The app is on MacOS and iOS, and an older version for Windows. Setup is controlled through an app, not a web page running on the router. You guessed it, no scheduling control.Įverything is like this. So it periodically, once every few hours, wakes up the devices.įine right? Sure, until it does so in the middle of the night and you get woken up by the disks warming up in the room next to you. In order to know what services really are available it needs to make sure your computer can still be turned on (it’s asleep, not turned off) and the services are still running. You turn it on and it does its thing, and if you don’t like that, tough.įor instance, consider Bonjour Sleep Proxy. The main problem with the Extreme is that it can’t really be controlled. It really does limit the wake ups to just those needed by the Extreme to keep the link active. So not only will a ping not wake up your computer (the Express blocks things like that), but neither will file access requests if file sharing is turned off (for instance). Bonjour Sleep Proxy only wakes the computer when specific protocols are used, only those that have been registered by a computer going to sleep. Some readers will think this is simply Wake on LAN, one of the anti-features you should immediately turn off if you don’t want your computer to be turning on all the time. Another key use for this feature is file sharing on your LAN or WAN. If I try to play one of those files, it wakes up the Mac and off it goes. Normally the Apple TV would see the Mac disappear when it slept, but the Extreme pretends to be the Mac, so the Apple TV keeps seeing it. Using this feature I can allow the Mac to go to sleep, and when it does it registers the music with the Extreme. In my own case I have an Apple TV in the basement, and some music on my desktop Mac. There are a couple of places where this is super useful. From then on the Extreme pretends to be that device on the network, and will wake up the device if someone wants to talk to it. Basically, when anything on your network wants to go to sleep, like your computer or an Apple TV, it can register with the Extreme. And if you have other Macs or similar products in the home, you might make use of the Extreme’s one glowing feature… Real Wake-on-LANĪ while back (2009) Apple introduced something called Bonjour Sleep Proxy. If that’s you, go ahead and get one, you’ll almost certainly be happy. It’s also an extremely robust box that runs fairly cool (in relative terms) and has been rock solid since I plugged it in.Īnd to be honest, for most people reading this, those are the only features you need and want. Unlike every base station I’ve used in the past, the Extreme has a normal power cord so there’s no warts on the floor or taking up room in the power bar. One of the great design features of the device is the power cord – yes, the power cord. It also has gigabit ethernet sockets for three devices, an odd number considering practically everyone else has four. The device is a pretty standard Wi-Fi base station, this model supporting a, b, g and n standards – the newer model adds ac to that mix, although this is still emerging and none of my devices support this yet. It competes with devices that are much less expensive, so clearly the brand power is working for them here. The AirPort is Apple’s offering for the home networking niche, and apparently one of the best selling models in this space. If you want a plug-n-play device to handle networking on a mostly-Mac/iOS network, this is a good option. It does have two redeeming features, extremely high quality, and super-easy setup on the Mac, and to a slightly less degree on the PC. In terms of features, performance and price, the AirPort is an unmitigated pile of shod. Now that I’ve used it for a while, here’s my review. It replaced an earlier a/b/g model from Linksys, providing me with n support and some other features as well. I’ve had an Apple AirPort Extreme as my main base-station router for some time now. It’s this one, not the new tall-skinny one
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