Almond 3: Whole Home Wi-Fi Just Got Much Smarter.
Last week we announced the pre-order availability of Almond 3: Smart Home Wi-Fi System on Securifi.com as well as Amazon.com. Almond 3, the latest in among many innovations from Securifi that have shaken up home Wi-Fi, includes Securifi’s solution for bringing enterprise mesh to the consumer market and eliminate all the dead spots in your home. It brings affordability, better Wi-Fi range per unit, incredibly easy setup on the built-in touchscreen Securifi pioneered on routers, and it doesn’t compromise on high end Wi-Fi management functions allowing you to view and control the people on your network from anywhere through our app. It also incredibly doubles as a smart hub able to connect with many of your favourite smart devices like Amazon Echo, Nest and Philips Hue.
Whole Home WiFi
Mesh technology, that can deliver whole home Wi-Fi, is gaining massive buzz in the consumer Wi-Fi space recently and for very good reason. Most homes have Wi-Fi dead spots caused by the thickness of walls, house size and awkward design. These issues, range and items blocking the path of your Wi-Fi signal, can’t be solved by simply getting a more powerful router able to transmit higher volumes of data to satisfy HD streaming and gaming requirements. Range extenders, designed to capture your Wi-Fi signal and rebroadcast it, can help to solve this, but Mesh technology offers a solution that improves on even the best dual-band extenders. With mesh the additional devices needed to spread the signal further are designed to work together with the primary device. This communication means they are able to optimize how Wi-Fi traffic from the multiple devices competing for bandwidth in your home flows — not just transmit the signal from your main router a little further. They can be added to the existing network with little setup and all use the same network (SSID) rather than creating an additional network in your home like range extenders do. In addition, they are scalable and intelligent in a way range extenders can never be — Range extenders can only throw the signal once, devices in a mesh system can link together to keep passing the signal on further and further to the deepest corners of your home.
Mesh is Just the Part of the Story
We have been planning to bring enterprise grade Mesh technology to Almond for some time and with Almond 3 that is finally a reality. While mesh offers a better way to spread Wi-Fi around your home a modern home Wi-Fi solution should be much more than just that. It should be secure, have remote management capabilities, and be able to work together with the increasing number of smart devices in your home. With these things in mind we felt strongly that any solution we brought to market should be priced competitively, combine our experience in creating intuitive long range routers and range extenders, and include sophisticated management features designed with consumers and the connected home in mind.
Wi-Fi and So Much More
Long range and smooth signal — Almond 3s work together, making sure that your Wi-Fi signal is maximized and delivered to every corner of your house — and your connection remains smooth and fast no matter where you are. Each Almond 3 covers 1,300 square feet allowing you to build out a network that suits just your needs.
Ease of Setup — Our touchscreen allows you to easily set up directly on Almond 3, with additional units only needing a few extra taps on your primary device to all sync up.
Wi-Fi Device Management features — The first time a new device joins your Wi-Fi network, you will receive a push notification with the device name and manufacturer information. You can then choose to block devices that you don’t recognize or choose to receive notifications when new or existing devices join or leave your network. Parental controls can also be easily enabled with this feature. For example, access to an Xbox can be blocked on weekdays between 4:00–7:00 p.m.
Works locally, without dependency on any server- Almond 3 has intelligence built-in as well as in the cloud meaning you can opt to do many things locally and your smart home network will work even if your Internet is down.
Rule Engine for Mobile — Almond 3 continues with our tradition of being a smart home hub able to connect to a huge range of key third party smart devices like Nest and Philips Hue and allowing automation between them. The part of our platform that makes that possible, Almond Rules Engine, has now been integrated with our mobile apps. Our Rules Engine goes beyond simple IFTTT commands as you can now easily create complex automations. For example, a rule can be created so that when you arrive home between 6:00–9:00 p.m. weekdays, Almond will disarm the alarm, turn on the porch light for five minutes, and then set the thermostat to 70F.
Amazon Echo — Almond 3, Almond+ and Almond 2015 are the first ever routers to work with Amazon Alexa. You now have the flexibility to control hundreds of Almond compatible smart home devices using just your voice and an Alexa-enabled device like Amazon Echo, Echo Dot or Amazon Tap.
Hardware — Not only does it have a dual-band AC1200 Wi-Fi radio, it also has a ZigBee radio and a programmable siren to make setting up home security easier and more affordable.
To take advantage of the improved Wi-Fi management features, rules engine for mobile and Alexa integration, you need to upgrade to our latest firmware. To do so simply tap Settings and then then Check for Updates on your Almond touchscreen.
We look forward to hearing any feedback and answering your questions.
