Dong Knows Tech The Asus Blue Cave has the usual amount of ports plus a very usual hole right in the middle. There’s literally a big intriguing blue hole right in the middle the Asus Blue Cave that catches your full attention the first time you lay eyes on it.

• Blue Cave Aimesh

But that’s all there is to it. I was a bit disappointed when Asus told me there was no deep meaning about this hole. It’s just a conversation — or review — starter. There you have it! As a Wi-Fi router, however, there’s nothing blue about the Blue Cave. It’s one of the fastest routers I’ve tested with tons of useful features. It also has surprisingly long Wi-Fi range considering its compact footprint.

If you have a medium house of around 2,000ft² (180m²), you’ll find the Blue Cave an excellent buy. Dong’s note: This review was originally published on May 10, 2018 and has been updated.

Asus Blue Cave: A weird name in an unconventional design At a glance, the Blue Cave is like no other router you’ve seen. It’s a square piece of hardware with a big hole — big enough to put a golf ball through — right in the middle. When the router is turned on, the entire area surrounding the hole glows different shades of blue and remains that way, until you choose to dim or turn it off via the router’s web interface. (This, by the way, means you can only have this light off when using the Blue Cave as a router, when used as an AiMesh node, you’ll have to live with that light being on at all time.) I’ve asked Asus many times about the idea behind this design since the router was. At first, the company said it had something to do with the positioning of the internal antennas but now, turned out, there’s nothing to it.

It’s just for the look, and that totally works! You sure will remember the Blue Cave once you’ve seen it.

Nonetheless, I like the design. While you can’t wall-mount it, you can place it on almost any surface thanks to its small footprint. The router is heavier than it appears and stays put, it doesn’t topple easily. The intriguing look means you won’t need to hide it, either. By the way, I like the name, too.

Kinda weird for a networking device, but easy to remember. On the back, the router has the usual ports and buttons: four Gigabit LAN ports, one Gigabit WAN (Internet) port, one USB 3.0 port, a power button, a reset button and a WPS button. It’s just like any other Asus router, such as the.

Blue Cave Aimesh

Powerful hardware The Asus Blue Cave has powerful hardware. It’s a AC2600 router with the top speed on the 5GHz band of up to 1733Mbps and on the 2.4GHz, up to 600Mbps (or 800Mbps for TurboQAM-ready clients). Asus Blue Cave Router Quick Specs Dimensions 6.29 x 6.29 x 1.49 in (16 x 16 x 8 cm) Weight 1.76 lb (800g) Network standards IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, IPv4, IPv6 CPU Dal-core1.6 GHz System memory 512MB of RAM and 128MB of flash memory Wi-Fi specs AC2600. Up to 1733 Mbps on 5GHz band and up to 800Mbps on 2.4GHz MU-MIMO support Yes Asus AiMesh support Yes Ports Four Gigabit LAN port, one Gigabit WAN port, one USB 3.0 port.

Warranty 2 years The router is powered by 512MB of RAM, 128MB of flash memory and an Intel (Lantiq) dual-core 1.6 GHz CPU. Lantiq originally was a company focusing on smarthome devices until it was. But the Blue Cave doesn’t have a lot of smarthome features, just the support for Amazon &. Both have been available in most other Asus routers, so this isn’t a novelty. This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You’ll first need to activate it with Alexa before can use you voice but personally, I wouldn’t do that. Among other things, anyone, including those on TV can easily mess you up by saying “Alexa, ask Asus router to start again” which causes your router to restart.

Voice commands and networking don’t really mix. Easy setup Setting up the Blue Cave is like that of and is exactly the same as the. First, you connect its WAN (Internet) port to your Internet source, like your modem or your gateway. Then connect a computer to one of its LAN ports using a network cable, then open a web browser. You’ll automatically be directed to its web interface where you’ll find a wizard that walks you through the process step by step. Alternatively, you can also use the Asus Router app (for and ) for this job.

