A Device-Centric Approach
What Does Your Router Do for You?
Ask this question, and you will see eyes glaze over. Leaving performance aside (the important subject of another blog), most think of their router as doing the necessary but mundane job of connecting all their devices and IoT gadgets to the Internet and providing some type of security firewall. But what else is it good for, and how does it make your life easier?
What Your Router Can Do for You
Most customers are delighted with their latest IoT gadgets and the respective apps that come with them. But step back to the network level, the “world” view of your network. Who is keeping track of all these new gadgets coming online—and the old ones too? In the case of Island, it’s your router. And with an Island router, “keeping track” means a wealth of functionality: it finds and lists all your devices, shows you real-time and historical traffic, gives you dynamic or scheduled control over Internet browsing access and other privileges like VPN, alerts you to the network events you choose, and makes sure it all stays secure. Your router can thus give you complete visibility and control of your network from anywhere local or remote, ultimately making your life simpler.
The Hero-Router Philosophy: A Device-Centric Approach
The Island router thinks of your devices the way that humans think of devices: as separate entities that can stand alone, belong to people, or be grouped (and people can be grouped too). A device-centric approach means that any network function can be applied to just one or a group of them at a time. It stands to reason that to manipulate all these devices, they need to be easy to find and recognize. Fortunately, Island supplies tools to help.
The Key to Taking Advantage of Device-Centric Operation
The first thing you see upon installing an Island router is a list of every device it finds. The most important thing you can do after install to make your online life easy and useful is to name your devices, name people who will use the network (users), assign respective devices to them, and group devices and/or users according to common purpose. While naming, choose icons and colors where possible. For every device, you can assign a related icon—depicting a phone, desktop, printer, camera, light bulb, etc.—from an extensive list. For each user you create, you can choose one of sixteen colors; any device you assign to that user takes on that color in the app. For each group you create, you can assign an icon and a color, and devices assigned to the group take on the group’s color. (Devices not assigned to users or groups are gray.) From then on, viewing lists, graphs, schedules, privileges, or notifications is a snap—the combination of name, icon, and color immediately gives you clear, visual cues as to what is happening on your network.
Naming and Grouping Has Its Reward: Ultimate Online Ease
Depending on the size of your network, that initial device list can be long, numbering tens or hundreds of devices. It’s not unusual, for example, to find that a high-end residence may have 200-300 devices on its network. Wherever possible, Island uses fingerprinting techniques to help identify devices and assigns an appropriate, default device-type icon. As there are thousands of manufacturers world-wide making millions of IoT devices, however, some devices show up as serial numbers or codes that require googling for clues. Note that Island’s fingerprinting efforts may take a few days, as more information about a device is supplied the more often it is “seen” on the network. So, identifying every device can take a little time. Once accomplished however, the rewards are rich. You can be notified of any “new” device that connects to your network and can take appropriate actions. You can quickly see when devices, users, or groups are on or offline and monitor their activity. Most importantly, any action you need to apply to a device, user, or group can be accomplished swiftly with a tap or a swipe by simply bringing up the device’s name. Functions such as filtering, pausing, port forwarding, setting DHCP reservations, enabling UPnP, and more—suddenly become simple: no having to create and edit tables, to know and add IP addresses, or perform other onerous routines. In the end, the relatively short amount of time you spend naming and grouping devices rewards you with ultimate ease of use for the rest of the life of your network.