAP link.
7. AVDTP, or Audio/Video distribution Transport Protocol, designed for audio and video distribution (such as streaming music to stereo headsets).
8. OBEX, or Object Exchange, used for simple data exchange between devices, for example a document or image.
9. ATT, or low energy ATTribute Protocol, the low-energy equivalent of SDP
10. SMP, or Low Energy Security Manager, a protocol used for pairing and specific key distribution.

Apart from the location of implementation, the stack can be divided according to the type of link:

• Physical Links: a baseband connection between two devices, associated with exactly one physical channel. Physical link properties include power control, link supervision and encryption.
• Logical Transports: data transport between master and slaves. These include SCO and ACL.
• Logical Links: “virtual” links that control various transports. These are defined to be Link Control, ACL Control, User Asynchronous/Isochronous (ACL-U), User Synchronous (SCO-S) and User Extended Synchronous (eSCO-S).

Bluetooth Packets And Packet Exchange

With the Enhanced Data Rate implemented as of Bluetooth v3.0, data packets are split into two types: the Basic Rate packet, which consists of the access code, header and payload, and the Enhanced Data Rate Packet, which consists of the access code, header, guard period, synchronization sequence, enhanced data rate payload and trailer. Here is what the basic data rate Bluetooth packet structure looks like:

Packet handling and packet sub-components defined by the Bluetooth specification can become rather involved. For example, the Access Code begins with a preamble, a sync-word and a trailer. The preamble and first bit of the sync word provide bit-synchronization, allowing the receiver to set a "decision threshold" of incoming signal strength for the lowest possible BER. The last portion of the sync word and the trailer provide data for decoding the header, which follows the Access Code. Further, there are multiple types of access codes, depending on the operation to be performed: the Channel Access Code (CAC) is included in all packets and is used by piconet members to determine whether they should accept the rest of the packet, the Device Access Code (DAC) is used by the master to page a specific device, the General Inquiry Access Code (GIAC) is used by the master to inquire which Bluetooth devices are within range and the Dedicated Inquiry Access Code (DIAC) is used by the master to page only a specific type of device (to page only printers in the building, for instance, not headsets or smartphones).

The packet header is a 54-bit, six-field entry providing the real data a piconet needs to function, including the addresses of the active slaves the master is addressing, the type of packet being sent (ACL or SCO, for example), the flow of packets to control buffering, an acknowledgement of successful receipt, a sequential number bit to prevent acceptance of duplicate or retransmitted packets and a unique sequence generated from a given polynomial function in order to protect the device from accepting an incorrect packet.

Packets consisting of only an access code and header are called NULL and POLL. They're used to convey flow, acknowledgement or ping a slave for a response.

The payload itself is the biggest chunk of data transmitted, and its structure varies depending on what kind of data is being transmitted.

Bluetooth Security

Bluetooth security employs three distinct features systematically: authentication between two devices, followed by acquiring permissions (authorization) and lastly, encryption. These three processes are implemented at several different layers in the protocol stack, leading to Bluetooth security being referred to as a “cross-layer function”. Security researchers at Kaspersky labs have referred to the Bluetooth specification as having “more security holes than Swiss cheese”. Based on a number of concerns, the pairing and authentication procedures have been updated with each revision.

Security begins with a potential master defining how it will be discovered, and options for connectivity:

1. Silent—this mode makes the device undetectable and the device doesn’t accept any connections, though it is able to detect Bluetooth traffic. The device can’t enter either the PAGE SCAN or INQUIRY SCAN state.
2. Private—in this mode, the device is able to enter into the PAGE SCAN state, but not INQUIRY SCAN. This status makes the device undiscoverable. 
3. Public—in this mode, the device can enter both the PAGE SCAN and INQUIRY SCAN states. It is therefore discoverable to other devices and implicitly open to connections.

The Generic Access Profile (GAP), which forms the basis of all other profiles, defines three different security modes for connections:

1. Mode 1 (non-secure) allows Bluetooth communication to take place between devices without authentication or encryption of the data.
2. Mode 2 (service-level enforced security) permits an Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL) link between two devices without authentication or encryption. The connection is non-secure. Once the Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP) channel request is made, security procedures are initiated.
3. Mode 3 (link-level enforced security) allows security procedures to be initiated while the Asynchronous Connection-Less link is being established.

Vulnerabilities And Mitigation

Like all communication protocols, Bluetooth is inherently vulnerable in certain scenarios. One class of vulnerability is proximal—because of the somewhat restricted range of Bluetooth radios (though, given the right circumstances, this range can be much larger than you might anticipate), the majority of attacks have to come from a source physically close to the piconet. But even with such a constraint, snooping, spoofing, denial of service attacks and drive-by malware downloads all are potentially possible.

In 2001, flaws were discovered by Bell Laboratories in Bluetooth's pairing system protocol and encryption. In 2003, Ben and Adam Laurie of A.L Digital Ltd. determined that that the technology's security could lead to the disclosure of personal info due to poor implementations. In 2004, Kaspersky Lab discovered a virus that could be spread through Bluetooth on the Symbian OS. In 2006, researchers from F-Secure and Secure Network showed how devices left in a visible state could be accessed, and that they were vulnerable to worms spread through Bluetooth.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a guide in 2008 for Bluetooth security in organizations. The guide outlines the possible attacks: denial-of-service, eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle, message modification and resource misappropriation, and includes a security checklist with guidelines and recommendations. Unfortunately, a number of these strategies address concerns at the manufacturer or firmware implementation level, and may not always be part of SIG’s qualification process (especially when a pre-qualified or pre-certified module is used). Do all manufacturers, especially ones producing end-products with price tags below $20, comply with up-to-date security recommendations?

Automatic authentication of Bluetooth doesn’t apply to the user, but rather to the device. If an unauthorized individual gains access to that device, security is compromised. This is mitigated by setting user-authentication requirements at the application level, or the upper layers of the Bluetooth stack, where a password must be supplied before a Bluetooth state can be changed.

The flow of data over a Bluetooth link is bidirectional once a connection is established. An eavesdropper may not have access to the channel-hop or synchronization list, but given enough time to listen, the statistical likelihood of intercepting a packet that contains important data for the LM layer rises. Encryption is the primary mitigation strategy for this sort of attack. Then there are attacks where an eavesdropper may use a high-power transmitter and spoofed packet access codes/headers (extracted from the previously intercepted packet) to fool a receiver into rejecting the correct data packets while believing the attacker (based on higher transmit power) is the genuine source.

All of the above attacks have individual mitigation strategies. But the greatest cause of security nightmares is the scenario where a Bluetooth connection is established to a network like the Internet. Then, all bets are off. Even if the Bluetooth link and stack are secured and encrypted, support for legacy applications may require second- or third-party software to act as a liaison between the application and Bluetooth security manager, in which case the liaison itself might be compromised. When a connection is established to access infrastructure like a LAN or the Internet, and there are several layers required to establish the connection, there will be end-to-end issues that may make it necessary to implement a solution that includes Bluetooth security. Without this option, the user has to insert several passwords at different levels, and that could get frustrating.

To prevent eavesdropping in a point-to-point security setup where a master communicates with a single slave, a number of established steps are required for security to be set successfully. Setting up a Bluetooth passkey or a Personal Identification Number (PIN) enables the building of several 128-bit pass keys. The PIN is then used to create the initialization key, which is used to establish a link key that can either be a unit key or a combination key. A unit key is established in a device with limited resources, while a combination key can be established in majority of the latest devices. In the event that encryption is required, the link key is used to generate the encryption key.

For security measures to be effective (to the extent that they can be), authentication and authorization have to be implemented after establishing the Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL) link. This is the equivalent of the GAP's Mode 2 security. The PIN, either set by the user or programmed into the Bluetooth unit found in the device, is one of the entities used to maintain high-level security. In most cases  where there is no man-machine interface (MMI), the PIN is preprogrammed. A common PIN is one that two devices share. When the PIN is entered on both devices, they create the same link key and the authentication process takes place. To ensure Bluetooth security, users are encouraged not to maintain a single PIN for multiple instances of connection, or multiple devices.  Pseudorandom number-generated PINs are used to establish secure links with devices that do not have a PIN. All Bluetooth devices have this feature enabled, allowing them to create 128-bit binary numbers once a request is made.

The authentication key (link key) ensures the legitimacy of other devices in the piconet. Due to its length and random generation, the authentication key makes it difficult for a third party to guess. These keys can either be used once or on a semi-permanent basis. Link keys also generate the encryption key where necessary. A device is considered trusted when it has authorization based on previous authentication to access various services. Devices are defined as untrusted when they require the user to insert a password for authorization to be granted.

