Cisco Linksys Smart Wi-Fi AC 1750HD Video Pro EA6500

Cisco's entry router into the pre-draft 802.11ac space is the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1750HD Video Pro EA6500. The EA6500 is the fastest performing router I've tested to date at the 5GHz band, besting even Buffalo's speedy pre-draft 802.11ac router, the AirStation AC1300/N900 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router WZR-D1800H. The EA65000, however, does not sustain range as well as Buffalo's router nor does the EA6500 match the Buffalo's?2.4 GHz throughput. Still, the EA6500 features an improved Cisco Connect Cloud interface and wonderful management tools that makes it an Editors' Choice award winner.

Specs
The EA6500 has a similar look to Cisco's other top-tier consumer router, the EA4500, except it's wider at 10 x 1.1 x 7.5 (WHD) inches versus the EA4500 v2's (7 x 1.1 x7.4) (WHD) inches. The EA6500 features the same attractive black case with metallic decorative overlay as the EA4500 v2. The EA6500's Cisco logo has a soft white glow and also serves as an LED for the router's status (for example, the logo blinks when a WPS connection is initiated).

This is a dual-band router that supports to a theoretical 450 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and 1300 Mbps at 5 GHz. Inside are six antennas with 3x3 transmit/receive rates for both bands. To get the maximum performance from the EA6500 a client machine with a 3x3 wireless adapter is required.

The rear panel accommodates four Gigabit LAN ports, a WAN port, a WPS button, a recessed reset button, and two USB 2.0 ports.

Setup
The router ships with a CD containing setup software and other resources including the user guide. Setup is simple; just insert the CD which will auto-run and click on the link to "Setup your Linksys Router." Those with networking know-how can also setup the router manually by connecting it to a broadband connection and PC and then going straight into the local interface.

A graphical tutorial demonstrates how to correctly connect cables. The setup wizard also automatically creates the SSID, router password, and wireless password (all of which you can change). By default, the automatic setup gives you WPA2 security and a strong password.

One small issue I had with setup?by default, the router uses the same SSID for both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I like to manually control which devices connect to which band, so I added a "5" to the 5 GHz network name to distinguish it from the 2.4 GHz network.

The entire setup process lasted exactly two minutes from connecting the router to my DSL modem to having a laptop wireless connected to the SSID. Few consumer routers this powerful make setup so easy.

Local Versus Cloud Management
Cisco has taken pains to clean up the mess that was the Cisco Connect Cloud software which previously forced users to upgrade to the Smart Wi-Fi cloud firmware, and in some cases, rendered some users' routers unmanageable. Many users had to rollback the firmware update.

The EA6500 gives users the best of both worlds: the ability to manage the router locally by pointing a browser to the IP address of the router, or by using the Cisco Connect Cloud interface. Both interfaces look identical which is important for maintain management consistency.

There is one small, albeit important, difference, though. If you point a browser to the router's IP address, you get to the local interface. The local management screen features a light blue bar at the top of the home page of the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi dashboard. When you access the router's cloud management page, the same bar is colored dark blue. These color differences are important in letting a user know if the router is being managed locally or remotely.

How do you get to the cloud management? After setup, a shortcut is placed on the desktop of the machine used to setup the router. This shortcut goes to ciscoconnectcloud.com where you create an account and register the router.

?The interfaces are visually identical, except you have access to a few Smart Wi-Fi apps Cisco offers to extent the router's capabilities.? Some apps include Gemini IP Camera Viewer for remotely monitoring IP cameras and Device Monitr which allows seeing who is online on your home network and for how long.

The Smart Wi-Fi cloud platform also allows managing multiple Linksys Smart Wi-Fi routers. So if I have an EA6500 at home and I setup my Dad with an EA4500, I can connect to his router and perform any updating and troubleshooting.

Admittedly, if I hadn't read in my review notes supplied by Cisco that the way to tell if you are accessing the local interface from the cloud is by the color of the top bar on the dashboard page, I may not have noticed. Cisco should make the difference clearer even just by adding something like "Cloud Interface" to the dashboard screen when you are managing the router via the Internet. Still, I like the consistency of both interfaces' design and did not notice any latency applying any settings' changes whether I was managing locally or through the cloud.

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