Once the setup is finished, you can continue to use the app for on-going management of the router. I prefer using the router’s web interface, however, since it has access to all of the router’s features and settings. You can always get to the interface by pointing a browser of a contested computer to router.asus.com (or the router’s default IP which is 192.168.50.1). Here you’ll find all of its settings and a generous set of features. Familiar feature set The Blue Cave basically shares the same feature set as that of the RT-AC86u, minus the Game Boost, which is tailored to hardcore gamers.

That said, if you’ve used any Asus router before, you’ll feel right at home. This slideshow requires JavaScript. The router has all the settings you’d need for your network. It can work as a VPN server (or a client) and has a powerful AiProtect online security feature. Powered by TrendMicro, AiProtect scan your network and online connection in real-time to keep our entire network safe. While there’s no total protection, in my experience, AiProtection works quite effectively. Best of all, it’s free.

Via USB port, the router can do all you can imagine with a plugged in external hard drive. Apart from data sharing, media streaming, you can even set the Blue Cave to work as a Time Machine backup server. By the way, if you decide to use Time Machine backup, make sure you if you want to use the storage for other purposes. Other than that, the router also has a cool Traffic Manager feature that includes an easy-to-use QoS for Internet prioritization, and a Web History that keep tap of connected clients’ online activities. Generally, all router-related feature a home user can think of, the Blue Cave has it. OK, maybe not all since router does have some shortcomings.

Minor shortcomings My biggest complaint about the Blue Cave is the fact it doesn’t support AiMesh, which allows it to work with another Asus router to form a versatile mesh system. Asus told me it would bring AiMesh to this router in July so maybe you should wait till then to upgrade if you already have a AiMesh-ready router. The Blue Cave currently doesn’t support, which is only a big deal if you have many — a dozen or more — active Wi-Fi devices at the same time.

Most of us don’t have that many clients that are active simultaneously. Again, this feature is supposedly going to be added later this year, according to Asus. Updated on July 12, 2018: At launch the Blue Cave didn’t support MU-MIMO as well as Asus’ AiMesh. Later on, however, MI-MU-MIMO was added via firmware version 3.0.1.4.383.19267 and now with version, AiMesh is added, too. Like most other routers from Asus, the Bue Cave can’t block secure websites, those with https in their web address.

Since most websites are now secure, this means its web filtering feature is basically useless. Zte mf190 software. Asus says it’s also working on fixing this via a firmware update.

Unlike many other routes from Asus, the Blue Cave does’t support Dual-WAN where you can turn one of its LAN ports into a second WAN port, enabling you to use a second Internet connection. This omission is not a huge deal, however, since most of us don’t have a secondary broadband connection. Dong Knows Tech Though not exactly smaller, the Blue Cave has smaller footprint than the RT-AC86U thanks to its internal antennas. Performance As a Wi-Fi router, the Asus Blue Cave did well in my testing, being the top three on the 5GHz band.

It’s faster than many routers of bulkier physical sizes. On the 2.4 GHz band, it did even better, being the fastest I’ve seen in close range.

At some 40 feet (18m) away, it was still among the top three. The Asus Blue Cave also had excellent range, about the same as the RT-AC86u which is larger and has higher hardware specs. Generally, you can expect the effective range to be 150ft (46m) and even further.

Note that Wi-Fi signals change depending the environment so your millage might vary. When coupled with an USB portable drive, via a Gigabit connection, the Blue Cave’s network storage speed capped at 27 megabytes per second for both writing and reading. While this is fast enough to do some light data sharing, it’s not really fast enough for heavy tasks. That said, if you really think of network backups and media streaming, get a dedicated NAS sever, like the instead. Conclusion The Asus Blue Cave is an interesting Wi-Fi router that works well for anyone living in a medium home or smaller.

If you happens to like cool- or quirky-looking objects, this is definitely the router for you. Keep in mind that Asus is planning on upgrading the router to deliver more features in the near future, including the support for and MU-MIMO. That said, if you’re not in a rush, it’s a good idea to wait for a month or so before getting it.

If you need a router that has everything right out of the box, check out the instead. Now with MU-MIMO and AiMesh finally added to its feature set, this router is an easy recommendation for anyone wanting a robust home Wi-Fi network with the option to scale it up to a Wi-Fi mesh system at a later time.