On the flip side of the coin are the methods of attacking Bluetooth networks. Even the latest specification, 4.x, is vulnerable to many of these attacks, with new threats surfacing every day. The aptly named “Car Whisperer” accesses the audio stream from Bluetooth-enabled vehicles, and Redfang, the venerable Bluetooth snarfer, is joined by a number of software packages circulating openly on the Internet. There are some very high-end, polished products that were originally used for penetration testing and in-house security qualification that have since leaked to the darker shadows of the Web. Some common attacks enabled by Bluetooth’s vulnerabilities include:

• Bluejacking—when an unauthorized source sends a short data transmission, most often some text or a message, to an unsuspecting receiver.
• Bluesnarfing—unauthorized access to information on a Bluetooth host, allowing access to user files like documents, emails and pictures. Any device in a “discoverable” state is vulnerable to this. Bluesniping, where a directional antenna is used to target Bluetooth devices over 1km away, is a specific form of Bluesnarfing.
• Bluebugging—a short-range attack where a host/master is “tricked” into assuming an unauthorized device (with its ID spoofed to look like a legitimate Bluetooth headset) for redirecting calls and messages intended for the victim.

Hardware, Manufacturing And Host Integration

At the lowest level, a Bluetooth device has two key components: a radio and a baseband controller. Simple enough, right? But the small footprint, interoperability constraints and low-cost objectives of Bluetooth technology make manufacturing modules and devices a difficult engineering task when it comes to RF chip design. The challenge is appreciable enough that companies are fanatic about safeguarding their IP, and will often not provide detailed designs for the base Bluetooth IC/SoC even to the vendor that is manufacturing/integrating the final consumer device.

At the highest level of engineering design, the first decision to make about Bluetooth is its integration with the host product. There are almost as many ways to implement Bluetooth integration in a consumer end-product as there are classes of products. Broadly, they can be classified as:

• Integrated single-chip, where the baseband circuits and Bluetooth radio are completely integrated into the host SoC module. This type of approach is most commonly used in headsets, and the design complexity of a single chip like this is overshadowed by the lower cost of manufacturing and integration.
• Standalone single-chip, where a single Bluetooth SoC containing the baseband circuitry and radio is integrated into a larger system assembly. This is commonly seen on computer peripherals like Bluetooth keyboards and mice, or certain types of smartphones and tablets. Pre-certified Bluetooth modules can be used to save on costs.
• Dual-chip, where the baseband circuits and radio are housed in two separate IC packages. This approach has lost ground to the single-chip approach, and is most often seen when the radio sticks to analog operation and the baseband IC is digital.

The hardware integration is closely (but not always) tied to the partitioning of the Bluetooth protocol stack. Where the Bluetooth implementation is completely integrated with the host, it is the host’s software/firmware and host’s computing resources that are used to manage the upper and lower stacks and the API. In all other cases, the radio and baseband circuits always handle the lower stack (LM, LC and down), so the difference is in where and how the upper stack is managed. For a standalone single or radio-baseband-dual chip, a microcontroller implements the upper stack and there is often no need for the API. When Bluetooth shows up as a host add-on, for example in a Bluetooth adapter for a PC, the Bluetooth plug-in module handles the lower stack, the module communicates with its host through HCI and the host software/drivers handle the upper stack and API. Finally, in the host ASIC case, everything sits on the single Bluetooth chip, and the API on the host machine/device communicates with the module.

Manufacturing

The actual Bluetooth radio and baseband chips (whether single SoC or dual-chip solutions) are manufactured using different technologies based on the application. There are variations on CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) chips, gallium-arsenide (GaAs) chips and the most common—silicon-germanium (SiGe) semiconductors in varying packages turned into modules using LTCC (low-temperature co-fired ceramic) films or PCBs (printed circuit boards).

CMOS variants can include the standard bulk CMOS approach, RF (radio frequency) CMOS and SOI (silicon-on-insulator). Traditional bulk CMOS is used to build the digital-only baseband chip, and then chained to an analog circuit for the Bluetooth radio. RF-CMOS adds the radio directly onto the CMOS chip, and SOI adds an insulator layer between the RF and BB circuits for isolation.

GaAs chips are used in “ruggedized” or military applications, since gallium arsenide devices are more resistant to high levels of electromagnetic pulsed radiation—they can be knocked offline by an EMP, but the component isn't reduced to slag. Since the manufacturing process for GaAs is completely different than CMOS (and far more expensive), most manufactures serving the consumer market no longer develop GaAs chips.

An RF chip made from SiGe has higher efficiency and greater throughput than a pure silicon semiconductor-based radio. The choice of silicon CMOS or SiGe BiCMOS depends on the application—where cost is a factor, a standard CMOS die is used, whereas for applications that require better RX or TX sensitivity/power or low power consumption, BiCMOS is used. The final packaging also depends on manufacturer requirements and final device/application: leaded SOIC (small outline integrated circuit), QFP (quad flat package) or PLCC (plastic leaded chip carrier).

Pictured above are the SOIC package and the BGA package.

Leadless designs (BGA—Ball Grid Array, CSP—Chip Scale Package, WLCSP—Wafer Level Chip Scale Package) are used for devices like smartphones, where small footprints are important and generally present good cost savings over QFP packages.

Qualification, Testing And Certification

Imagine a large room—a conference hall, perhaps—where engineers and representatives from dozens of manufacturers, either collaborators or competitors or sometimes both, bombard each other with Bluetooth signals. This is UnPlugFest, an event organized by the SIG, where manufacturers come to test the interoperability of their devices. Interoperability is a key aspect of the Bluetooth standard, and one of the many tests a device must undergo before it is qualified by the SIG.

The SIG imposes qualification requirements in the form of the Bluetooth Qualification Program (BQP), including product performance and compliance with the Bluetooth specifications. Once it passes the BQP, the product must be certified, by the FCC in the USA, CE in the EU, TELEC in Japan, etc. The entire certification cycle can take more than a year, and may cost up to tens of thousands of dollars in testing and administrative fees.

Given the complexity, length and high cost of designing and certifying Bluetooth modules, many manufacturers choose to use a pre-certified module in their final consumer product—laptops are a good example of this. Essentially, if a product uses a pre-certified module, the certificate comes with a very strict set of guidelines as to its maintenance, but otherwise can be used without further testing or qualification.

Major Bluetooth Manufacturers

The first Bluetooth headset designed by Ericsson for Nokia was made by Lucent Technologies in 2002. Lucent merged with Alcatel in 2006, and then Alcatel-Lucent officially joined Nokia in 2016. Since Lucent’s first headset, manufacturers all over the world have incorporated Bluetooth into their designs, or based their businesses entirely around Bluetooth. Sony, Philips, Samsung, Apple—all of these companies are major presences in the Bluetooth landscape. Bluetooth chipsets are generally manufactured by semiconductor companies, and once qualified/certified, incorporated into modules or end-products by the major technology vendors.

That very first Ericsson headset was manufactured by VLSI Technologies, which in turn was bought by Phillips in 1999 and then became a part of the Phillips spinoff, NXP Semiconductors.

Other large manufacturers are:

• Texas Instruments
• Cypress Semiconductor
• Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR)
• Nordic Semiconductor
• STMicroelectronics
• Dialog Semiconductor

Broadcom, Mediatek and pretty much every other RF module manufacturer has Bluetooth products to offer. Apart from the nine SIG Promoter companies, the member registry lists thousands of organizations at the Associate or Adopter levels. This is not counting the sub-component manufacturers, multi-million-dollar, publicly traded multinationals like IDT, Xilinx and Microchip Technology, all of whom produce microcontrollers, RF modules, transceivers and other sub-components that are integral to the design of other companies’ solutions.

The Future Of Bluetooth

The phenomenal commercial success of Bluetooth means that neither the standard nor its inherent problems are going anywhere. Vendors will introduce support for a wider range of device classes, especially ones that feature Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy, designed for the Internet of Things. Bluetooth 4.2 was released in 2014—Apple, Samsung, TI and everyone else is already using this latest iteration that allows for better privacy, speed and IPv6. From the vendor side, expect to see better power management, faster data rates and the possibility of a more advanced modulation schemes in high-end devices.

