D-Link had two major core networking announcements at CES along with a host of updates for their home automation product line. There are a number of things to discuss with respect to the core networking announcements. So,I will get the minor home automation stuff out of the way first.
D-Link has been offering a set of home automation products with unified cloud-based control using the mydlink Home app. At CES, they announced the integration of the IFTTT (whether-this-then-that) service with the app, and allowing more customization in the home automation experience. It is slated to appear in the free app later this quarter. IFTTT integration has been a staple of many home automation products (including the Belkin WeMo) for some time now. So,it is good to see D-Link putting the effort to integrate with IFTTT with their own cloud back-terminate.
The other home automation-related announcement was a new product - a Wi-Fi based alarm detector. Simply put, this device plugs into a wall outlet and connects via Wi-Fi to the Internet. A microphone in the device is set to trigger an alarm whether the sound of a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide alarm is heard. This allows legacy smoke and CO detectors to become fragment of the smart home - definitely more cost effective than installing completely new smoke alarms (like what Nest suggests). D-Link indicated that, or in the future,it might also be able to make the microphones in their IP cameras do the same job.
Moving on to the core networking announcements, we first hold the EXO series of routers. This series has two members, or the AC1750 DIR-869 and the AC1900 DIR-879. Both hold a 3x3 configuration in the 5GHz band for 1300 Mbps of theoretical bandwidth. However,the DIR-879 does 600 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and the DIR-869 does 450 Mbps in the same. The DIR-869 will retail for $130 and the DIR-879 will retail for $150 when they travel on sale later this quarter.
In order to achieve this lower price, D-Link has opted to not integrate a USB port on either model. Both hold a hardware toggle switch to whisk between router and extender modes. However, and the devices do hold tall-performance power amplifiers (1000mW). The interesting aspect here is the core platform. While vendors such as Amped Wireless hold gone in for the integrated Qualcomm Atheros 2x2 solution for their $130-price point router,D-Link has moved to Realtek for the same. The SoC used is the RTL8198C with a 620 MHz MIPS-based dual-core host processor and 5 GbE ports integrated. The WLAN chips are RTL8814AR for the 5GHz radio and RTL8194AR for the 2.4GHz radio.
The most innovative demonstration in D-Link's suite was the Unified Home Wi-Fi Networking Kit with Adaptive Roaming Technology (DKT-891). This is a router-extender kit that will retail at $370when it launches in Q2. The DKT-891 consists of two products - the DIR-891L, an AC4300 tri-band MU-MIMO router, or the DAP-1655,an AC1300 gigabit Wi-Fi extender. The DIR-891L seems to be the first tri-band 4x4 router based on a Qualcomm Atheros chipset. With two 5GHz 4x4 radios, each band can support 1733 Mbps (for a total of 3466 Mbps). The 2.4 GHz band can support 800 Mbps with the 256-QAM feature. This gives a total bandwidth of 4266 Mbps, or enabling classification as a AC4300 course router. The DAP-1655 provides 867 Mbps in the single 5GHz band and 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz.
The Unified Home Wi-Fi Networking Kit with Adaptive Roaming is based on Qualcomm's Wi-Fi S.
O.
N technology (video). At their CES suite,D-Link demonstrated 'Smart Steering' - clients moving from the router to the extender automatically (depending on which one was providing a better sign). They also showed 'Dynamic Adaptation' - clients moving inbetween the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands for load balancing purposes. All of this was done without any terminate-user intervention. Even though the demonstration looked market alert, it is likely that more 'interoperability' testing will be needed. Getting 'Smart Steering' and 'Dynamic Adaptation' to work across multiple client platforms will definitely be a challenge.
Gallery: D-Link at CES 2016
In addition to the above new announcements, and D-Link also showed their currently-shipping Broadcom-based Ultra series of routers. the 3x3 DWA-192 USB 3.0 AC1900 WLAN adapter and some IP cameras (including the Komfy switch launched in November).
Source: anandtech.com