As I’ve stated several times before, our home and our lives are connected 24/7. With two gaming consoles, three desktop computers, a Nextbook, an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, and four smart phones running on our home Wi-Fi network – our family demands fast and functional at all hours of the day and night.
For the past several months, Teen #1 has been homeschooled, so he’s been home all day, every day using the computer and the television and the iPod all at the same time. Teen #2 comes home from school and immediately starts creating tracks and doing vocals for his music, which interested Teen #1 as well, and now I’ve got both making music at the same time. It is a definite strain on our internet speeds and frustration bounces throughout the house as someone’s program locks up, another person’s computer crashes, or everyone just gets frozen up.
We’ve had the chance to use several different routers throughout the years but the Linksys WRT3200ACM Wi-Fi Router has proven to be a great addition to our connected home. The router is available at Best Buy, online and in stores now. In the interest of full disclosure I have been compensated in the form of a Best Buy gift card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.
The magic in this WRT3200ACM MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router is from the Tri-Stream 160 technology, which doubles the bandwidth on all spatial streams for the fastest dual-band router on the market. Not only that, you can gain access to restricted DFS channels at full bandwidth for the clearest Wi-Fi not available to most other routers. Here are some more totally cool features of this little dynamo:
- 1.8 GHz CPU for high-powered performance
- MU-MIMO technology for high-speed Wi-Fi gives every compatible device its own dedicated full-speed Wi-Fi connection, so that multiple devices can connect at the same time without slowing down the network
- Open-source ready with OpenWRT and DD-WRT® for complete flexibility and customization of functions
- Upgraded Smart Wi-Fi app to manage and monitor your home Wi-Fi from a mobile device, anytime, anywhere
- 256MB Flash and 512MB of RAM Memory
- 4 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 1 USB 2.0 / eSATA port and 1 USB 3.0 port (which allows you to connect a printer and enjoy 3G and 4G file sharing)
- Built-in media server allows you to play music, videos and view photos
- LED indicators make it easy to monitor the status of your network
- Convenient plug-and-play operation makes it super simple to set up
So naturally, you know we had to put it to the test.
Hubby got out the Kindle Fire tablet and fired up some drag racing videos to watch, while scrolling Facebook on his Samsung smart phone.
Teen #2 got on his desktop and fired up his Playstation and some Grand Theft Auto San Andreas street racing while checking his Instagram feed and responding to friends.
Teen #1 already had the XBox on streaming Netflix, playing Call of Duty Black Ops II on the PC, and naturally had a gazillion text messages flying back and forth.
I, too, was streaming Netflix (I’m on a Criminal Minds marathon right now) on the Nextbook, while having about 8 windows and applications open on the desktop and GSN Casino playing on the smart phone.
Nothing happened. No games were interrupted. No videos lagged. No computer crashes. Everyone enjoyed stellar connectivity and a full signal to each of our devices. I’m totally in love with this router!
If you want to get in on the fun and stop dealing with the frustration, pop on over to Best Buy to check out the Linksys WRT3200ACM MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router and learn more.