In terms of the standard itself, there are a number of challenges looming on the horizon for Bluetooth. Congestion in the 2.4GHz band is getting worse. Some of the interference is mitigated by Bluetooth’s adaptive frequency hopping capabilities, and Wi-Fi growth is mostly happening in the 5GHz band. But there should be more emphasis on cooperative interference mitigation strategies in the future. The responsibility (or framework required) to implement such strategies is currently in the vendors’ court, but we hope that eventually the standard will present some recommendations on how to standardize those approaches.

We interviewed Mark Powell, executive director of the SIG, and he believes that Bluetooth is the key to tying together the changes we're going to be seeing in wireless communications. Bluetooth is evolving and building up the strength of its low-energy modes—in February 2016, the SIG announced a new architecture and toolkit to enable “smart” Bluetooth functionality where IoT devices are connected over an Internet gateway. Then, in March 2016, the Bluetooth SIG announced the addition of a Transport Discovery Service (TDS), which provides a common framework for low-energy IoT devices.

Older data exchange applications for Bluetooth are coming under pressure from faster technologies like WiGig. But the SIG envisions Bluetooth as a key enabling technology for such applications. Under a cooperative scenario, Bluetooth could be used to page devices capable of WiGig and other high data-rate technologies, perhaps even controlling the wake/sleep state of those power-hungry radios and establish connections. The low power consumption and ubiquity of Bluetooth makes it ideal for enabling such an adaptive “only when needed” operation scenario for data transfer.

The growth of Bluetooth-enabled devices is accelerating, and 2016 promises another iteration of the specification. By lowering the modulation rate of the Bluetooth signal (and therefore its sensitivity to noise), the standard will improve the data rate and range of Class 2 and Class 3 devices. And, for the first time, we expect to see a large number of new network topologies—for instance, mesh networks and decentralized host-to-host networks directly accessing the WAN. This could lead to a complete shift in the kinds of applications, profiles and capabilities that Bluetooth addresses.

The Internet of Things is at the core of this paradigm shift—Bluetooth-equipped light bulbs, Bluetooth door locks, devices acting as relays without a “master”—devices capable of networked operation will hit the market in droves, and soon. Perhaps foreseeing the problem of Bluetooth devices without any capability for input (how do you enter a PIN into a light bulb?), the SIG’s newly released architecture and Bluetooth gateway services will enable the setup and control of these networks over the internet.

We anticipate smart-bulbs and smart appliances, and perhaps smartphone and Web-based apps for control, similar to the capabilities of smart Wi-Fi router apps. This does mean that, in certain cases, Bluetooth’s greatest security strength, the fact that attacks need to come from a physically proximal source, will be negated by direct access of Bluetooth-enabled devices to the Internet. The specification requires 128-bit AES encryption, but the responsibility for dealing with more involved security scenarios is probably going to remain at the application layer, and firmly on the shoulders of device vendors.

Still, we believe that the most exciting developments in Bluetooth will come from the new network topologies. Mesh networking...mesh networking for everything! New topologies open up a vast array of possibilities for information sharing, research and data transport protocols. With a 400% increase in the range of Bluetooth Smart, and a 2.5x increase in data transfer speeds, with battery demands met by button cell batteries, 2016 and 2017 hold the possibility for new classes of end-products we have never seen before.

MORE: Wireless Routers 101
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Gene Fabron is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. Follow her on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Introduction And Specifications

Wi-Fi range extenders are popular for their ability to increase wireless network coverage without a bunch of messy cabling. The proliferation of handheld devices has changed the coverage needs of typical homes and businesses compared to a few years ago. When you find yourself with flagging performance or dead zones, you're either stuck running wires to deploy additional access points or using a device like Linksys' RE6700 extender, which we're reviewing today.

The AC1200 Amplify Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE6700) packs a lot of performance into a relatively small package. Don't let its dimensions fool you though—this range extender includes all of the features you'd expect from an AC1200-class device, along with some extras that make it one of the leaders in a crowded segment. Here are the specifications and key features you'll find in the RE6700.

Specifications

MORE: Wireless Range Extender 101
MORE: How We Test Wireless Range Extenders
MORE: AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender Round-Up
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Linksys' RE6700 boasts a newer 2.4GHz radio and the same 5GHz chip used in the RE6500 that we've tested before, so we expect similar class-leading performance from the RE6700. It offers simultaneous dual-band data rates up to 300 Mb/s in the 2.4GHz band and 867 Mb/s in the 5GHz band. The RE6700 also supports beamforming, which helps maintain better signal strength and throughput.

Because it is a Wi-Fi Certified product, the RE6700 should work with any other Wi-Fi-certified router, regardless of manufacturer. The only notable option missing is the ability to configure it as a wired access point. If you need that functionality, you'll have to look elsewhere.

One of the first things you'll notice about the RE6700 are its dual external antennas, which should help this device outperform some of its competition that utilizes internal antennas.

It was a good decision by Linksys to include a power pass-through port, as range extenders often consume a port needed by other nearby electronics. This is especially true if you intend to utilize another of the RE6700's key features: media bridging. Not every networkable device supports wireless connectivity, and the RE6700 can be used as a media bridge by connecting a network cable from the extender unit's GbE port to a smart TV or gaming system.

Linksys also includes its innovative Cross Band technology. Using it, the RE6700 can efficiently utilize multiple frequency bands to separate client streams from backhaul transmissions to the router, maximizing performance. This translates to greater throughput, eliminating the typical 50 percent penalty other repeaters incur when trying to transmit and repeat on the same radio channels.

In addition, the RE6700 supports the direct streaming of audio files from a plethora of DLNA-compatible host devices, including options for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS users. If the RE6700 is plugged in near a stereo, it can be the conduit for getting your digital music library into your audio system with just a simple cable. On its support website, Linksys even provides a guide for setting this up—it's quite a cool feature!

The RE6700 feels heavy-duty when you hold it in your hand. Its enclosure is smaller than many other devices in this category, and seems to be built to stay out of your way. The plain, white casing blends in with most décor, and the external antennas aren't too obtrusive. Overall, Linksys' construction is solid, improving on older models like the RE1000 and the RE2000.

Plugged into an outlet, the RE6700 leaves enough room to insert a three-prong plug above it. This is a welcome change from some of the other products in this category that not only consume an outlet, but are also so bulky that they block out other devices. At just 1.5 inches thick, the RE6700 isn't really obtrusive at all, and its wall-plug design saves valuable desktop space.  

Power pass-through on the RE6700 is achieved with a straight-through non-fused port, much like an extension of the wall plate itself. Linksys does not recommend using the pass-through port for a power strip, as it may interfere with antenna operation, but it should be fine for any other single-plug devices. It is rated for 110V devices at up to 14.5A.

A Closer Look

Aside from the unit itself, the RE6700 comes with a quick-start guide and a regulatory information pamphlet in the box. There's no need for an external power adapter since this is an integrated unit meant to be plugged directly into a wall socket. There is no software CD either; the RE6700 allows for a direct wired or wireless connection to it. And as long as the router you are extending has a working Internet connection, you can download the complete manual via a Web link provided in the quick-start guide.

Internals

Linksys' platform starts with a MediaTek MT7620A WiSoC (Wi-Fi system on a chip), which includes a 580MHz processor and 2.4GHz 2x2 MIMO radio. The 5GHz band is managed by MediaTek's MT7612E 2x2 MIMO chip. It uses a Winbond 25Q128FV2G 16MB flash chip for booting the device and firmware storage, and has 64MB of RAM on-board. Ethernet duties are handled by a Realtek RTL8211E GbE PHY, and the unit exposes a single 10/100/1000 port on the bottom. There is also a 3.5mm audio jack controlled by a Cirrus WM8960G codec with a Class D speaker driver, which can stream audio content from DLNA servers and requires powered speakers.

This is a very tightly integrated design, so the entire board is surrounded by heat sinks to dissipate the thermal energy generated by on-board components.

Once the main board is removed, you can see how the power components and wireless antenna connectors are arranged underneath it.

Management

The quick-start guide has only three steps to get you up and running, all of which can easily be accomplished with a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Once the device is plugged in and connected, you will be presented with this screen:

When you click Start, you will be taken to the license agreement information. It is a simple matter of accepting the terms, and clicking Next.

Then, you are presented with a list of nearby networks that you can extend. Our router is currently set to the default name of Linksys13789 (and its 5GHz counterpart), so we selected it from the list and clicked Next again.

The RE6700 automatically groups 2.4 and 5GHz networks from the same router, and can even repeat a single-band device if your main router supports only single-band service.

The setup process even offers a graphical representation of how good the location of the RE6700 is relative to your main router. This Spot Finder feature made it easy to fine-tune the RE6700's placement, which is critical for getting the best performance from any range extender.

