Weekend of June 12, 2020 – Hour 1

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Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss midair haptic feedback for visually impaired individual, an autonomous jet vs a human pilot, Tesla’s market valuation and improvements, Twitter’s new labels, space tech, and more.

Nick in Windsor, Ontario listens on AM800 CKLW and is calling via the App and asked: “I’ve just started adding some smart devices, like light bulbs, doorbells and cameras. I’m the only one in the house. Will I need to get a new router? I still use an Android box which goes over the Wifi. I’m wondering if all that contention will require a faster router. My router is maybe six years old.”

Nick, no you shouldn’t need a new router just because you added a few extra devices unless your original router was very cheap and underpowered.

Your new devices are typically relatively dormant most of the time and don’t generate a lot of traffic or require a lot of bandwidth.

Routers are not all equal, so the fact that it was made six years ago doesn’t tell us too much, for example, there were already some gigabit WiFi routers out in the market six years ago, and a router that can handle a gigabit connection should be able to handle a few devices.

In theory a home router should be able to handle in the neighborhood of 250 devices, but WiFi is a fairly heavy protocol, so people who truly like home automation and truly dislike getting off the couch sometimes prefer lighter weight wireless protocols that just rely on home automation.

Still, just you and a bunch of home devices are probably not going to be making your router sweat too much if it’s a decent one. Change it if it gives you trouble, but it probably won’t.

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