NETGEAR today announced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) three new home networking products that deliver the connectivity consumers need to supercharge their Internet-ready home theater gadgets and connect their iPads and other tablets, gaming consoles, and smartphones to the Internet.
Demonstrating the company’s commitment to delivering the innovative products needed to create the best connected entertainment and mobility experience throughout the home, NETGEAR introduces the Universal WiFi Range Extender—a compact wall-plugged design (WN3000RP) and two powerline networking solutions: the Internet Adapter for Home Theater—HD+3D (XAVB5004), which is the fastest powerline networking solution currently available on the market, and the Powerline AV 200 Nano Adapter Kit (XAVB2101), which is the world’s smallest 200Mbps powerline AV adapter.
“Over the last 15 years, NETGEAR has led the way to connect people to the Internet with the most reliable and fastest connections possible,” said Vivek Pathela, vice president and general manager, Home/Consumer Products, NETGEAR. “Today, people are placing increasing demands on their home networks to stream videos to their home theaters, play online games in 3D, and engage in social networks and apps with their iPads, tablets, or smartphones. We’ve created a new fleet of products that not only give consumers the reliable connection they’ve come to expect from NETGEAR, but also numerous ways to easily connect the growing number of HD entertainment and mobile devices in the home to the Internet. It’s the next wave of Internet connectivity in the home.”
For many consumers, setting up and connecting home theater and mobile devices to the home network and the Internet remains a mysterious and complicated experience. WiFi-enabled Blu-rayTM players, gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets are often in different rooms of the home and therefore may not get a strong signal from the wireless router—which limits usage and makes it impractical to stream HD video or play high-performance online games at the same time. The NETGEAR products announced today address the connectivity and network performance issues often faced in today’s connected world and give consumers the ability to create their ultimate home theater and mobility experience.
“We’ve reached a tipping point. People aren’t just connecting their PCs and printers to the Internet anymore. Today, consumers are connecting more entertainment and mobile devices to their home network than ever before and we expect this number will grow to more than seven billion worldwide by 2015,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. “NETGEAR’s latest offerings capitalize on this market change and offer consumers a flexible and option-rich approach to creating an IP-enabled living room.”
Extend WiFi in the Home with the Universal WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP)
The Universal WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP) increases the coverage of an existing home network to help eliminate ‘dead zones’ and provides more network bandwidth for entertainment, gaming and social networking applications. Due to the increasing presence of iPads and mobile devices, wireless coverage is increasingly needed in every corner of the home. If there are rooms in the house that have limited or no wireless coverage because they are too far away from the router, the Universal WiFi Range Extender boosts the existing WiFi signal in order to reach wirelessly to these ‘dead zones’ in the home. Consumers need to simply place the product between the router and areas of the home where additional WiFi access and bandwidth are needed for activities like video streaming on a tablet or smartphone. The Universal WiFi Range Extender is the perfect solution for consumers who don’t want to change their existing home router. With the push of a button, consumers can add the extender to their home network and get a high-speed Internet connection. It securely and reliably enables devices including iPads, and other tablets, iPod Touch, laptops, Netbooks, WiFi-enabled smartphones, game consoles, and WiFi-enabled Blu-ray players, TVs and TV set-top boxes, to quickly connect to the home network. Its compact design is meant to be plugged directly into an electrical outlet without the need for messy cables and wiring.
Get Fast and Flawless HD Video with the New Compact Powerline Solutions: The Internet Adapter for Home Theater (XAVB5004) and the NETGEAR Powerline AV 200 Nano Adapter Kit (XAVB2101)
The latest additions to the NETGEAR powerline solutions deliver first-class networking using the existing electrical wiring in any home. The Internet Adapter for Home Theaters (XAVB5004) is the first 4-port 500Mbps powerline adapter kit and is the fastest powerline solution on the market today, while the XAVB2101 is the smallest 200Mbps powerline AV adapter currently available worldwide. The XAVB5004 is designed for compatibility with the draft IEEE P1901 global standard for high-speed powerline communications and both products are also GS/TUV Rheinland and HomePlug AV certified. These plug and play solutions also offer enterprise-class, push-button security for easy and trustworthy encryption.
The XAVB5004 delivers flawless HD video streaming and is capable of connecting up to four Internet-ready home theater devices, such as HDTVs, Blu-ray players, IPTVs, TV set-top boxes, media players or game consoles such as Xbox Live and PS3, via 4-Gigabit Ethernet ports, to the Internet. With bandwidth to support the demanding needs of 3D video, the kit includes one 1-port adapter to connect to the router and one 4-port adapter to connect the Home Theater room. The solution’s four ports are conveniently color coded for simple setup and quality of service (QoS). The ultra-compact, space-saving XAVB2101 extends Internet access throughout the home via any power outlet and provides a high-speed wired connection that is ideal for HD multimedia.
Pricing and Availability
The Universal WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP) will be available in March 2011 with an MSRP of $99.99. For more information, please visit: http://www.netgear.com/wn3000rp.aspx
The Internet Adapter for Home Theater—HD+3D, 4-port, 500Mbps (XAVB5004) will be available in January 2011 with an MSRP of $169.99. For more information, please visit: http://www.netgear.com/xavb5004.aspx
The Powerline AV 200 Nano Adapter Kit (XAVB2101) will be available in March 2011 with an MSRP of $139.99. For more information, please visit: http://www.netgear.com/xavb2101.aspx
All products will be available through major e-commerce and retail outlets.