If the extender is placed too far away from your router, the speed will be inadequate. If it's placed too close, it can actually interfere with the router. This visual indicator makes it easy to get placement just right.

Once you have the RE6700 running, there are other settings you can manage from the browser-based GUI. Anyone who has used a Linksys device will recognize the familiar categories, and the flow is similar to what you'd remember. You can change the network names, channel widths, security settings and so on, but also configure more advanced settings like Quality of Service and the aforementioned Cross Band settings (although, with Auto selected, the device manages the Cross Band feature well on its own).

Here are the various settings available in the management GUI for the Linksys RE6700.

While Linksys does a good job overall with this management interface, power users may miss certain features. One missing capability found on competing products is a speed indicator for the connection between the repeater and the router. This would have been helpful in troubleshooting performance issues with client devices attached to the repeater network. Also, some of the signal-strength indicators give you only a one-, two- or three-bar representation instead of actual RSSI measurements, without indicating the cutoff points. Does two bars mean -30 dBm, -40 dBm or -70 dBm?

The quality-of-service (QoS) settings are pared down to just two options, including WMM Support: Enabled/Disabled and No Acknowledgement: Enabled/Disabled. Gone is the ability to prioritize traffic by MAC, allocate bandwidth to specific applications and other QoS settings power users expect.

On a positive note, the WLAN statistics page shows a wealth of data to help detect issues like excessive dropped packets, which really helps when you're battling interference issues.

The site survey feature is also helpful for detecting and avoiding nearby networks, as proper channel selection is key to getting the best performance out of any wireless infrastructure.

Test Results And Conclusion

We conducted throughput tests with Ixia's IxChariot at ranges of five, 25, 50 and 75 feet in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands to evaluate the RE6700's performance. For comparison, we're including measurements from a number of recently-tested competitors. See How We Test Wireless Range Extenders for more details on our test methodology and setup.

At a range of five feet, Linksys' RE6700 more than doubles the performance we've seen from other AC1200-class extenders in the 2.4GHz band. The RE6700 obliterates its competition at this range.

Testing in the 5GHz band also shows the RE6700 leading, though by a much narrower margin. Netgear's EX6200 comes close in a comparison of maximum throughput, but doesn't match Linksys' average. 

At 25 feet, the RE6700 continues to lead in the 2.4GHz band. Throughput figures just under 17 Mb/s (minimum) and more than 25 Mb/s (average) mean the RE6700 can easily accommodate an HD video stream from most providers at this range.

The 5GHz band once again tightens the race, with Amped Wireless' REA20 catching up quite a bit. The RE6700 still takes the crown in our minimum and average throughput measurements though, and it's edged out slightly in maximum throughput by its older sibling, the RE6500.

At a range of 50 feet, our results become more interesting. The RE6700 is the maximum throughput leader, but Amped Wireless' REA20 scores a win in minimum and average throughput using the 2.4GHz band.

In the 5GHz band, Linksys' RE6700 is bested by Amped Wireless' offering in every metric except maximum throughput. They achieve similar averages, the RE6700 shows better maximum figures and the REA20 maintains superior minimums. Some of the other competitors also beat the RE6700 in maximum throughput. Regardless, the average figure is best for making real-world comparisons. The RE6700 and REA20 nearly tie in this particular test.

The graph above shows the measured wireless signal strength from several AC1200-class devices. The RE6700 is competitive at the beginning, and achieves the highest measurement at a range of 40 to 65 feet. Since this distance represents a typical usage case for a range extender, we can safely say the RE6700 meets or exceeds its competition in the 2.4GHz band for what most enthusiasts need from it.

The 5GHz band always reflects less signal strength than its 2.4GHz counterpart, and the graph above shows this for every device benchmarked. The RE6700 starts out stronger up to about 15 feet, and resumes its lead between 30 and 45 feet in our measurements. Beyond 45 feet, the Amped Wireless REA20 edges out the RE6700 in signal strength by a small margin.

We also conducted a separate test designed to investigate the RE6700's Cross Band feature. We connected a laptop via gigabit Ethernet on the bottom of the RE6700 and used it as a wireless bridge. We then tested the throughput with our extender at 50 feet away from the router.

The results are interesting. If we limit the extender to use only the 2.4GHz band, we see throughput that is higher than it would be with a wireless client device (wireless-to-wireless), but much lower than if we exclusively use the 5GHz band. If we force the RE6700 to not use the Cross Band feature, we see the penalty imposed by having it available to serve other wireless clients in the same band. This is how typical range extenders/repeaters work. When we enable Cross Band in auto mode, the stream reaches its maximum throughput figures, showing the feature's benefit.

We also wanted to see what impact, if any, the use of the pass-through port had on an attached device's power consumption. For this test, we connected a GE telephone and Dell monitor to the pass-through port, and used our Kill-A-Watt meter to test their power draw. We compared the results to the draw of the same devices plugged directly into a wall without the RE6700 in the mix.

The RE6700's impact is minimal (0.2W for the phone and 0.1W for the monitor). When we plug the Kill-A-Watt meter directly into the wall plate to measure combined wattage, we see even less effect. It appears that the RE6700 is an efficient device, and it has very little overall impact on attached devices.

Conclusion

Linksys' RE6700 raises the bar for performance at its price point. We were very impressed with its throughput, especially when you consider it costs $120. 

The lack of an AP mode and some other missing features are its downside, but you won't find a competing model that is easier to configure and use without spending significantly more money. Throw in the DLNA audio streaming feature, the power pass-through port and the media bridge option, and you have a small package that delivers big on functionality.

MORE: Wireless Range Extender 101
MORE: How We Test Wireless Range Extenders
MORE: AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender Round-Up


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Sand Dutcher is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware.

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Specifications And Features

It's probably safe to say that wireless connectivity is more ubiquitous than wired connections in the home. Even still, there's a void that a simple network switch can fill. Such a device facilitates range that doesn't wane across the house and provides consistent performance, regardless of who's using the microwave. Those factors are important if you need a steady connection for streaming high-quality audio and video, or transferring large files. 

Today, we're reviewing the Linksys SE4008 WRT Gigabit Switch, an interesting-looking networking device with styling reminiscent of Linksys' family of WRT routers, both in color and shape. Specifically, this switch was conceptualized as a stacking pair with the WRT1900AC router, but is also stackable with the WRT1900ACS and WRT1200AC devices. If the switch is installed along with a compatible router, Linksys emphasizes that it should be placed underneath to allow heat to escape from the sides and bottom.

Linksys is now owned by Belkin, but it still provides a range of switches that are appropriate for the home. Its SE4008 WRT falls around the middle of the price spectrum compared to stablemates like the SE1500 and SE3024. However, as mentioned, the SE4008 WRT is special due to its aesthetics and its ability to pair with compatible routers, even though it commands a premium price over the similar SE2800 eight-port switch. 

Specifications

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Features

The SE4008 WRT's specifications include a 128KB memory buffer, an 8000-entry MAC address table, an MTBF of approximately 853,300 hours and status LEDs for connectivity/activity (there's a switch on the back to turn them off). The unit utilizes the typical store-and-forward method of passing data along.

The SE4008 WRT is compliant with 802.3az Energy-Efficient Ethernet and 802.3x flow control. It also supports network standards like 802.3 10BASE-T, 802.3u 100BASE-T and 802.3ab 1000BASE-T, with all ports auto-sensing and able to adjust to the fastest speed supported on the connecting device, up to gigabit link rates. Even though the SE4008 WRT does not use much power, it can turn off unused ports or those in which the plugged-in client is powered down.

Lastly, the SE4008 WRT includes a quality-of-service feature (IEEE 802.1p) that automatically prioritizes network traffic for video and audio applications, which may help smooth out streaming. The 802.1p standard operates at the data-link layer by setting a three-bit value in the MAC header to indicate prioritization level. There are multiple levels of prioritization, ranging from 0 up to 7. If network congestion occurs, packets that have been assigned higher priorities receive preferential treatment.

In The Box

The SE4008's bundle is fairly limited. Rubber grip pads are already installed on the switch's feet. You also get a power adapter, a documentation CD and the switch itself. Unlike most other switches that can be wall-mounted, the SE4008 does not come with anchors or screws. However, because this switch will most likely be stacked with a compatible router, this omission is not egregious. 

The SE4008 is available online from vendors like Newegg, Amazon and TigerDirect. Its MSRP is $80, however, current prices range from $51 to $70. That's quite a bit of cash compared to competing switches with similar features. You'll have to decide if the expense is worth the fairly niche convenience of stacking another Linksys device, and if you're really attached to that nostalgic appearance. The SE4008 comes with a one-year warranty.

