Google’s OnHub smart router is receiving its first update. The expensive smart router has some fairly impressive features such as device favoritism, smart channel switching, a companion app that helps with setup and troubleshooting and an array of 13 high-powered antennas in a circle to broadcast more reliably, powerfully and widely through your building. The self-installing, reboot-free update brings a couple of new features and some under-the-hood improvements, but nothing terribly special.
The update claims to include some antenna optimizations, better handling of device naming and expanded use of 5GHz channels as headliners, with more features and fixes not listed, most likely including the latest security fixes and whatever power optimizations Google’s people may have thought up. The named antenna optimizations most likely included the feature announced alongside the newer ASUS router that allows the OnHub to figure out which antennas are best to use at the moment depending on what device is active and where it is in relation to the router. Users with the older TP-Link model have been reporting receiving it, but there’s been no word on the newer ASUS model just yet. Users receiving the update haven’t reported a lot in the way of new features, but it has been reported that the update installs itself with no fuss, no downtime and no need to reboot.
The auto-update capability may or may not need reboots for future updates, but this one has gone smoothly thus far. That is a comforting fact, since one of the flagship features advertised is mess-free updates. In any case, this should mean that as new devices and technologies begin to use wi-fi, the router should be able to keep up with them or a long time to come. Additionally, this likely means new optimizations for the antennas and power performance will keep coming for the foreseeable future, allowing the router to cover places it wouldn’t have done too well in originally with more and more prowess over time.
The TP-Link version of the router, which has received the update as of this writing, is available through most retailers for around $199 USD, while the ASUS version will set you back roughly $219 USD. The ASUS model boasts a slightly different shell and a new Wave Control feature that allows you to prioritize a given device by waving your hand over the router. There is still no word on whether the ASUS model will get the update, but there’s certainly no reason for it not to.