Fingbox Review

[phasself]

Any plans to review the Fingbox?

https://www.fing.io/fingbox/

 

[thiggins]

Yes. We've been waiting for it to ship.

 

[phasself]

Excellent, thanks for all the effort and product insight.

 

[AustinJerry]

I have had the Fingbox for over a month now. Anyone still interested in first impressions?

 

[dirtyreturn]

I have had the Fingbox for over a month now. Anyone still interested in first impressions?

View attachment 10763

I am interested, anyway. I had been thinking about buying one. I do use the app on android and appreciate what it offers. Does the hardware add a lot? Or anything, I guess?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[AustinJerry]

I am interested, anyway. I had been thinking about buying one. I do use the app on android and appreciate what it offers. Does the hardware add a lot? Or anything, I guess?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

OK, here is a quick guided tour, with some comments.

When I received the Fingbox, I had already been using the Fing app for quite some time. I connected the device directly to my router and followed the simple steps to establish a logon account. When I launched the Fing app, like magic the device had already discovered the devices on my network. I will talk more about device discovery later.

I have a total of 30 physical devices in my home network, some hard wired to my router, and the others on either the 2.4GHz or the 5.0GHz wireless network. The devices are a mixture of laptops, workstations, iPhones, iPads, audio and video devices, thermostats and smoke detectors. Fing has discovered 35 devices because several of my audio/video devices have different Mac addresses, depending on whether they are hard wired or wireless.

the devices screen looks like this (the actual screen has two columns to the right showing device Mac addresses and IP addresses, which I have omitted for security reasons.

Clicking on a device brings up a bunch of useful information and options. Actions include:
- Assign to user
- Block device
- Pause internet (great option for parents!)
- Alert when state changes

Information includes:
- Online/offline
- IP and Mac addresses
- Device name
- Vendor (if recognized, e.g. "Nest")

The next screen is "My Networks", which I have not figured out how to use.

The third screen is Network Tools. I have little use for this screen.

And finally, the most important screen, the Fingbox screen:

This screen has some very interesting functionality:

- Wi-Fi performance from the device running Fing (176 Mbps in the example)
- Internet speed (out from the router, 286Mbps in the example)
- Bandwidth analysis
- Digital Fence
- Internet Security
- Restricted devices

Bandwidth analysis is very interesting to me. I can select one of my several video streaming services (Sony TV, AppleTV 4K), launch a streaming service like Amazon or Netflix, and monitor in real time how much bandwidth is being used. It also keeps a running total, so I can see how much data was used to stream an entire movie (important for anyone who has a data cap--I don't, thank goodness).

The digital fence shows detected devices in the vicinity of the Fingbox which are not a part of my network, e.g. my neighbor's router. It shows the wireless channel being used, and signal strength. And you can "Watch the device", which I have not tested yet. Fenced devices are not allowed access, of course.

The Internet security feature runs a periodic scan (weekly, as far as I can tell), and looks for ports open to the internet. When I first installed Fingbox, I warned me that I had port forwarding enabled for my NAS device (evidently for cloud backups). Since I don't use this feature, I disabled port forwarding on the router, and my security report now shows zero ports open. This is a very important and useful security feature.

And finally, an unknown device popped up on my network. I blocked the device, and the list at the bottom of the Fingbox screen shows a list of all blocked devices.

The Fingbox also has a very cool LED light ring which glows in different colors, and has different pulsing patterns, depending on events happening in the network. When all is normal, there is a cool blue ring that beats ~30 times a minute. When the internet connection is down, the ring turns to orange and beats faster. A complete guide to the light patterns can be found here: https://www.fing.io/support/led-light-guide/

The Fingbox is essentially a powerful intrusion detection system. Any time a new device appears within range, the Fingbox issues an email alert. Then, I can launch the Fing app, look at the new device, and determine whether to allow it to join the network, or whether to block it. Very cool.

Finally, a couple of negatives:

- While the documentation in the various FAQ's and other web documents, user support from my perspective is non-existent. I have heard that they are trying to use a Facebook page to support their users, but since I choose to not be a Facebook user, this approach doesn't work for me.

- Some of the features are not completely fleshed out yet--I expect improvements over time.

- And finally, my network configuration is not completely discoverable by Fing. I have two equipment racks with audio/video equipment. Not all of these pieces of equipment have wireless connectivity, so I have installed a wireless bridge in the rack (a Linksys WES610N). The bridge communicates wirelessly to my router, and provides a wired network connection to equipment in the rack. Unfortunately, Fing cannot see any of the devices sitting behind the wireless bridge. The device list shows the wireless bridge with a small green dot next to it, which signifies that the device ahs multiple IP addresses. So a number of devices on my network are actually shown in the device list as "Not in network", which is frustrating to me. This is a Linksys issue, not a Fing issue, but nevertheless, it makes the device list less than perfect.

Let me know if you have questions.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the review.

The Linksys bridge is quite old. It probably does not properly bridge MAC addresses.

It's likely if you change the bridge, all your devices will be discoverable. Besides, wouldn't you like a throughput upgrade?

 

[AustinJerry]

Thanks for the review.

The Linksys bridge is quite old. It probably does not properly bridge MAC addresses.