Installation And Tear-Down

Comparison Ethernet Switches

Installation

The SE4008 WRT is fairly bulky, measuring 246 x 194 x 62 millimeters (W x D x H). This could cause issues if you're trying to install the switch on a space-constrained desk. Then again, if you're stacking the SE4008 WRT anyway, you might not even notice your networking equipment one device taller. The switch's feet have a layer of rubber, which helps the switch's stability regardless of whether a router is placed on top.

The feet play host to four slots you can use to mount the device either vertically or horizontally on the wall. You'll have to acquire the wall anchors or screws though; Linksys doesn't include them. The ports are located in the back of the switch, which could cause confusion if the LEDs are turned off and you're not able to see whether a client is plugged in.

A bundled wall wart supplies 12V/1A of power. It faces sideways, so make sure you have the room on your UPS or surge protector to plug the adapter in.

The SE4008 WRT was designed with a wing of plastic that juts away from the back of the enclosure. It covers the switch port area from above, so this minor feature is a particularly welcome addition on a desk, where liquid can be spilled and dust accumulates.

Tear-Down

The SE4008 WRT's build quality is fantastic for a device with a plastic case. The chassis is heavy-duty and adds a satisfying amount of weight to the switch. There's little to no observable flexing when pressure is applied to the body. Every piece of the switch fits together flush, and, again, the aesthetics remind us of WRT products of the past. Ventilation is more than adequate thanks to openings on the bottom and sides.

Gaining access to the internals proved difficult, necessitating a Dremel tool. If there is another way to get inside, I was not able to find it.

What holds the SE4008 WRT together, aside from a couple of screws on the bottom, are sets of unreachable tabs that are tough to disengage. Given the difficulty in opening its case, the SE4008 WRT may be cheap enough that warranty repair work is out of the question. A direct replacement is more likely if your unit fails during its first year. Once the main pieces are clipped together at the factory, the plastic shell looks like it's never meant to be opened again.

With a heat sink affixed to the Realtek RTL8370 controller, thermal issues shouldn't be a concern. The sink appeared to do its job adequately during use, as the case only became slightly warm to the touch.

Test Results And Conclusion

Benchmarks were run using IxChariot, and graphs are shown with averages. There were four different types of results gathered during the testing: straight cable, point to point, bidirectional and mesh. Be sure to read our How We Test Ethernet Switches article for more in-depth details on our testing procedures, and if you're interested, take a look at the Unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet Switch Roundup, which compares other competing switches.

The straight cable results were gathered by connecting the server and client to each other with a patch cable, thus excluding a switch. Point-to-point results were generated by connecting the server and client to each switch and passing information from the server to the client. Bi-directional testing involved connecting the server and client to the switch, and passing data between both at the same time. Mesh testing results came from conducting a test with three pairs: endpoint to endpoint, endpoint to server, and server to endpoint.

The straight-cable testing creates a baseline we can compare to our other results once the switch is introduced to the network. As we can see, the endpoints utilize most of the 1 Gb/s connection.

In point-to-point testing, the SE4008 keeps pace with other unmanaged switches. The results are fairly consistent across the field, as all of these contenders easily handle the traffic load of just two endpoints.

The switches are not burdened in the least, and even though they create an obstacle for the data to pass through, that extra device does not affect performance significantly. With only two endpoints on the switch, the SE4008 does not need to reference many entries in its table nor dedicate much processing power to routing information where it needs to go.

Again, the SE4008 posts results similar to those of the other switches. The performance differences can possibly be attributed to the unique hardware platforms inside each switch. Despite any outliers, the averages were similar between the products. So, in a real-world arrangement that mimics the bi-directional test, there shouldn't be a discernible difference.

The mesh testing reveals some interesting results. When the switches are loaded with traffic, they start to stand apart from each other. The products do sport similar features, such as buffer sizes and table entries. However, the Netgear features a larger memory buffer, which might be associated with the GS308's consistently better results. Linksys' SE4008 posts decent numbers, even when it's loaded down with traffic.

These slower numbers (at least compared to the point-to-point and bi-directional tests) could again be attributed to each switch's SoC. Once the devices are hit with data, there are more packets to process and pass along, consuming resources and resulting in longer processing times. 

Response time is consistent across all of the products. Really, any difference between them is negligible.

Conclusion

With so many options armed with similar features and performance—such as the Netgear GS308, ZyXEL GS-108B and Amped Wireless G8SW—it's hard to justify Linksys' price premium on the SE4008 WRT, particularly if you are not planning to stack it with a compatible router like the WRT1900ACS. It certainly doesn't earn a recommendation based on value. But if the aesthetic aspect is important enough to you and you're looking for a good unmanaged switch, the SE4008 is still a respectable choice.

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Eric Bliss is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. Follow us on Twitter @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

A home wireless network is not only convenient nowadays, it's necessary, and a router is more than enough to provide coverage throughout our homes. But a router's coverage only extends so far; obstructions and large distances will diminish your Wi-Fi signal. The easiest solution to this is to install a wireless range extender, and TP-Link's new RE350K and RE590T offer just that.

The TP-Link RE350K is an AC1200 wall-pluggable range extender offering coverage of up to 10,000 square feet. The RE350K features LED indicators signifying optimal setup location and a single gigabit Ethernet port. Wi-Fi coverage is provided via two external dual-band antennas and 700mW high-powered amplifiers. Since the RE350K is a wall-plug range extender, it inherently features flexible non-obtrusive installation.

TP-Link's RE590T is an AC1900 desktop range extender that, like the RE350K, features 10,000 square feet of coverage and 700mW high-powered amplifiers. Since the RE590T is a desktop extender, it doesn't offer discreet and flexible placement like a wall-plugged extender would. But as a desktop solution, it offers a 1GHz dual-core processor, three external dual-band antennas and four gigabit Ethernet ports. The RE590T also features a 4.3 inch touch screen display that allows users to easily set up and manage the extender without having to access a web interface.

The RE590T range extender can be managed through TP-Link's Tether app, which is available for both Android and iOS devices. On the other hand, the RE350K is managed through  TP-Link's Kasa app, which makes optimal installation placement even easier. Both extenders also have beamforming technology and advanced security encryption. The RE350K and RE590T are intended to work with any router or access point, so potential buyers need not worry about compatibility issues.

The TP-Link RE350K and RE590T Wi-Fi Range Extenders are available on TP-Link's website and major retailers for $99.99 and $149.99 respectively.

Alexander Quejado is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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MediaTek announced that it will partner with Japan’s Docomo wireless network to develop the necessary technologies to support 5G devices on DoCoMo’s network by 2020. The company also announced a new collaboration with Orange to integrate its cellular connectivity into IoT-focused chipsets that are sold to developers of IoT products and "connected objects."

MediaTek is one of the major chip makers that Docomo chose as its partner for developing a new 5G air interface and the chipsets that will support 5G wireless connectivity by 2020. The two companies intend to test the technologies indoor and outdoor in 2017, and then start developing the wireless interface and chipsets a year later.

“Docomo is excited to work together with MediaTek to maximize the performance and capacity for new 5G networks,” said Seizo Onoe, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Docomo. “The opportunities for how 5G will enable people and things to connect to each other are endless as 5G technology will drive new innovations and improve the user experience for consumers and businesses alike," he added.

Orange seeks to help professional developers avoid complex arrangements for getting cellular connectivity on their IoT products, which is why it’s working with MediaTek to integrate Orange SIM cards directly into its chipsets.

The professional developers can be anyone from small startups looking for out-of-the-box IoT connectivity for their products, or companies that operate on a much larger scale. The cellular connectivity lasts up to five years, and the cost is included in the price of the chipsets.

The “IoT Booster Programme” is expected to receive access to more services in the future, such as geo-location, device management, data management, and more. The connectivity for these devices will be available on Orange and its roaming partners’ networks in 200 countries.

