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by DaveWalk 3964 days ago
Good link, thanks for sharing it. I gotta say, though, when I saw that wall of text my first thought was that this is going to be a tough sell for some of us. Thinking about it for half a second, I have to say that I would gladly prefer my router to be as dumb as possible. Maybe I just don't understand, at a gut level, how a cloud-connected router will actually improve my life?
2 comments

OnHub seems to have a bunch of features which the cloud connection enables that are helpful, but not vital. For some people, having those features isn't worth the potential for additional complexity, and potential vector for privacy or security issues, that having a smarter router entails (or the increased device cost). For some people, it will be totally worth it. I personally think there's value in having options for both kinds of device on the market.
Hopefully it doesn't turn into the TV market, where it is getting increasingly difficult to find a TV that isn't "Smart".
Of course it's going to be a tough sell for some people. We could launch a potato and it'd be a tough sell for some people, let alone launching a WiFi router. :) At the end of the day you either trust the information made available by Google or you don't. If there was less text there, plenty of people would be suspicious that something was being hidden (heck - people are suspicious even with the current amount of text)!

It's okay to decide not to adopt the device in question, and it's fine to weigh how much you trust Google against what benefits you might get from any given device. For the average tech-savvy user, perhaps there's a lower value prop, perhaps there isn't. Some people like having absolute control, other people like someone managing things for them.