It's likely if you change the bridge, all your devices will be discoverable. Besides, wouldn't you like a throughput upgrade?

Yes! There are several things wrong with the WES610N. Other than its inability to bridge the MAC addresses, I have been unable to get it to communicate with my Asus router on the 5GHz wireless network. While I can get 65-70Mbps connection speeds over the 2.4GHz network, which is adequate for video streaming, I would be able to get significantly faster speeds over the 5GHz network (I have a 300Mbps internet connection). I used to have a Linksys router, which was replaced by the Asus when the Linksys became unreliable. I could connect to the WES610N on the 5GHz network with the Linksys, but not with the Asus.

I have tried several other model wireless bridges, but still no 5GHz connectivity, even though the bridge is only 20ft from my router with a direct line-of-sight. If you, or anyone else, can recommend a wireless bridge model to try, I would appreciate it. Or recommend how to fix the Linksys bridge. It's frustrating, because I can't use Fingbox to analyze network throughput on the devices behind the bridge.

 

[thiggins]

What ASUS router are you using?
What other bridges have you tried?

 

[AustinJerry]

My router is the Asus RT-AC87U. I don't recall the actual model numbers of the devices I tested since it was earlier this year. I did some research on the internet and chose several products from vendors I knew (DLink, Netgear, Asus), but was never able to find a solution that allowed 5GHZ network connectivity as well as MAC forwarding.

If you have any suggestions for devices to try, please let me know. Ideally, I would like to evaluate a device that would be available from either the local Fry's Electronics or Best Buy so that I can easily return it if it doesn't work.

 

[AustinJerry]

Two of the devices I tried were the Asus AC1900 and the Asus N300. I figured that an Asus bridge should work nicely with an Asus router. Neither device provided connectivity that was any better than the 65-70Gbs throughput I have been getting with the Linksys WES610N. As I said, this has been disappointing. With my iPad Pro, I am getting 300Mbs throughput on the 5Gbs wireless network.

 

[thiggins]

Not meaning to hijack the thread....

It's odd that nothing will connect to the 5 GHz radio. Sorta makes me thing it's something on the router end.

At any rate, the wireless bridge market has really been replaced by wireless extenders. These also function as bridges since they have an Ethernet port(s) you can plug into.

I have no specific recommendations. I'd think you would be better served by trying different settings on the router side.

 

[AustinJerry]

I have a number of devices that connect successfully to the 5GHz network, e.g. my iPad, iPhone, AppleTV 4K, and a Sony display. This would seem to me to be proof that 5he 5GHz network on the router is working fine. I have tried a wireless extender, and was not able to get thru-put on the wired port any faster than the existing WES610N. The objective is a faster connection, which I don't seem to be able to achieve. I don't recall whether the MAC forwarding issue was present in the Wireless extender.

 

[AustinJerry]

Fingbox has issued a couple of enhancements. First of all, there is now a very nice User Guide here: https://www.fing.io/wp-content/uplo...214440269&mc_cid=e92147f167&mc_eid=661a129233

Second, they have made some enhancements to the app as well. The devices list now can be sorted in several different orders. And the Internet Security test can now be refreshed on-demand, rather than waiting for seven days for an update.

 

[jkbmjp]

I am looking into the Fingbox myself. Currently, I am using a Synology 2600 router which doesn't provide any client notifications. I like this router but doesn't provide any notification when a client attempts to join or when a client is online. I have a few questions about the Fingbox.

1. Can I connect the Fingbox to my existing router?
2. Can Fingbox be used as a secondary router to monitor the network for client activity?
3. Can Fingbox pick up clients such as Phone if the phone didn't join the network?
4. Does the Fingbox provide URL remote access separate from the main router?
5. Fingbox is $129 and the App is free? No other charges?

I like the idea of the Fingbox because I need to know device activity regardless of the device. As long as the Wifi is ON, I need to know if it comes into my home.

 

[AustinJerry]

I am looking into the Fingbox myself. Currently, I am using a Synology 2600 router which doesn't provide any client notifications. I like this router but doesn't provide any notification when a client attempts to join or when a client is online. I have a few questions about the Fingbox.

1. Can I connect the Fingbox to my existing router?
2. Can Fingbox be used as a secondary router to monitor the network for client activity?
3. Can Fingbox pick up clients such as Phone if the phone didn't join the network?
4. Does the Fingbox provide URL remote access separate from the main router?
5. Fingbox is $129 and the App is free? No other charges?

I like the idea of the Fingbox because I need to know device activity regardless of the device. As long as the Wifi is ON, I need to know if it comes into my home.

1. Don't know any reason why it wouldn't work with your router.
2. Don't know specifically what would be included in your definition of client activity, but Fing will let you know if a device is currently online, when it goes offline or re-joins the network, and you can analyze a device's bandwidth, and pause the device's access to the internet (e.g. parental control). And, of course, you can block a device. What else would you be looking for?
3. The Fingbox will detect any wireless signals within its range, whether the device has joined the network or not, and show the device's signal strength. For example, it sees your neighbor's router. And you can configure a device to be "watched", i.e. alert you of it's presence if it tends to come and go.
4. Yes, remote web access as well as an iOS app.
5. No other charges.