BLING!!!

[Harley]

OMG more bling please!

Have you noticed the way routers are getting more and more cheap looking while computers are getting more and more arty?  Even some seriously expensive routers latest gen just look so cheap. More LEDs and more decent painted finishes! Yes, I know, this isn't the operating system, but really, you are underselling your product. We want bling!

[Netduma Liam]

1 hour ago, Harley said:

OMG more bling please!

Have you noticed the way routers are getting more and more cheap looking while computers are getting more and more arty?  Even some seriously expensive routers latest gen just look so cheap. More LEDs and more decent painted finishes! Yes, I know, this isn't the operating system, but really, you are underselling your product. We want bling!

Great suggestion, I personally greatly enjoy the gross misuse of RGB. I'll certainly be suggesting it for any future hardware.

[Harley]

I was considering this again yesterday.

I had a chance to test out an ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000. What a miserable looking thing it is. Unpainted plastic with the looks and style of a household brick. I mean seriously. And yet it is a really expensive router. The XR700 beats it hands down. Plenty of informative LEDs, a nice metallic painted finish. Good looks a go faster red stripe! Even the XR1000, which is pretty good, can't compete with the older routers. Why is it routers are just getting cheaper and cheaper looking?

[Netduma Fraser]

3 hours ago, Harley said:

I was considering this again yesterday.

I had a chance to test out an ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000. What a miserable looking thing it is. Unpainted plastic with the looks and style of a household brick. I mean seriously. And yet it is a really expensive router. The XR700 beats it hands down. Plenty of informative LEDs, a nice metallic painted finish. Good looks a go faster red stripe! Even the XR1000, which is pretty good, can't compete with the older routers. Why is it routers are just getting cheaper and cheaper looking?

My 2cents on that would be that generally routers are kept in corners or out of sight so spending more money on the design of something makes less sense than putting that money into the internals or software.

[Harley]

1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

My 2cents on that would be that generally routers are kept in corners or out of sight so spending more money on the design of something makes less sense than putting that money into the internals or software.

SATAN BE GONE! *burns your forehead with my silver cross* May God strike down this foul purveyor of bling-blasphemy!

 

[Harley]

I'd like to see vertical routers. Can you imagine it? You could make them all sci-fi, like a neon building.

I mean the idea of course comes from the Alien. Not a product I would actually buy, but if DumaOS was in it it would be a different story.

But their design is BORING compared to what I would do, lol. You could even build the router in to various sculptures of characters. Awesome!

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

That would be very cool! With designs like that you are relying on the internal antennae and not being able to move them could result in poorer WiFi performance. Maybe in the future!

8 hours ago, Harley said:

But their design is BORING compared to what I would do, lol. You could even build the router in to various sculptures of characters. Awesome!

Awesome but the copyright lawsuits that follow it would not be 😂

 

[Harley]

10 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

That would be very cool! With designs like that you are relying on the internal antennae and not being able to move them could result in poorer WiFi performance. Maybe in the future!

Awesome but the copyright lawsuits that follow it would not be 😂

 

Hence force you shall be known as DOOM! NetDoomer Fraser.

Yep I think it would be good to have optional plug in aerials, lol. But the upright concept seems to be one that is gaining popularity. I guess it all comes down to where people put them, but the smaller footprint seems to appeal to many.

[Killhippie]

On 6/2/2022 at 3:43 PM, Harley said:

Hence force you shall be known as DOOM! NetDoomer Fraser.

Yep I think it would be good to have optional plug in aerials, lol. But the upright concept seems to be one that is gaining popularity. I guess it all comes down to where people put them, but the smaller footprint seems to appeal to many.

Lets add fair lights and optiional plug in aerials that do what exactly? Your router would look cheap, spend money on grunt, decent hardware, ram and a good CPU not bling, fancy shiny things are snake oil, its whats inside and in the real world of routers (I have finished a course and now am a Cisco Network engineer) you pay for bland but my god its powerful. Why do gaming routers have a exist, you cant change your base ping its the laws of physics you may get better peering points but thats doen to your ISP, and you use so little dater yet you hog it all <sigh> looking at this forum the use of DMZ and UPnP is scary, gamers (I'm one) should protect their networks but leave themselves open to attacks, and as to lag well try to learn to play with what you have, I mean the lightest mountain bike in the world wont get you up a steep hill any faster, the engine will, which is you! Play better learn to use what you have and don't buy pointless bling and routers that look like aliens with more lights than a the whole of Las Vegas!

