WD has been very active in the networking areas these days and released bunch of cutting edge technology routers and routers with built-in HDD & NAS recently. WD does make excellent quality hardware and I have multitude of their devices around the house and all perform well. To name a few, I haveWD My Net N900 Central HD Dual Band Router 2TB Storage WiFi Wireless Router, WD My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender. WD is also known for their hard drives and Media players like Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center & WD TV Live Streaming Media Player Wi-Fi
While all these above mentioned products work very well they are limited by the wireless speeds imposed by the 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi standards especially for HD video streaming. That is where the 5Ghz based AC routers, bridges and repeaters come in to overcome the speed bottleneck.
The WD My Net AC Bridge is their top of the line product intended to work with their IEEE 802.11ac protocols based routers such as WD My Net AC1300 HD Dual Band Router Wireless AC WiFi Router to provide you with a complete solution for IEEE 802.11ac wireless LAN around your house.
For less tech savvy person let me share who could benefit (or not) from this types of product. Firstly you need to understand what IEEE 802.11ac gets you - This technology which is currently under heavy development and drafts have been issued which enables the use of 5GHZ wireless band (Which is less congested and less prone to RF interference from Microwaves and other RF interferences sources) providing near 1Gbps (theoretical) Wireless LAN performance using the 5GHz bands. The finalization of this technology is expected by mid of 2013 and expected to go mainstream by 2015.
Having said, WD's venture into cutting edge technologies like these could mean that current users can possibly expect some changes going forward with firmware updates and other user UI changes and bear some early adoption woes and frustration. But, the basic technology works as is and that is good news for most users like me.
To use this product effectively firstly you must have a router that is capable of running at IEEE 802.11ac speeds so that this bridge can discover that 5GHz network and create a wireless connection to your main router. Once that hurdle is overcome you can then connect the 4 Gigabit ports that are available to your local BD player, XBOX or WD TV live devices in your entertainment center with wires to achieve near Gigabit speeds without having to worry about interference and loss of speeds.
Does this product work? - Yes it does!(with Firmware Release 1.02.01 (11/20/2012) I do not own any "AC routers" so I had to borrow Buffalo Technology Buffalo Airstation Ac1300 / N900 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router from my friend to test this AC bridge from WD. In my tests, I found that the range is still somewhat limited (Not WD's Fault) as 5 GHz Wi-Fi technology has those dreaded limitations wherein it cannot penetrate solid walls due to frequency and signal strength. Strategically placing Repeaters and Bridges like these can prevent such annoyances in the 5GHz bands by getting wired connections to the intended Gigabit devices around your house and it does work! - Good news!
If you have a large room with empty spaces and very little solid walls in your house which are bricks and cement the IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi network will work relatively well. The benefit when it works using this AC bridge is huge. You do not need to update the Wi-Fi adapters of your legacy devices, You can use the existing Gigabit ports of your favorite device and you can get a theoretical speed nearing 1Gbps for all the devices around the house wirelessly which is huge jump when compared to modest 2.4 GHz based networks where you can achieve at about 300Mbps max with the existing network hardware.
If you can wait few more months to a year more it will be better as these technologies will get standardized and manufacturers will have better chip-sets to work with providing better coverage around your house.
But, If you love to be an early adopter and desperately need to have Gigabit connection to your devices around your house this WD My Net AC Bridge, 4-Port Gigabit WiFi AC Wireless Bridge will work very well. Make sure you get a compatible IEEE 802.11ac router to go along with otherwise this product is of no use on it's own.
Thanks for reading my review!
While all these above mentioned products work very well they are limited by the wireless speeds imposed by the 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi standards especially for HD video streaming. That is where the 5Ghz based AC routers, bridges and repeaters come in to overcome the speed bottleneck.
The WD My Net AC Bridge is their top of the line product intended to work with their IEEE 802.11ac protocols based routers such as WD My Net AC1300 HD Dual Band Router Wireless AC WiFi Router to provide you with a complete solution for IEEE 802.11ac wireless LAN around your house.
For less tech savvy person let me share who could benefit (or not) from this types of product. Firstly you need to understand what IEEE 802.11ac gets you - This technology which is currently under heavy development and drafts have been issued which enables the use of 5GHZ wireless band (Which is less congested and less prone to RF interference from Microwaves and other RF interferences sources) providing near 1Gbps (theoretical) Wireless LAN performance using the 5GHz bands. The finalization of this technology is expected by mid of 2013 and expected to go mainstream by 2015.
Having said, WD's venture into cutting edge technologies like these could mean that current users can possibly expect some changes going forward with firmware updates and other user UI changes and bear some early adoption woes and frustration. But, the basic technology works as is and that is good news for most users like me.
To use this product effectively firstly you must have a router that is capable of running at IEEE 802.11ac speeds so that this bridge can discover that 5GHz network and create a wireless connection to your main router. Once that hurdle is overcome you can then connect the 4 Gigabit ports that are available to your local BD player, XBOX or WD TV live devices in your entertainment center with wires to achieve near Gigabit speeds without having to worry about interference and loss of speeds.
Does this product work? - Yes it does!(with Firmware Release 1.02.01 (11/20/2012) I do not own any "AC routers" so I had to borrow Buffalo Technology Buffalo Airstation Ac1300 / N900 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router from my friend to test this AC bridge from WD. In my tests, I found that the range is still somewhat limited (Not WD's Fault) as 5 GHz Wi-Fi technology has those dreaded limitations wherein it cannot penetrate solid walls due to frequency and signal strength. Strategically placing Repeaters and Bridges like these can prevent such annoyances in the 5GHz bands by getting wired connections to the intended Gigabit devices around your house and it does work! - Good news!
If you have a large room with empty spaces and very little solid walls in your house which are bricks and cement the IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi network will work relatively well. The benefit when it works using this AC bridge is huge. You do not need to update the Wi-Fi adapters of your legacy devices, You can use the existing Gigabit ports of your favorite device and you can get a theoretical speed nearing 1Gbps for all the devices around the house wirelessly which is huge jump when compared to modest 2.4 GHz based networks where you can achieve at about 300Mbps max with the existing network hardware.
If you can wait few more months to a year more it will be better as these technologies will get standardized and manufacturers will have better chip-sets to work with providing better coverage around your house.
But, If you love to be an early adopter and desperately need to have Gigabit connection to your devices around your house this WD My Net AC Bridge, 4-Port Gigabit WiFi AC Wireless Bridge will work very well. Make sure you get a compatible IEEE 802.11ac router to go along with otherwise this product is of no use on it's own.
Thanks for reading my review!
Cheers!
You can buy this product from Amazon by using this link WD My Net AC Bridge
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