Google’s OnHub router which will soon be a hub for their Internet-of-Things service called Brillo has gone on-sale at Amazon as well as other US retailers overnight, but the bigger news (because none of the places will sell it to you in Australia) is that the router has been stripped down by the team at iFixit.
The TPLink built router isn’t your average teardown victim, but as it’s a Google product, you just know it’s going to get the same treatment.
The router has received a fairly low score on repairability with a 4 out of 10, with a number of issues in the way including a single board for all the ports, tiny antenna connectors for the 13 antenna included in the router making disassembly an adventure in frustration due to breakage and finally, and some would say most importantly, there’s no repair doco available to refer to.
There are some positives to take away, The speaker is replaceable and the unit is assembled with clips rather than adhesive – but be careful as they break easily.
If you want to see more of the tear-down head over to iFixit. I`ll be busy trying to import one of these in via a shipping forwarder.
Still not seeing it – it’s a wifi access point with the added disadvantage of allowing google to control it.
No wired ports, no voip, no obvious reason for the speaker. What’s really needed is a router that makes it easy to bypass geoblocks, run as a NAS, combines different comms mechanisms, and home automation that’s not $60 a device.
Oh, and $199? Forget it.
Yeah another Google thing that only sells in the USA.
Doesn’t this apply to ALL SOHO routers!?