[Harley]

1 hour ago, Killhippie said:

Lets add fair lights and optiional plug in aerials that do what exactly? Your router would look cheap, spend money on grunt, decent hardware, ram and a good CPU not bling, fancy shiny things are snake oil, its whats inside and in the real world of routers (I have finished a course and now am a Cisco Network engineer) you pay for bland but my god its powerful. Why do gaming routers have a exist, you cant change your base ping its the laws of physics you may get better peering points but thats doen to your ISP, and you use so little dater yet you hog it all <sigh> looking at this forum the use of DMZ and UPnP is scary, gamers (I'm one) should protect their networks but leave themselves open to attacks, and as to lag well try to learn to play with what you have, I mean the lightest mountain bike in the world wont get you up a steep hill any faster, the engine will, which is you! Play better learn to use what you have and don't buy pointless bling and routers that look like aliens with more lights than a the whole of Las Vegas!

You are a network engineer so you have a very good understanding of the inner workings of a router. But the average person does not, and doesn't want to spend the time messing about. They want a plug in solution that is easy to understand. Don't forget that many people are simply not technically minded and no matter how many books you give them they simply will not grasp the fundamentals. A gaming router is an out of the box solution that gives them what they want.

I mean, honestly, don't you think it's a bit crazy to expect people to "read up" on networking to configure their router?

I am really puzzled by your comment that ping can't be reduced. I guess you never read about Adaptive QOS at college then! I mean this is a fundamental for gaming in a modern (busy) home network, yet it is something you certainly do not find in every router. It's called Buffer Bloat or Congestion Control in the DumaOS routers. Thing is about Adaptive QOS is the router MUST recognise the high priority traffic and a DumaOS router will thanks to the list of games it recognises. That's what makes it a gaming router and it's also why a Cisco router is not. I have hundreds of games. It is far more valuable to me that my router recognises all of these games "off the shelf" rather than having to "teach" a Cisco router how. In my case my latency was 2ms to my ISP. That collapsed to 200ms when the connection was seriously busy. I might add that it was the XR1000 and DumaOS that told me about that problem. I think you will know that's useless for gaming. I ticked ONE TICK BOX on the XR1000 DumaOS router and it dropped to 12ms. THAT is what I want. No books. No fumbling. Five seconds and a huge improvement in performance. The key thing in that process was that DumaOS recognised I was gaming without me having to do anything - a Cisco Router will not do that.

It doesn't stop there, either, there are features in DumaOS that simply are not in a Cisco router.

Finally, I like a product to look like a home product, not something that fell out the back of a data center with a plate of spaghetti hanging out the front.  If you like that look, then fine, buy that look, but please don't criticise my choices! And certainly do not imply that my choices indicate a lack of gaming skill. That's just cheap, elitist nonsense.

[Harley]

Perfect example here - OK it's a bit Japanese (doh-bots), but you get the idea. This thing sells for a massive £150 more than the standard router.

[Newfie]

Looks awful, the Alien looks much better if only it did not have that old chipset inside. 
 

regarding the ping latency, I’m guessing Killhippie meant your base ping which is what you are stuck on. Routers tend to control your home environment with the exception of the geo filter in Duma but in general your base ping is limited to your connection. 
 

personally I would prefer a pretty basic router styling but have a UI or even a mobile app that is fully functional like the Unifi pro consumer units. There’s no doubt flashy bling may sell but it’s what’s underneath that counts. 

[Harley]

23 minutes ago, Newfie said:

Looks awful, the Alien looks much better if only it did not have that old chipset inside. 
 

regarding the ping latency, I’m guessing Killhippie meant your base ping which is what you are stuck on. Routers tend to control your home environment with the exception of the geo filter in Duma but in general your base ping is limited to your connection. 
 

personally I would prefer a pretty basic router styling but have a UI or even a mobile app that is fully functional like the Unifi pro consumer units. There’s no doubt flashy bling may sell but it’s what’s underneath that counts. 

I know what he meant but I does anyone claim to reduce ping on an empty network? ( that really is a question ) Or is it just people assume that's what it will do?

I have seen this a lot with network products. Remember Killer? Actually that was a really good system but like so many things it won't solve a problem if your local network doesn't have a problem. But people who don't have a problem buy in to it then slate it because it "doesn't work" !! It's like Gaming VPN's. Won't get you any closer to the server, but it may find a better route. Accent is on the "may". But people didn't realise it was "may" and slated the product when it didn't work for them.

I think gaming routers definitely have a purpose, just if people randomly think it will make things better when they haven't worked out what the problem is then they are likely to be disappointed.

Anyway, back to bling, no, I don't like the design either, it's a horrible looking router ( I actually bought one and sent it back it was so rubbish ). It has interesting performance but I really didn't like the involvement of Trend and the horrible looks. The router can send your kids emails to Trend for analysis. I mean, come on, there has to be some privacy, especially for children.

[Newfie]

Base ping is what it is be it 1 client or 100 clients. It’s the latency from your peering contract connection which is why some isps offer better connections depending on your area and what’s available. 
It’s hard when you talk about latency on a network, you have clients dating right back to WiFi 4,5 and 6. Clients, their chipsets and the routers hardware all impact it which is why networking is never bog standard. 
 

there’s room for all type of routers, would be a boring world if they were all square. 
 

