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By: Stephen J Smith

Have you been in your upstairs office and screamed at your laptop or tablet because it keeps getting bumped offline?

Have you ever wished that you could easily better manage the multitude of people and devices that are on your home wi-fi?

Well, get in line — you’re just one of the millions of people that have been looking for  a solution to these and many other problems.

Over the years, the techno-nerds in Silicon Valley developed ugly black boxes that Internet service providers would install in your home – walk away and pray that the green and red lights would make you feel confident that everything was copacetic. The cryptic instructions they left behind suggested that if for some reason you lost your connection you should, “Turn of your router – wait 60 seconds and then turn it back on.”

That was a good solution back in the days when you had the family laptop in the dinning room. However, according to research conducted by the NPD Group, the average American home has 7.8 connected devices on their home network. Moreover, as more appliances from the Internet of Things become mainstream, connected devices will likely at least double in the home.

So, the question is, “What’s a family to do?”

Not only do you want to maintain your Internet speeds and functionality – you also need to control what each device and child in your home can do on that network. Parental controls are no longer a quaint option – they are a necessity.

We’ve reviewed several products and will highlight a few of them in future CINCINNATI BELL APP UPDATES. However, for now, the Wall Street Journal and several other publications provide an excellent review of several of these devices.

Assuming that your router hasn’t  stalled – please take a look.

Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal: These Routers Fix Wi-Fi Dead Zones But Will Cost You

http://www.wsj.com/articles/these-routers-fix-wi-fi-dead-zones-but-theyll-cost-you-1469038426

 

 

Consumer Reports

WiFi Face-Off: Orbi vs. eero vs. Luma

http://www.consumerreports.org/wireless-routers/wifi-face-off-orbi-vs-eero-vs-luma/

 

 

 

Gizmodo

A Stupid Simple Router for Super Lazy People

http://gizmodo.com/a-stupid-simple-router-for-super-lazy-people-1764670728

 

 

About Stephen J Smith