[IgorPartola]

Yeah. When your ISP's DNS server starts having hiccups and you are standing there waving at your router, feeling like an idiot... I never want to interact with my router. Why would I? And messing with QoS on demand like that is probably a terrible idea.

Having said that a router like this is a huge step forward for the masses. Most people don't bother configuring their routers, changing admin passwords, etc. They never update the firmware. These new routers from Google solve that, which in itself is fantastic. Here's what I'd love to see happen in addition to all this.

- OpenWRT + automatic updates. Why don't we have this yet? I am contemplating building an x86 based router just because of the auto-update thing.

- Wi-Fi AP's that double as smoke detectors. I already have a bunch of those in the house on every floor. As a bonus they could probably use the wires they already have to set up a high speed backbone. I currently use a Ubiquiti Uni-Fi that looks like a smoke detector and it's fantastic.

- Ability to sign onto a Wi-Fi network that is less painful than sharing the passphrase. For example, if a guest comes to my house all we have to do is bump our phones to get them on my guest network. My router is hidden and my access point is on the ceiling of the second floor.

[thescriptkiddie]

> if a guest comes to my house all we have to do is bump our phones to get them on my guest network.

InstaWifi does this. I think you only need to have it installed on the sending device. It hasn't been updated in a while but it probably still works. Would be nice to have this feature built in to Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.jessechen....

[simoncion]

> - Ability to sign onto a Wi-Fi network that is less painful than sharing the passphrase.

If you use WPA-Enterprise, you can create a rolling username/password that's deterministically generated. [0] And/or you can load a passphrase into a Yubikey or similar for laptops that have a USB port and other devices that have NFC.

> - Ability to sign onto a Wi-Fi network that is less painful than sharing the passphrase.

If all smartphones came with a QR code reader (seriously, why doesn't every Android phone come with ZXing's Barcode Scanner??), you could print the passphrase and frame it or something. Additionally, if Google got their shit together, they could make a URI of the form

    $wifi_crypt_method//$uriescaped_ssid:$uriescaped_username:$uriescaped_pass

that every Android phone would recognize and understand what to do with.

I'm not sure why they've failed to do so for the past several years.

> I currently use a Ubiquiti Uni-Fi...

Ooh! Which one? I have a UAP-AC v1 and a UAP-AC-LR.

[0] Actually, you can do a lot more than just this. I've been having so much fun with FreeRADIUS over the past week. >:D

[IgorPartola]

I just have the UniFi AP Pro. I thought I'd need two or three of them, but one covers my whole house and an acre of land: something that my TP-Link WDR-4300 with three huge antennas failed to do. I could not be happier with this product. Got the non-AC version because I have no devices that support AC yet and it was about double the price. It also did not support the seamless handoff feature which I thought I'd need with multiple AP's.

[simoncion]

If you ever decide to get an AP that supports 802.11ac, and decide to purchase one from UBNT, I strongly recommend not purchasing the square ones. Pick up an AC-LITE, LR, or PRO.

(From what I understand, the LITE and LR use the same (Qualcomm-Atheros) radio, but the LR has a much better antenna, and the PRO uses a 3x3 version of the radio used in the LITE and the LR.)

[IgorPartola]

Thanks for the tip!

[vhold]

Good ideas except I think the whole concept of fancy smoke detectors is really bad, including the Nest Protect. A smoke detector is something you want to be as simple and reliable as possible, and operate independently. They shouldn't be prone to software bugs, or be reprogrammable or controlled from a network so they can be compromised.

[lucaspiller]

I'd actually prefer my router didn't need updates. When I buy it I expect it to 'just work', like my microwave or toaster. If I wanted to upgrade from ADSL to Fiber or have the latest 802.11z standard I'm going to need different hardware, so I don't see an issue with replacing it then.

[witty_username]

No security updates either? Even normal updates in general can bring better performance, user experience, etc.

[IgorPartola]

I don't update my router often, but I did it the day HeartBleed came out. Security updates are a big deal for something that sits on your network like that.

[AdmiralAsshat]

I don't think anyone actually WANTS updates to their device. But I'd certainly prefer that I be ABLE to in case some sort of catastrophic security failure occurs like the router having the telnet port open or a default root password open. I'd much rather have something that can be patched than something that is "locked down" yet vulnerable.

And yes, I'd prefer that the routers not have security holes in them in the first place. But I'm also realistic.