Yes Asus services do gather data but it’s not unusual to see data collection from the likes of your isp and so on but it depends on what you are happy with. Most third party security systems probably collect the info. On the more sophisticated routers you can block access to services, might impact the quality of service though. I use an IPS/IDS and what is called a honeypot which is in simple terms a fake device that is open to scans internally. 
I did have a nasty on a shield tv box and I caught it looking at my network and trying to send out. 
its like opening ports, most leave them open but good practise is to close them after use, DMZ same thing or to have IoT isolated via Vlan. Everything depends on how secure you want your network or what you want. 
 

The way I look at Duma is it’s firstly made for gamers, it ticks the boxes for what a gamer may want. Cisco are for business that want security and great customer service at a price, Unifi for those on a licence free budget with no support. Netgear is simple firmware, Asus that bit more control in the UI and the list goes on. 
I suppose you could bling the router yourself, bit like the Astro headsets so you could customise it and might be something to look at. 
Would love different themes in the UI so you could alter how to info is shown. Notifications of issues would be nice with custom rules would also be nice. 
 

[Harley]

1 hour ago, Newfie said:

Base ping is what it is be it 1 client or 100 clients. It’s the latency from your peering contract connection which is why some isps offer better connections depending on your area and what’s available. 
It’s hard when you talk about latency on a network, you have clients dating right back to WiFi 4,5 and 6. Clients, their chipsets and the routers hardware all impact it which is why networking is never bog standard. 
 

there’s room for all type of routers, would be a boring world if they were all square. 
 

Yes Asus services do gather data but it’s not unusual to see data collection from the likes of your isp and so on but it depends on what you are happy with. Most third party security systems probably collect the info. On the more sophisticated routers you can block access to services, might impact the quality of service though. I use an IPS/IDS and what is called a honeypot which is in simple terms a fake device that is open to scans internally. 
I did have a nasty on a shield tv box and I caught it looking at my network and trying to send out. 
its like opening ports, most leave them open but good practise is to close them after use, DMZ same thing or to have IoT isolated via Vlan. Everything depends on how secure you want your network or what you want. 
 

The way I look at Duma is it’s firstly made for gamers, it ticks the boxes for what a gamer may want. Cisco are for business that want security and great customer service at a price, Unifi for those on a licence free budget with no support. Netgear is simple firmware, Asus that bit more control in the UI and the list goes on. 
I suppose you could bling the router yourself, bit like the Astro headsets so you could customise it and might be something to look at. 
Would love different themes in the UI so you could alter how to info is shown. Notifications of issues would be nice with custom rules would also be nice. 
 

I am not sure why people keep talking about base ping. I know what base ping is and I have never thought for an instant that any router can change that.

People are either bothered by data collection or they aren't. I am one of the people who is. I just think that it's unnecessary and intrusive. I might add it would help if companies data policies were clearer. For example if I was told that Duma was about to send information about applications to a central database to identify an app so it could decide whether it was a game or not, then that would be fine, but so often companies are not clear on what they send and what they do with the data (I am not saying DumaOS does that, lol, it was just an example).

Yep. I just think that in the world of gaming bling counts a lot and Duma could do with a coat of paint. That's not just a criticism of Duma, I might add, the recent crop of routers are mostly very cheap looking. Even routers that are outrageously priced. Just plain plastic with nothing blingy about them at all! I have my backup XR700 and that looks so much better than the XR1000. Amazing what a coat of paint will do.

 

 

[Newfie]

There’s no easy question about latency and QoS. I know what you mean but it’s hardware fighting software. If you say have a 8x8 router and a 2x2 router and had 3 2x2 clients then the 8x8 router would handle them better on the WiFi as they can talk all at once where they are queuing on the 2x2 router and no QoS can solve that latency. It’s the downside to WiFi. 
add into the mix hardwired, coding and hardware then you can start to see why its not a simple answer. 

ideally you want less resources used but as we know that’s not always possible. It’s why there is no holy grail of routers. 
it’s why some go pfsense to have the options of security, hardware and can install various applications like different QoS but in general that might be a tad too much for a gamer who wants a simple setup and is not wanting to learn in depth about networking. 
 

[Harley]

Ah, some interesting ones popped up from tp-link and MSI ..... this is the sort of thing I am talking about.

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

They are very cool, a lot of expense has gone into those designs, I'm not sure we'd do anything quite that extreme but it would be epic.

[Harley]

There seems to be a lot of Star Wars around at the moment....

 

 

[Harley]

I have finished blinging my XR1000. What do you think? Enough LED's or maybe some more?

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

22 minutes ago, Harley said:

I have finished blinging my XR1000. What do you think? Enough LED's or maybe some more?

I think you missed a few, looking a bit sparse at the top