Google’s OnHub ‘smart router’ aims to boost WiFi quality
Google is attempting to put itself at the centre of domestic wireless networks with a new “smart router” that promises to improve WiFi quality and security.
OnHub’s launch comes weeks before Apple is expected to unveil its latest home technology device, with an update to its Apple TV set-top box that will act as a wireless “smart home” hub. The launch also puts Google into competition with many cable companies that offer their own home hubs for watching TV and getting online.
Thanks to the inclusion of Bluetooth and other wireless connectivity, Google’s $200 OnHub will be able to control the “internet of things” inside the home as more consumers buy connected peripherals such as wireless speakers, thermostats and security cameras.
The project has been developed over the past two years by teams who worked on the Chrome operating system and Google Access, the unit responsible for its superfast fibre optic-based network.
Google has taken an Apple-like approach to designing OnHub, concealing the antennas that usually protrude from a router inside a sleek cylinder that can be customised with a range of colours and patterns. It hopes the device will be placed out in the open, a first step towards improving signal quality, rather than hidden on the floor or in a cupboard like many of the less attractive WiFi routers available today.
But Google has made other internal improvements to regular routers that it says will make OnHub easier to manage and allow WiFi networks to run faster and over a wider area.
Its 12 antennas can regularly scan the local environment to adjust for interference from other wireless networks, based in part on analysis of data samples done in Google’s cloud. Passwords and other settings can be managed from a smartphone app for Android and iOS.
While OnHub will remain part of Google after the internet company becomes a subsidiary of new parent Alphabet, under a corporate shake-up announced by chief executive Larry Page last week, no information about browsing or viewing behaviour will be used to tailor online advertising, the company says.
Only information relating to device and network performance will be collected. Privacy of domestic WiFi networks is a sensitive area for Google after its Street View mapping cars inadvertently captured personal data including emails from unsecured networks in 30 countries between 2008 and 2010.
Google is working with China-based TP-Link, one of the world’s largest router makers, to produce the device but says it is open to working with other manufacturers on a range of OnHub devices in the future.
Unlike Google’s Nexus line of smartphones, which are targeted at a niche of tech-savvy users who want the latest version of its Android operating system, OnHub is aiming at a “very broad” customer base, according to its product manager Trond Wuellner.
“The way that people really use WiFi has evolved. There are more bandwidth-intensive services and connected devices now,” Mr Wuellner said. “We saw incredible opportunities to bring Google’s strengths and the work we’ve done in Chrome and Android to raise the bar in software quality, update mechanics and security.”
As well as WiFi, OnHub also supports Bluetooth and other wireless networks such as Zigbee or Thread, which are used by “smart home” devices, although this will not be activated at first.
“We have included the hardware that allows us to participate in the IOT ecosystem of the future,” Mr Wuellner said.
Google will begin taking pre-orders for the OnHub in the US and Canada this week, with devices shipping in the coming weeks.