It takes a special kind of company to make routers exciting. Securifi’s managed to tap into a bit of that with past versions of the Almond, a router that brought touch-screen functionality and a handful of other features to help take some of the hair-pulling pain out of the process of setting up a home network.
The startup is marking this year’s CES with the release of the third-generation product, bringing a few new tricks, including a speed bump that company claims will make the router four times faster than the product it introduced in 2015.
The new Almond also doubles as a range-finder and also features built-in home security functionality, setting off an alarm when motion is detected through door and window sensors, which can then be disarmed by authorized smartphones. There’s also support for the ZigBee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth wireless to help turn the thing into a sort of smart home hub, and it works with Nest, Philips Hue and other smart home devices.
The Gigabit Wi-Fi router is arriving “in the coming months,” along with a software support that will bring mesh networking to previous generations of the device. It’ll run $119 at retail.
