Gadgetory

the Cisco Val a series of products claims to be the simple way to connect your PC to a wireless network however I haven't really had a chance to put it to the test yet so I've got a couple of valais series products here first of all I have the valley valet valet however you pronounce it I'm gonna say valet or valet I don't know I've got the valet router right here so this is a wireless n router it's got four ten hundred Ethernet ports and then it supports wireless n obviously that would be without wires okay so here's the back of the router that's basically what it looks like and then I have the little USB key that comes with the valet so I'm gonna do two different scenarios first I am going to connect the valet to a computer running a third-party wireless card okay and then I'm going to use a Linksys valet connector so this is their own valet branded USB Wi-Fi card and I'm going to see how much different the process is if at all versus connecting to a third-party one this is the networking corner so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to unplug my DGL 4500 plug in the Cisco valet and then we'll go from there okay the indicator lights we've got on here seem to be indicating Wireless is working our internet connection is active and I have one LAN port plugged in so that is the one that goes to as per the label of the side bedroom so that's where I'm on my way back to okay that didn't take nearly five minutes but it did take about three some congratulations you are now connected to the Internet remove your easy setup key and keep it in a safe place you will use it to connect other computers so the easy setup key is basically just like WPS button as far as I can tell because it did manage to connect me to the network but I don't think it really did anything advanced like along the lines of what in the heck okay hold on maybe did some more advanced things it changed the name of links as 3/6 whatever whatever to shiny cheetah and also created a guest login as well that's kind of neat so they've generated some kind of okay well hold on this up up the network she checks it so it's set it as a work network which is interesting rather than as a home network and it's named to noon okay so let's let's take a little deeper let's find out what exactly the easy setup wizard has done for us here so connected on the computer or another device to your valet so you can add devices say for example another computer in your house okay so basically this is just a wizard to walk you through walking down there and connecting the easy setup key okay here we've got wireless printer what if I wanted to do this refer to the printers documentation okay so these are just little wizards let's say Oh Apple iPhone smartphone what if I were to do that I have an Apple iPhone smartphone here right in front of me okay so what would I want to do okay so the here's the security key and the security type that it gives me and I can print these settings and then I can connect my smart phone I'm not gonna bother doing that I know that'll work okay back back what else do we got we got guest access so allow guest access yes or no so I could turn that off I can send how many guests so I could say only one guest is allowed I can change the password it looks like the password by default is Kiwi 52 which is not bad they should connect to the wireless guest network listed above open a browser and then enter the guest password Nido well that's a cool option so you can set it up so that they have to enter password besides just hack suring into your your shiny cheetah guest wireless account neat okay so I can finish that I'll go back actually I really like this the Cisco Connect software is looking pretty good to me right about now because this is the kind of this is the kind of layout that like my aunt can use and that is really my benchmark for anything that is supposed to be simple is if my aunt can do it then it's probably simple don't tell her I said that but what else do we got here so valet settings so I mean telling her open up a browser and type in 192.168.1.1 then go to the advance and then there's no way there's no way she'll be able to handle that so this is the kind of thing that she can actually handle so safe web surfing or see if you're about to visit a potentially harmful web site here's your valley name and password updater create an easy set up key okay looks like you don't have to use the one that's included here's advance setting so do we got so this is for expert use only so stay away this is exactly the kind of thing I would be pretty happy for it to tell my aunt before she goes in and messes up things so if men I copied the password AHA so now we're going to 192.168.1.1 I don't have a password on it now or apparently I don't I don't know that's all because it gave me a password to use okay so this takes me to how to actually set up sorry about that my memory card filled up so this is where you can actually control the router the way that more advanced people would be able to do it okay so we'll close that close that alright so then we'll okay we're finished in here and let last but not least let's have a look at the parental controls so parental controls password let's make it whoops let's make it muffin in five okay all right and the secret question will be do you know muffin man and the answer would be yes okay so we've set that up let's have a look at what parental controls does for us okay restrict access on test PC block internet access here you got x block sites inappropriate for block specific sites neato and then finished so thank you for checking out my my one way of doing things actually no you know what let's let's do it with the valley connector now and see if it's any different all right so when we installed the cisco valet USB Wi-Fi thing so there it is okay we got a similar wizard okay no not that not that this and we get a setup guide so why don't we try that set up and please wait this may take up to five minutes okay well i'll be back then well after a couple seconds it prompts me to tell it whether i have an easy set up key which i do but let's pretend for the sake of making things more difficult for ourselves that i do not after a couple more seconds it comes up with a list of which wireless access points there are around me which I can select one and then I can enter the password for shiny cheetah okay well I don't remember what the setup for what the password is and other than putting in the easy setup key I don't really know of any way that I can figure it out at this point but it looks like here basically this is my conclusion on the valet the router is the big one so if you get the valley connector obviously you are assured that it'll be compatible with the router which can be a bit of a problem for wireless devices but the router and the easy setup key seems to be where the magic happens so I would definitely recommend based on what I've seen so far from the Cisco valley router getting this for your less well technologically inclined relatives or friends and it looks like it should be quite a simple way for them to set up not only just connecting to the internet but also managing some basic configuration stuff like parental controls and guest networks and stuff like that thanks for checking out this episode of - tech tips don't forget to subscribe from on boxing's reviews and other computer videos