Setting up My New Asus Blue Cave ...

[Klueless]

I can resist anything but temptation so when the local big box store dropped the price by $40 I bought one.

Almost didn't. More than a couple online user reviews complained about setup. But that's one advantage of buying local, I could just walk it back to the store.

The setup card contained eight simple bullets. How hard can it be? It wasn't. I didn't even bother with plugging my laptop into an Ethernet port. Everything just worked.

Until I got to the part where it said set your browser to "router.asus.com" to complete your configuration and got a "site can't be reached" error. I remembered the online reviews. No problem I thought as I typed in "192.168.1.1" only to get another "site can't be reached" error. D'oh.

Then I remembered elsewhere on this forum where some had mentioned that Asus had changed their default IP from "192.168.1.1" to uh, oh oh? I forgot.

So I went to "ipconfig" (from my Windows command line) and there it was, "192.168.50.1" and things went well from there. (Total delay in setup ... about 53 seconds.)

My old router was working fine so why did I even buy a Blue Cave? I liked the looks and I liked the innovation. More importantly my wife liked the looks. I had been wanting to move my old router out from the corner and about twenty feet closer to the center of the house. It was a relatively easy change but I couldn't get my wife past the "eyuch" factor.

The Blue Cave overcame the "eyuch" factor.

I wanted the transition to be seamless and painless for the family. Now that we've got kids and grandkids living with us I can't even begin to count all the devices that could be impacted by a change. I wrote down everything that I thought important giving microscopic attention to SSIDs and passwords.

It worked. When everyone got home later in the day everything (TVs, phones, computers, games, etc.) was working. No one knew I had even changed anything (until my grandson wondered what that thing by the TV was).

My next step was to relocate the Blue Cave as per agreement with home management but the weak spot in the house is no longer weak. Most pleasant surprise. I silently cursed myself for not measuring all the before and afters from each room but as I get older I get lazier.

(My approach to SSIDs is relatively simple and self-documenting. "Further" for the 2.4 GHz radio and "Faster" for the 5 GHz radio. Then "Automagic" for both radios with Intranet access enabled and "Our Guests" over both radios with Intranet access disabled. Family starts with "Automagic" and should they have any issues they seem to be able to guess what to try next.)

 

[ColinTaylor]

My next step was to relocate the Blue Cave as per agreement with home management but the weak spot in the house is no longer weak.

Thanks for the insight. So you're saying that the Blue Cave has better coverage than your old router? For reference - what was the old router?

 

[Klueless]

... what was the old router?

An Asus RT-AC1900P (which I was very happy with).

I used to measure when I changed (upgraded) routers. Overtime I've moved from the basic ISP (b) router to a Linksys WRT54G (b/g) to an Asus N66U to the Asus 1900P to this (the Blue Cave).

I did not run any before/after metrics this time.

• I'm older and lazier.
• I just read Tim Higgins. He does a much better job!
  
• Now that I've live-in kids and grand kids I only had a half hour window for the complete swap out.

It wasn't until I went with the 1900P that I had any useful (TV streaming) connectivity in the far upstairs bedroom. That said I'd have to reboot/reconnect the Samsung TV every couple days. (That's why I was looking to relocate the router to a more central location.)

The Blue Cave was just meant to make said relocation more aesthetic. Unexpected bonus; I haven't had to reboot the Samsung (but it's only been a week so I may be overly optimistic). So, maybe my luck will continue and I won't even have to relocate my router.