D-Link at CES : Cloud-Friendly Routers and IP Cameras

We took some time to swing by D-Link's press room and got a look at all the nice networking gear announced via multiple press releases yesterday. In keeping up with the times, D-Link has come up with a very effective cloud strategy. The mydlink.com service forms the backbone of this strategy.

IP Cameras

Two cameras were on display. The first one was the D-Link DCS942L IP camera with enhanced day and night surveillance coming in at $149. Having a traditional industrial design, it captures video in VGA resolution at 30 fps. With a microSD card slot on the side, the video can also be recorded locally. It can be connected to the network through either the wired 100 Mbps port or the 802.11b/g/n wireless interface. Two way audio support is also provided.

D-Link has also come up with a PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) model (DCS5222L) capable of recording 720p  surveillance video at 30 fps in H.264 format. All the features of the DCS942L are retained, but the extra resolution and the PTZ feature bring up the price to $249.

Both the IP cameras have Android and iOS apps which work through the mydlink.com account.

Routers and Access Points

D-Link released a number of routers and access points today. The All-in-One Mobile Companion (DIR505) is an interesting little gadget capable of a number of functions. In the router mode, the device plugs into a power outlet and a wired Ethernet cable from the modem is connected to the 100 Mbps wired port. A drive can be connected to the USB port and the DIR505 acts as a wireless router with the USB drive contents visible to all devices connected to that wireless network. In the repeater mode, the unit acts in conjunction with an already existing access point and repeats the signal. An attached USB drive will also have its content shared. In a similar configuration, the DIR505 can also be configured as a Wi-Fi Hot Spot with a NAT for its own network. To top it all, the device can also charge your smartphone. The unfortunate aspect is that the wireless output is only 802.11g compliant and the wired port is 100 Mbps.

The DIR605L cloud router is a very basic router with four 100 Mbps ports and 802.11n support. The interesting aspect of this router is the mydlink.com service attached to the unit. With the help of an Android / iOS app, it is possible to have a very dumbed down presentation of the usual router configuration pages (which is probably welcomed by the average consumer). It also presents information related to the state of the network.

In addition to these two routers, we have two high end offerings. The DHP1565 is one of the first Hy-Fi devices I have seen. THe Hybrid Networking concept, pioneered by Atheros Qualcomm, integrates wired ethernet, powerline and Wi-Fi networking in a single router. The DHP1565 has four GbE ports, a 500 Mbps powerline connector (also the AC power input) and 802.11n support. There is also an explicit switch to make the unit act as either a router or an access point.

The HD Media Router 3000 is capable of simultaneous dual band operation to deliver a total of 900 Mbps (450 Mbps in each of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands) bandwidth. Four GbE ports are accompanies by a USB 3.0 port for attaching drives and a SD card slot.QoS is implemented in hardware with Ubicom technology. D-Link demonstrated the efficiency of the QoS engine in action by playing back YouTube videos in a highly congested network and compared it with the software QoS implemented on other routers. The difference was clearly visible, and I believe this type of QoS implementation will be the way to go forward for the next generation routers.

Entertainment and Media Storage

Boxee's LiveTV dongle was on display. It appears that D-Link, Boxee and Hauppauge have worked together to get this accessory out.

D-Link also indicated the possibility of product announcements related to the NAS and media streamer markets in the next few months.