Smart router vs Normal router: Key differences

Nowadays, the internet has become a kind of drug and I guess there are very few people who are away from its reach. It is now a very vital part of our lives and many of us can’t even imagine a day without it. From work to education, leisure to entertainment it is present everywhere and plays a pivotal role in all of these. It will be not surprising to say that the internet is the backbone of our world.

Talking about the largest democracy of the world, i.e. India, it is alone home to more than five hundred million internet users, thanks to the reduction in data prices. India also has the cheapest mobile data in the world. As of now, we have understood the importance of the internet, now let us discuss the most common medium through which we can access it.

We can find a WiFi router almost in every other household, offices, etc. It is the most common and easy method of sharing and using the internet according to our needs. In every household it can be seen that all the people are hooked to the internet, while some hardcore gamers are busy in eliminating their enemies or knocking down their opponents, the others are busy with their social media stuff, and among others, some might be busy in YouTube, online web series, or any other thing.

The similar scenario is present in any corporate office, but wait, before you point me wrong, let me clear it out, the similar scenario means that the employees of corporate sector are also hooked to the internet, while some are busy preparing, receiving, and sending reports, others are busy in coding, and many other things, in fact, everything in corporate sector directly or indirectly depends on the internet.

It is not only limited to this, besides household, corporate sector, each and every government sector also depend on the internet. Internet is just the lifeline of everything and it is not possible to imagine even a single day without it.

So, thanks to our WiFi router which handles everything patiently whether in offices or in-home and enables us to share the internet for carrying out our little or big tasks without any effort. But now you might be thinking that when everything is just going on so fine, then what is the need for a smart router and also what does it actually mean? Thus, without any further delay, let me get straight into it.

With the rapid advancement of technology, as everything is getting smarter, why would routers be left behind, it has also become smart as it provides interactions with mobile applications. Moreover, router settings can be changed by apps and also network devices can be monitored, access to certain websites is restricted, network cameras can be viewed live and photos can be streamed.

Key Differences between Smart and Standard routers

Now, let us find out how a smart router is better than a normal one. Are smart routers really worth buying? Let us find out.

Network security:

No doubt routers are cheap and provide easy and hassle-free sharing of the internet, but as it is a saying, nothing in this world is perfect, the same follows for our routers also, as network security is a big issue and routers are a weak link here as they become an easy target of hackers, it might sound uneven but this is the truth and let me explain this to you.

A few years ago, this security was not at all an issue related to routers, as a strong antivirus kept us protected from all kinds of malicious and difficult to spot viruses, but that time household had one or two gadgets connected. This was going fine until the entry of smartphones, which resulted in an increase in the number of devices in every household and with all these smart technologies increasing further at rapid rates, the number of gadgets per household is only increasing exponentially.

And many of us might not know that these new gadgets don’t yet have the same defence mechanism as our computer, so it becomes a target for all the hackers out there. Thankfully, this is not the end of the story, router manufacturers have also decided to wage a war against hackers and they have somehow succeeded to overcome this security hurdle by making a smart router.

Different smart routers provide different types of defensive mechanisms to ensure that our network remains fully secured.

For example, router manufacturer F-Secure’s smart router sends all the traffic of our smart devices through its sense network blocks all types of dangerous traffic which could affect our security in any way, it also prevents hackers from exploring our important information online and informs us if any of our gadgets get affected by any kind of uneven attack online. Most of the router manufacturers like Tenda, Netgear, etc are also coming up with smart routers having robust defensive mechanisms to protect us from cybercriminals all around the globe.

Better coverage:

There are some points in our house which can be referred to as dead points as our routers fail to provide network coverage there. Don’t believe me? Well, let me explain this to you.

Imagine you are in your bathroom but you are not alone, of course, you are with your smartphone trying to complete your leftover stuff but wait, you cannot complete it as you lost the internet and yes losing the internet at that moment might give you the feeling that you have lost the world, your router fails to provide you with internet at all those points of your home, but again smart router is there for your aid.

It overcomes the problem of poor coverage and turns all those dead points into happy living points. It is even predicted that in the coming few years, we will be having smart gadgets in every part of our house, thanks to smart routers. Let us try to understand how a smart router does this.

For example, Onhub, a smart router of Google comes packed with thirteen antennas rather than the traditional two antennas, all these antennas are arranged in a circular manner. All these enable it to provide better network coverage at all points of our house and all these thirteen antennas are also packed inside the router and not at all visible like normal routers which add another advantage to its bucket.

Eero, another router manufacturer has come with a new plan, it sells its routers in a pack of three, you can easily place these three routers at different parts of your house and create a combined network, where each router covers an area of roughly above one thousand square feet.

Design:

Last but not least, this is also going to attract all the gadget freaks out there. The days of bulky and bogus designs are gone and with routers getting smart they definitely have to look smart, smart routers nowadays come with stunning designs to reflect your personality and at the same time maintain the status of word smart attached to it, as they are the backbone behind your smart home.

Apart from all the above, there are certain other things such as controlling of the whole router locally and remotely using an app on a smartphone, support of MIMO; Smart router automatically can prioritize which devices on your network need more bandwidth to eliminate lag times and buffering; some includes Artificial intelligence to understand user behaviour; cloud support, media server and few other things are present in smart router.

Conclusion:

Thus, a smart router provides better security, you can connect your multiple devices with it and carry on with your stuff without worrying about security issues, it monitors all your smart devices effortlessly and ensures they are out of any kind of potential cyber danger, it can be easily managed and control of all these lies in our fingertips. So, if all these features are of your concern, then a smart router is definitely worthy of buying.