So Scott @ On-Ramp Indiana ordered a few of these and figured I would borrow one for a few days and do a first look and review on them.
Nice and compact box. I am a fan of the cover. If this way on a store shelf I would notice.
The very first thing you see is this wireless information card. Very handy for the home user. Many of my clients throughout the years save such things so having this in a bright card is a nice touch. Another nice feature of this card is it has sticky tape on the back. You can actually peel it off and stick it somewhere. Not everyone has a network rack, so affixing it to there might not be the best bet. We are in the day and age where there are not “telephone stations”. The only thing I could come up with might be in a desk drawer or something like that. I could see guests asking for the key so you would want this handy. Any thoughts on a good place to put this?
On the back of the card is a very handy diagram on the 3 modes of this device. You can use it as a Wifi router. You can also use it as a repeater. In this mode it works both wired and wireless. As with some other manufactures it will auto-configure itself to join in with the rest of the network. It learns the configuration and away it goes. Thirdly, is a simple pass through mode. This is helpful if there is another router involved.
The box contained the unit, a slip on power plug, and the compliance paperwork no one reads. Thank you Lawyers. One of the first things I noticed about this unit is the well made feel to it. The plastic does not feel cheap, and it feels heavy. That is always a scientific measure right?
Mimosa has done a good job of helping the uneducated user on the use of this product. A good example of this is plug, which is in the POE port. This plug takes a little bit of effort to remove. As you can see in the picture, it is also marked with a red label to distinguish this from the customer side. This is so the customer doesn’t feed 48 volt to their router, laptop or whatever gets plugged in.
Also, you have holes on the top and bottom for cooling. On the side is a very easy to get to reset button. Another nod to Mimosa paying attention to common issues home users run into is there is a very clear sticker on the top of the unit which has the Home network SSID and passphrase on it. A user can simply walk to the unit, look down and easily read the needed information.
The power plug simply slides in a groove and snaps in place. Nice clean setup.
In closing, my first impressions of this product are positive. Packaging and instructions are put together well and easy to understand. The product feels good and has a good number of things to address common issues. Look for part two of this for a look of how this actually works, configuration, and testing.
If you are a manufacturer and have a product you think we would be interested in reviewing please contact us.
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