"We want to accelerate the ecosystem and unleash the potential of IoT to connect a myriad of devices,” said Yves Maitre, Executive VP for Connected Objects and Partnerships, Orange."Our collaboration with MediaTek will combine our network and connectivity with MediaTek chipset expertise to make it easier for our customers to install cellular connectivity into their product line using an off-the-shelf bundle, all for one fixed price," he added.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

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Introduction

A wireless router is the central piece of gear for a residential network. It manages network traffic between the Internet (via the modem) and a wide variety of client devices, both wired and wireless. Many of today's consumer routers are loaded with features, incorporating wireless connectivity, switching, I/O for external storage devices as well as comprehensive security functionality. A wired switch, often taking the form of four gigabit Ethernet ports on the back of most routers, is largely standard these days. A network switch negotiates network traffic, sending data to a specific device, whereas network hubs simply retransmit data to all of the recipients. Although dedicated switches can be added to your network, most home networks don't incorporate them as standalone appliances. Then there's the wireless access point capability. Most wireless router models support dual bands, communicating over 2.4 and 5GHz and many are also able to connect to several networks simultaneously.

Part of trusting our always-on Internet connections is the belief that private information is protected at the router, which incorporates features to limit home network access. These security features can include a firewall, parental controls, access scheduling, guest networks and even a demilitarized zone (DMZ), referring to the military concept of a buffer zone between neighboring countries). The DMZ, also called a perimeter network, is a subnetwork where vulnerable processes like mail, Web and FTP servers can be placed so that, if it is breached, the rest of the network isn't compromised. The firewall is a core component in today's story. In fact, what differentiates a wireless router from a dedicated switch or wireless access point is the firewall. Although Windows has its own software-based firewall, the router's hardware firewall forms the first line of defense in keeping malicious content off the home network. The router's firewall works by making sure packets were actually requested by the user before allowing them to pass through to the local network.

Finally, you have peripheral connectivity like USB and eSATA. These ports make it possible to share external hard drives or even printers. They offer a convenient way to access networked storage without the need for a dedicated PC with a shared disk or NAS running 24/7.

Some Internet service providers (ISPs) integrate routers into their modems, yielding an "all-in-one" device. This is done to simplify setup, so the ISP has less hardware to support. It can also be advantageous to space-constrained customers. However, in general, these integrated routers do not get firmware updates as frequently, and they're often not as robust as stand-alone routers. An example of a combo modem/router is Netgear's Nighthawk AC1900 Wi-Fi cable modem router. In addition to its 802.11ac wireless connectivity, it offers a DOCSIS 3.0 24 x 8 broadband cable modem.

DOCSIS stands for "data over cable service interface specifications," and version 3.0 is the current cable modem spec. DOCSIS 1.0 and 2.0 defines a single channel for data transfers, while DOCSIS 3.0 specifies the use of multiple channels to allow for faster speeds. Current DOCSIS 3.0 modems commonly use 8, 12 or 16 channels, with 24-channel modems also available. Each channel offers a theoretical maximum download speed of 38 Mb/s and a maximum upload speed of 27 Mb/s. The standard's next update, DOCSIS 3.1, promises to offer download speeds of up to 10 Gb/s and upload speeds of up to 1 Gb/s.

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Wi-Fi Standards

The oldest wireless routers supported 802.11b, which worked on the 2.4GHz band and topped out at 11 Mb/s. This original Wi-Fi standard was approved in 1999, hence the name 802.11b-1999 (later it was shortened to 802.11b).

Another early Wi-Fi standard was 802.11a, also ratified by the IEEE in 1999. It operated on the less congested 5GHz band and maxed out at 54 Mb/s, although real-world throughput was closer to half that number. Given a shorter wavelength than 2.4GHz, the range of 802.11a was shorter, which may have contributed to less uptake. While 802.11a enjoyed popularity in some enterprise applications, it was largely eclipsed by the more pervasive 802.11b in homes and small businesses. Notably, 802.11a's 5GHz band became part of later standards.

Eventually, 802.11b was replaced by 802.11g on the 2.4GHz band, upping throughput to 54 Mb/s. It all makes for an interesting history lesson, but if your wireless equipment is old enough for that information to be relevant, it's time to consider an upgrade.

802.11n

In the fall of 2009, 802.11n was ratified, paving the way for one device to operate on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Speeds topped out at 600 Mb/s. With N600 and N900 gear, two separate service set identifiers (SSIDs) were transmitted—one on 2.4GHz and the other on 5GHz—while less expensive N150 and N300 routers cut costs by transmitting only on the 2.4GHz band.

Wireless N networking introduced an important advancement called MIMO, an acronym for "multiple input/multiple output." This technology divides the data stream between multiple antennas. We'll go into more depth on MIMO shortly.

If you're satisfied with the performance of your N wireless gear, then hold onto it for now. After all, it does still exceed the maximum throughput offered by most ISPs. Here are some examples of available 802.11n product speeds:

802.11ac

The 802.11ac standard, also known as Wireless AC, was released in January 2014. It broadcasts and receives on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, but the 2.4GHz frequency on an 802.11ac router is really a carryover of 802.11n. That older standard maxed out at 150 Mb/s on each spatial stream, with up to four simultaneous streams, for a total throughput of 600 Mb/s.

In 802.11ac MIMO was also refined with increased channel bandwidth and support for up to eight spatial streams. Beamforming was introduced with Wireless N gear, but it was proprietary, and with AC, it was standardized to work across different manufacturers' products. Beamforming is a technology designed to optimize the transmission of Wi-Fi around obstacles by using the antennas to direct and focus the transmission to where it is needed.

With 802.11ac firmly established as the current Wi-Fi standard, enthusiasts shopping for routers should consider one of these devices, as they offer a host of improvements over N gear. Here are some examples of available 802.11ac product speeds:

The maximum throughput achieved is the same on AC1900 and AC3200 for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The difference is that AC3200 can transmit two simultaneous 5GHz networks to achieve such a high total throughput.

The latest wireless standard with products currently hitting the market is 802.11ac Wave 2. It implements multiple-user, multiple-input, multiple-output, popularly referred to as MU-MIMO. In broad terms, this technology provides dedicated bandwidth to more devices than was previously possible.

Wi-Fi Features

SU-MIMO And MU-MIMO

Multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), first seen on 802.11n devices, takes advantage of a radio phenomenon known as multipath propagation, which increases the range and speed of Wi-Fi. Multipath propagation is based on the ability of a radio signal to take slightly different pathways between the router and client, including bouncing off intervening objects as well as floors and ceilings. With multiple antennas on both the router as well as the client—and provided they both support MIMO—then using antenna diversity can combine simultaneous data streams to increase throughput.

When MIMO was originally implemented, it was SU-MIMO, designed for a Single User. In SU-MIMO, all of the router's bandwidth is devoted to a single client, maximizing throughput to that one device. While this is certainly useful, today's routers communicate with multiple clients at one time, limiting the SU-MIMO's technology's utility.

The next step in MIMO's evolution is MU-MIMO, which stands for Multiple User-MIMO. Whereas SU-MIMO was restricted to a single client, MU-MIMO can now extend the benefit to up to four. The first MU-MIMO router released, the Linksys EA8500, features four external antennas that facilitate MU-MIMO technology allowing the router to provide four simultaneous continuous data streams to clients.

Before MU-MIMO, a Wi-Fi network was the equivalent of a wired network connected through a hub. This was inefficient; a lot of bandwidth is wasted when data is sent to clients that don't need it. With MU-MIMO, the wireless network becomes the equivalent of a wired network controlled by a switch. With data transmission able to occur simultaneously across multiple channels, it is significantly faster, and the next client can "talk" sooner. Therefore, just as the transition from hub to switch was a huge leap forward for wired networks, so will MU-MIMO be for wireless technology.

Beamforming

Beamforming was originally implemented in 802.11n, but was not standardized between routers and clients; it essentially did not work between different manufacturers' products. This was rectified with 802.11ac, and now beamforming works across different manufacturers' gear.

What beamforming does is, rather than have the router transmit its Wi-Fi signal in all directions, it allows the router to focus the signal to where it is needed to increase its strength. Using light as an analogy, beamforming takes the camping lantern and turns it into a flashlight that focuses its beam. In some cases, the Wi-Fi client can also support beamforming to focus the signal of the client back to the router.

While beamforming is implemented in 802.11ac, manufacturers are still allowed to innovate in their own way. For example, Netgear offers Beamforming+ in some of its devices, which enhances throughput and range between the router and client when they are both Netgear products and support Beamforming+.

Other Wi-Fi Features

When folks visit your house, they often want to jump on your wireless network, whether to save on cellular data costs or to connect a notebook/tablet. Rather than hand out your Wi-Fi password, try configuring a Guest Network. This facilitates access to network bandwidth, while keeping guests off of other networked resources. In a way, the Guest Network is a security feature, and feature-rich routers offer this option.

