This next-gen Wi-Fi router with a Built-in VPN lets you access the internet without anyone stealing your data

Sure, your phone and laptop have VPNs… but does your smart speaker? Your home camera? Smart doorbell? Baby monitor? It’s easy to think of yourself as protected when your primary device operates on a VPN, but the truth is that our houses are filled with IoT devices that remain vulnerable to brute force because of one weak point of entry – a basic router. The Rio Router aims to change that with a built-in VPN, device allowlisting protocols, guest network features, and the ability to set parental controls from the router itself. Whether it’s a government trying to snoop on you, someone trying to hack you, companies trying to sell your data, or your internet service provider secretly gathering info about you, the Rio Router cuts it all off right at the source. It encrypts information in a way that anonymizes your entire smart home, so you can browse the internet freely, and your smart home gadgets can access the internet without being vulnerable to data theft.

Designer: Rio Router

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $549 ($250 off). Hurry, only 15/290 left! Raised over $136,000.

Most routers are designed to help you access the internet, but that access can sometimes be a double-edged sword, creating a path for bad-faith actors to access your IoT devices and even the data within them. A simple WiFi password can only do so much, right? That’s why the Rio Router uses a protocol that requires you to personally allowlist any device connecting to your network. Every IoT device gets approved by you, and if there’s any device you don’t approve of trying to connect to your network, it doesn’t get access to your network or to the devices on it. Think of it as a security guard that only allows you into a building if you have the right ID, and turns you away if you don’t.

Even for approved devices accessing the internet through the Rio Router, all data gets encrypted through the router’s built-in VPN. This offers two distinct benefits – for starters, it lets you access the internet and streaming services without any government or geolocation restrictions (yes, that means being able to use TikTok even if it gets banned), but it also encrypts all personal information so that your internet service provider doesn’t get unfettered access to your life… or even corporations like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon that feed off of information from smart home devices.

Obviously, that level of access does come with its downsides – you want your family to stay safe from potentially dangerous websites. The router allows you to set parental controls for specific devices, preventing your child’s laptop or tablet from being able to access harmful sites, and an integrated DNS and web filtering system provides all-around protection, preventing all devices from accessing malicious sites that could scam/phish you or corrupt your device with ransomware.

Following the security guard analogy from earlier, think of your internet connection as a building with multiple wings/departments. Different employees can only access the wings or departments they are authorized to, and a low-level employee can’t necessarily go snooping in the CEO’s office or through the confidential file room. Similarly, the Rio Router creates dedicated rooms for each category of devices. Your smart kitchen gadgets can’t access or communicate with your bedroom’s smart devices even if they’re on the same network. This technology, known as SecureRoom™, helps create dedicated chambers for different internet devices, so every gadget on the same network doesn’t necessarily have access to all the data on the network. The SecureRoom™ is a brilliant way of ensuring that your gadgets don’t have access to information they don’t have clearance for. Your living room smart speaker doesn’t necessarily know what’s happening in the kitchen, and the baby monitor in the bedroom isn’t vulnerable to being snooped on by your thermostat.

The SecureRoom™ system also allows you to create guest networks for when you have people visiting you at home. No more sharing passwords for the main WiFi network – guests get to access the internet through a SecureRoom™ guest network. Their data stays safe and so does yours – you can approve devices to the SecureRoom™ to ensure that nobody else is accessing the internet, and once your guests leave your house, they’re removed permanently from the network and can only access the internet once you grant them approval.

The Rio Router runs WiFi 6 for fast and reliable connections from every corner of your house and even comes with an iOS/Android app that lets you control the router, set protocols, create SecureRooms™, and grant/deny approvals to external devices. It gives you the liberating taste of what true internet freedom feels like, allowing you to rely on IoT devices without the fear of them spying on you, as well as preventing anyone from hacking into your network or even accessing data they’re not privy to. It also helps that you can now browse international titles on your streaming service so even if The Office leaves Netflix in the USA, it’s still available in some other country!

It’s 2024, and if your internet service provider is giving you a free router with your connection, you’d best not trust it with all your data. After all, if it’s free, you’re the product. The Rio Router starts at $299 and comes with a free app, and VPN service free for 12 months. You can use the Rio to set up as many as 4 different SSIDs (WiFi access points), 8 Rio mesh extenders, and up to 16 SecureRooms™ at a time.

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $549 ($250 off). Hurry, only 15/290 left! Raised over $136,000.

