Eager to get ahead of the 4K streaming revolution, Linksys has announced a trio of new Wi-Fi products, led by the first fully functional MU-MIMO AC5400 tri-band wireless router, and accompanied by an AC1900 range extender and a wireless-AC USB adapter.
This holy trinity of networking products can all take advantage of the MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple Output) spec which is part of 802.11ac's next generation 'Wave 2' technology.
The Linksys EA9500 is a tri-band wireless AC5400 router (combining three radios — one 1000 Mbps 2.4GHz part and two 2166 Mbps 5GHz ones) with a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, nine Gigabit Ethernet ports (eight LAN, one WAN), USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, eight external antennas, WPA2 encryption and SPI firewall protection, and support for up to eight simultaneous MU-MIMO streams. Australian pricing has been set at $549.95.
Extending the range of your wireless network is the Linksys RE7000, which is the first of its kind with MU-MIMO and Linksys' 'Seamless Roaming' functionality which lets it share the same SSID as your router, plus dual-band wireless AC1900 (AC1733 + N300) capability and crossband technology. It'll set you back $199.95.
Setup, remote access, control and troubleshooting is available via the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi app, which also uses Spot Finder Technology to show users the optimal place to setup the Range Extender for maximum signal strength.
Linksys' accompanying AC600 USB MU-MIMO adapter (WUSB6100M), which is optimised to work with Linksys Max-Stream solutions, is priced at $59.95, and can be purchased when all three of the products launch this Thursday, July 14.