Another feature to look for is QoS, which stands for Quality of Service. This capability serves to prioritize network traffic from the router to a client. It's particularly useful in situations where a continuous data stream is required; for example, with services like Netflix or multi-player games. In fact, routers advertised as gaming-optimized typically include provisions for QoS, though you can find the functionality on non-gaming routers as well.

Another option is Parental Control, which allows you to act as an administrator for the network, controlling your child's Internet access. The limits can include blocking certain websites, as well as shutting down network access at bedtime.

Wireless Router Security

There are two types of firewalls: hardware and software. Microsoft's Windows operating system has a software firewall built into it. Third-party firewalls can be installed as well. Unfortunately, these only protect the device they're installed on. While they're an essential part of a Windows-based PC, the rest of your network is otherwise exposed.

An essential function of the router is its hardware firewall, known as a network perimeter firewall. The router serves to block incoming traffic that was not requested, thereby operating as an initial line of defense. In an enterprise setup, the hardware firewall is a dedicated box; in a residential router, it's integrated.

A router is also designed to look for the address source in packets traveling over the network, relating them to address requests. When the packets aren't requested, the firewall rejects them. In addition, a router can apply filtering policies, using rules to allow and restrict packets before they traverse the home network. The rules consider the source of a packet's IP address and its destination. Moreover, packets are matched to the port they should be on. This is all done at the router to keep unwanted data off the home network.

The wireless router is responsible for the Wi-Fi signal's security, too. There are various protocols for this, including WEP, WPA and WPA2. WEP, which stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, is the oldest standard, dating back to 1999. It uses 64-bit, and subsequently 128-bit encryption. As a result of its fixed key, WEP is widely considered quite insecure. Back in 2005, the FBI showed how WEP could be broken in minutes using publicly available software.

WEP was supplanted by WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) featuring 256-bit encryption. Addressing the significant shortcoming of WEP, a fixed key, WPA's improvement was based on the Temporal Key Integrity Program (TKIP). This security protocol uses a per-packet key system that offers a significant upgrade over WEP. WPA for home routers is implemented as WPA-PSK, which uses a pre-shared key (PSK, better known as the Wi-Fi password that folks tend to lose and forget). While the security of WPA-PSK via TKIP was definitely better than WEP, it also proved vulnerable to attack and is not considered secure.

Introduced in 2006, WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) is the more robust security specification. Like its predecessor, WPA2 uses a pre-shared key. However, unlike WPA's TKIP, WPA2 utilizes AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), a standard approved by the NSA for use with top secret information.

Any modern router will support all of these security standards for the purpose of compatibility, as none of them are new, but ideally, you want to configure your router to employ WPA2/AES. There is no WPA3 on the horizon because WPA2 is still considered secure. However, there are published methods for compromising it, so accept that no network is impenetrable.

All of these Wi-Fi security standards rely on your choice of a strong password. It used to be that an eight-character sequence was considered sufficient. But given the compute power available today (particularly from GPUs), even longer passwords are sometimes recommended. Use a combination of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and special characters. The password should also avoid dictionary words or easy substitutions, such as "p@$$word," or simple additions—for example, "password123" or "passwordabc."

While most enthusiasts know to change the router's Wi-Fi password from its factory default, not everyone knows to change the router's admin password, thus inviting anyone to come along and manipulate the router's settings. Use a different password for the Wi-Fi network and router log-in page.

In the event that you lose your password, don't fret. Simply reset the router to its factory state, reverting the log-in information to its default. Manufacturers have different methods for doing this, but many routers have a physical reset button, usually located on the rear of the device. After resetting, all custom settings are lost, and you'll need to set a new password.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) is another popular feature on higher-end routers. Rather than manually typing in a password, WPS lets you press a button on the router and adapter, triggering a brief discovery period. Another approach is the WPS PIN method, which facilitates discovery through the entry of a short code on either the router or client. It's vulnerable to brute-force attack, though, so many enthusiasts recommend simply disabling WPS altogether.

Software

Web And Mobile Interfaces

Wireless routers are typically controlled through a software interface built into their firmware, which can be accessed through the router's network address. Through this interface you can enable the router's features, define the parameters and configure security settings. Routers employ a variety of custom operating environments, though most are Web-based. Some manufacturers do offer smartphone-enabled apps for iOS and Android, too. Here's is an example of a software interface for the Netis WF2780, seen on a Windows desktop. While not easy to use for amateurs, it does allow for control over all the settings. Here we can see the Bandwidth Control Configuration in the Advanced Settings.

Routers offer a wide range of features, and each vendor has its own set of unique capabilities. Overall, though, they do share generally similar feature sets, including:

• Quick Setup: For the less experienced user, Quick Setup is quite useful. This gets the device up and running with pre-configured settings, and does not require advanced networking knowledge. Of course, experienced users will want more control.

• Wireless Configuration: This setting allows channel configuration. In some cases, the router's power can be adjusted, depending on the application. Finally, the RF bandwidth can be selected as well. Analogous settings for 5GHz are available on a separate page.

• Guest Network: The router software will provide the option to set up a separate Guest Network. This has the advantage of allowing visitors to use your Internet, without getting access to the entire network.

• Security: This is where the SSIDs for each of the configured networks, as well as their passwords, can be configured.

• Bandwidth Control: Since there is limited bandwidth, it can be controlled to provide the best experience for all (or at least the one who pays the bills). The amount of bandwidth that any user has, both on the download and upload sides, can be limited so one user does not monopolize all the bandwidth.

• System Tools: Using this collection of tools, the router's firmware can be upgraded and the time settings specified. This also provides a log of sites visited and stats on bandwidth used.

Here is a screenshot of a mobile app called QRSMobile for Android, which can simplify the setup of a wireless router, in this case the D-Link 820L.

This screenshot shows the smartphone app for the Google OnHub.

Open-Source Firmware

Historically, some of these vendor-provided software interfaces did not allow full control of all possible settings. Out of frustration, a community for open source router firmware development took shape. One popular example of its work is DD-WRT, which can be applied to a significant number of routers, letting you tinker with options in a granular fashion. In fact, some manufacturers even sell routers with DD-WRT installed. The AirStation Extreme AC 1750 is one such model.

Another advantage of open firmware is that you're not at the mercy of a vendor in between updates. Older products don't receive much attention, but DD-WRT is a constant work in progress. Other open source firmware projects in this space include OpenWRT and Tomato, but be mindful that not all routers support open firmware.

Hardware

System Board Components

Inside a wireless router is a purpose-built system, complete with a processor, memory, power circuitry and a printed circuit board. These are all proprietary components, with closed specifications, and are not upgradeable.

The above image shows the internals of Netis' N300 Gaming Router (WF2631). We see the following components:

1. Status LEDs that indicate network/router activity
2. Heat sink for the processor—these CPUs don't use much power, and are cooled without a fan
3. Antenna leads for the three external antennas to connect to the PCB
4. Four Ethernet LAN ports for the home network
5. WPS Button
6. Ethernet WAN port that connects to a provider's modem
7. Power jack
8. Factory reset button
9. 10/100BASE-TX transformer modules — these support the RJ45 connectors, which are the Ethernet ports.
10. 100 Base-T dual-port through-hole magnetics. These are designed for IEEE802.3u (Ethernet ports).
11. Memory chip (DRAM)

Antenna Types

As routers send and receive data across the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, they need antennas. There are multiple antenna choices: external versus internal designs, routers with one antenna and others with several. If a single antenna is good, then more must be better, right? And this is the current trend, with flagship routers like the Nighthawk X6 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router featuring as many as six antennas, which can each be fine-tuned in terms of positioning to optimize performance. A setup like that facilitates three simultaneous network signals: one 2.4GHz and two 5GHz.

While a router with an internal antenna might look sleeker, these designs are built to blend into a living area. The range and throughput of external antennas are typically superior. They also have the advantages of reaching up to a higher position, operating at a greater distance from the router's electronics, reducing interference, and offering some degree of configurability to tune signal transmission. This makes a better argument for function over form.

The more antennas you see on a router, the more transmit and receive radios there are, corresponding to the number of supported spatial streams. For example, a 3x3 router employs three antennas and handles three simultaneous spatial streams. Using current standards, these additional spatial streams account for much of how performance is multiplied. The Netis N300 router, pictured on the left, features three external antennae for better signal strength.

Ethernet Ports

While the wireless aspect of a wireless router gets most of the attention, a majority also enable wired connectivity. A popular configuration is one WAN port for connecting to an externally-facing modem and four LAN ports for attaching local devices.