The post This next-gen Wi-Fi router with a Built-in VPN lets you access the internet without anyone stealing your data first appeared on Yanko Design.

These Minions Wi-Fi Routers were probably the most brilliant devices we saw at CES 2024

Flying cars and AI assistants are a dime a dozen – but have you ever seen a router so adorable it would be the highlight of your interior decor??

The SmartAir Minions Routers were so oddly located in a corner of the Westgate area of the CES 2024 exhibition that it was easy to miss. As chance would have it, I headed to the Westgate area to look for another company, only to suddenly notice these minions through the corner of my eye sitting on a counter. Given the fact that CES is predominantly a tech show, I obviously wondered why these plush-looking toys were on display. A few seconds in it dawned on me – these lifelike characters from the Despicable Me franchise were, in fact, dual and triple-band WiFi 6E routers capable of multi-gigabit internet. The added bonus? They look more adorable and presentable than your existing WiFi router ever could.

Designer: Davolink

Click Here to Buy Now

The routers come in two models, designed to resemble the two key characters in the Minion-verse, the short and adorable Bob, and the tall and klutzy Kevin. The choice of these two characters play well into the routers’ features too – Bob, being smaller, offers dual-band WiFi connectivity, while the taller Kevin (and that tiny antenna-esque toupee of his) offer triple-band internet, giving you 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz, and even 6Ghz.

Together, both the routers provide a brilliant blend between wide coverage and high speeds, enabling everything from 8K streaming to even gaming. The routers eliminate dead zones too, ensuring every corner of your home has WiFi connectivity with a mesh feature to help maximize coverage.

The highlight, however, is the fact that they are a stunning replica of easily some of the most memorable and iconic characters of animated cinema in the past decade. I’ve always advocated for functional products ditching their industrial aesthetic (air purifiers and smart speakers don’t need to look horrendously industrial in today’s day and age), and it seems like it’s time that WiFi routers took that same approach. Bob and Kevin are designed to be the kind of routers that hide in plain sight. They’re adorable enough to be kept on your shelf or tabletop without feeling the need to conceal them behind curtains or other objects, and that’s really what makes them such a standout product. After all, wouldn’t you rather have a router that looks as cute as these little nitwits than something like the boring box you’re currently connected to as you read this article? My only worry is kids trying to play with these and accidentally bringing your entire home network down… but that’s a problem for another day!

Click Here to Buy Now

The post These Minions Wi-Fi Routers were probably the most brilliant devices we saw at CES 2024 first appeared on Yanko Design.

Nokia Luna Net is a conceptual communication system that will let you connect to WiFi on the moon!





Dear reader, it was my childhood dream to be an astronaut but I wear glasses and that was enough to disqualify me so I instead started to read, write, listen, watch everything space as an attempt to fill the vacuum of a crushed dream -yes, like the vacuum in space. Do what you will with that fun fact about me but, as a kid with a vivid imagination who was obsessed with space travel, the first thing that always came to mind was “how will I call my friends and family back home?” And now with NASA’s Artemis Program in motion to bring humans back on the Moon by 2024, that question has grown up into “what equipment do we need to make faster contact with Earth?” Enter Nokia Luna Net – a smart communication system!

NASA is cooperating with external companies to build the needed equipment for this mission. For this design, Nokia was kept in mind as the partner building the first-ever Moon internet solution which is scheduled to launch in 2022. It consists of one main unit, the lander, and three smaller nodes. The lander and nodes spread out over a specific area that will have the wireless connection and thus build a mesh communication network. The system will be transported via a rocket after which it will reach the moon independently. Luna Net is autonomous and therefore it can set itself up – now only if my Earth WiFi did that too. Thermogenerators will be used for the power supply as they can deal with the extreme temperatures and the long days/nights on the moon. These generators are able to produce electricity from drastic temperature differences (+172 degrees Celcius during the day and -123 degrees Celcius during the night) and store it in rechargeable batteries.

The lander and the nodes are all equipped with VR cameras and LiDAR sensors (Light Detection and Ranging sensors are a remote sensing method used to examine surfaces). This combination allows the system to generate 3D content with detail and depth which gives us a much more realistic understanding of the situation/information. It also has a 360-degree camera and screen set up which lets users on Earth see live images/data from the moon. Rieder explores the design beyond just hardware, the next generation of lunar surface communication should look into how people on Earth can experience and learn about space in a new way even if they don’t get the chance to go up in space…I am sure I am not alone, on this planet or in galaxies far far away.

Designer: Johannes Rieder

luna





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