The LAN ports top out at either 100 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s, also referred to as gigabit Ethernet or GbE. While older hardware can still be found with 10/100 ports, the faster 10/100/1000 ports are preferred to avoid bottlenecking wired transfer speeds over category 5e or 6 cables. If you have the choice between a physical or wireless connection, go the wired route. It's more secure and frees up wireless bandwidth for other devices.

While four Ethernet ports on consumer-oriented routers is standard, certain manufacturers are changing things up. For example, the TP-Link/Google OnHub router only has one Ethernet port. This could be the start of a trend toward slimmer profiles at the expense of expansion. The OnHub router, pictured on the right, features a profile designed to be displayed, and not hidden in a closet, but this comes at the expense of external antennas, and the router has only a single Ethernet port. Asus' RT-AC88U goes the other direction, incorporating eight Ethernet ports.

USB Ports

Some routers come with one or two USB ports. It is still common to find second-gen ports capable of speeds of up to 480 Mb/s (60 MB/s). Higher-end models implement USB 3.0, though. Though they cost more, the third-gen spec is capable 5 Gb/s (640 MB/s). The D-Link DIR-820L features a rear-mounted USB port. Also seen are the four LAN ports, as well as the Internet connection input (WAN).

One intended use of USB ports is to connect storage. All of them support flash drives; however, some routers output enough current for external enclosures with mechanical disks. If you don't need a ton of capacity, you can use a feature like that to create an integrated NAS appliance. In some models, the storage is only accessible over a home network. In other cases, you can reach it remotely.

The other application of USB on a router is shared printing. Networked printers make it easy to consolidate to just one peripheral. Many new printers do come with Wi-Fi controllers built-in. But for those that don't, it's easy to run a USB cable from the device to your router and share it across the network. Just keep in mind that you might lose certain features if you hook your printer up to a router. For instance, you might not see warnings about low ink levels or paper jams.

Conclusion

The Future Of Wi-Fi

Wireless routers continue to evolve as Wi-Fi standards get ratified and implemented. One rapidly expanding area is the Connected Home space, with devices like thermostats, fire alarms, front door locks, lights and security cameras all piping in to the Internet. Some of these devices connect directly to the router, while others connect to a hub device—for example, the SmartThings Hub, which then connects to the router.

One upcoming standard is known as 802.11ad, also referred to as WiGig. Actual products based on the technology are just starting to appear. It operates on the 60GHz spectrum, which promises high bandwidth across short distances. Think of it akin to Bluetooth with a roughly 10 meter range, but performance on steroids. Look for docking stations without wires and 802.11ad as a protocol for linking our smartphones and desktops.

Used in the enterprise segment, 802.11k and 802.11r are being developed for the consumer market. The home networking industry plans to address the problem of using multiple access points to deal with Wi-Fi dead spots, and the trouble client devices have with hand-offs between multiple APs. 802.11k allows client devices to track APs for where they weaken, and 802.11r brings Fast Basic Service Set Transition (F-BSST) to facilitate authentication with APs. When 802.11k and 802.11r are combined, they will enable a technology known as Seamless Roaming. Seamless Roaming will facilitate client handoffs between routers and access points.

Beyond that will be 802.11ah, which is being developed to use on the 900MHz band. It is a low-bandwidth frequency, but is expected to double the range of 2.4GHz transmissions with the added benefit of low power. The envisioned application of it is connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Out on the distant horizon is 802.11ax, which is tentatively expected to roll out in 2019 (although remember that 802.11n and 802.11ac were years late). While the standard is still being worked on, its goal is 10 Gb/s throughput. The 802.11ax standard will focus on increasing speeds to individual devices by slicing up the frequency into smaller segments. This will be done via MIMO-OFDA, which stands for multiple-input, multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, which will incorporate new standards to pack additional data into the 5GHz data stream.

What To Look For In A Router

Choosing a router can get complicated. You have tons of choices across a range of price points. You'll want to evaluate your needs and consider variables like the speed of your Internet connection, the devices you intend to connect and the features you anticipate using. My own personal recommendation would be to look for a minimum wireless rating of AC1200, USB connectivity and management through a smartphone app.

Netis' WF2780 Wireless AC1200 offers an inexpensive way to get plenty of wireless performance at an extremely low price. While it lacks USB, you do get four external antennas (two for 2.4GHz and two for 5GHz), four gigabit Ethernet ports and the flexibility to use this device as a router, access point or repeater. Certain features are notably missing, but at under $60, this is an entry-level upgrade that most can afford.

Moving up to the mid-range, we find the TP-Link Archer C9. It features AC1900 wireless capable of 600 Mb/s on the 2.4GHz band and 1300 Mb/s on the 5GHz band. It has three antennas and a pair of USB ports, one of which is USB 3.0. There's a 1GHz dual-core processor at the router's heart and a TP-Link Tether smartphone app to ease setup and management. You'll find the device for $130.

At the top end of the market is AC3200 wireless. There are several routers in this tier, including D-Link's AC3200 Ultra Wi-Fi Router (DIR-890L/R). It features Tri-Band technology, which supports a 2.4GHz network at 600 Mb/s and two 5GHz networks at 1300 Mb/s. To accomplish this, it has a dual-core processor and no less than six antennas. There's also an available app for network management, dual USB ports and GbE wired connectivity. The Smart Connect feature can dynamically balance the wireless clients among the available bands to optimize performance and prevent older devices from slowing down the rest of the network. Plus, this router has the aesthetics of a stealth destroyer and the red metallic paint job of a sports car! Such specs do not come cheap; expect to pay $300.

Conclusion

Wireless routers are assuming an ever-important role as the centerpiece of a residential home network. With the increasing need for multiple, simultaneous continuous data streams, robust throughput is no longer a nice feature, but rather a necessity. This becomes even more imperative as streaming 4K video moves from a high-end niche into the mainstream. By taking into consideration such factors as the data load as well as the number of simultaneous users, enthusiasts shopping for wireless routers will get the help they need to choose the router that best fits their needs and budget.

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Jonas DeMuro is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware.
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If the router was the heart of a home’s wireless network, sending and receiving lifeblood (data) to and from all parts of the body, then the modem must be the mouth that feeds the network. Just as the heart can only provide for the body so long as it is fed well, no matter how good your router is, it can only deliver speed as fast as the cable modem can provide.

With every intention to provide nourishment to our home networks, Linksys announced a handful of new cable modems here at CES. The CM3008 and CM3024 are new high speed cable modems with DOCSIS 3.0 8x4 and DOCSIS 3.0 24x8, respectively. The CM3008 provides up to 343 Mbps download speeds and 120 Mbps upload speeds, and it's aimed at users whose Internet plans are capped at 100 MBps. The CM3024 is intended for those in the fast-lane; it is capable of providing up to 960 Mbps download speeds and 240 Mbps upload speeds.

The Linksys CG7500 is a high speed AC1900 Dual-Band Cable Modem Router with DOCSIS 3.0 24X8 and is aimed at buyers who have an Internet plan in excess of 100 Mbps. It provides the functionality of both a modem and a router, effectively destroying my analogy -- or perhaps, the mouth and heart are one and the same. On the router side, users will enjoy speeds of up to 600 Mbps on 802.11n and 1300 Mbps on 802.11ac. It features a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a USB 2.0 port, four gigabit Ethernet ports and internal antennas.

Finally, the X6200 ADSL/VDSL Dual-Band Wi-Fi Modem Router is a modem router combo with a built-in DSL modem. The X6200 features speeds of 300 Mbps on 2.4 GHz and 433 Mbps on 5 GHz, four standard gigabit Ethernet ports, one gigabit WAN port with auto MDI/MDIX sensing, one VDSL/ADSL2/2+ port, and a USB 2.0 port. The X6200 will support VPN pass-through with IPSec, PPTP and L2TP, traffic logging, DHCP server for LAN and IPv4/IPv6 dual-stacking. The modem supports ITU G992.5 ADSL2+ Annex A, L, and M, as well as VDSL G.993.1 and ITU G.993.2 standards.

The Linksys CM3008 DOCSIS 3.0 8X4 Cable Modem, CM3024 DOCSIS 3.0 24X8 Cable Modem and CG7500 AC1900 Cable Modem Router will be available only in the U.S., for $69.99, $129.99 and $249.99, respectively, and will be compatible with all major service providers. The CM3008 and CM3024 will be available this spring, whereas the CG7500 will be available this summer. The X6200 ADSL/VDSL Dual-Band Wi-Fi Modem Router will be available this March for €99,99 and £79,99.

Alexander Quejado is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Alexander Quejado on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.