ASUS Blue Cave

COMPREHENSIVE NETWORK CONTROL.

WELL, WE HAVE to wonder: did the name come first or did the design? Did one of the hardware engineers at ASUS wake up from a surreal dream one morning?

One thing’s for sure, Blue Cave, with its toroidal cavern gouged through the middle, is pretty uniquelooking for a router. As far as we can tell, there’s no practical reason for this design, but it certainly gives Blue Cave a visual edge over its competitors.

Around the back, the design isn’t as radical. There’s a Gigabit Ethernet port to hook up to your modem, four Gigabit ports for other connected devices and a USB 3.0 (Type A) port for additional expansion. There is also a physical off switch and a hidden WPS button for easy device connection.

In terms of performance, we’ve tested routers with more powerful distance coverage, but Blue Cave’s dual radios, which broadcast on distinct 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks rather than meshing the two together, are notably snappy. We had no trouble streaming 4K video over Wi-Fi, and didn’t experience any notable lag when gaming.

What Blue Cave lacks in sheer broadcast strength, it makes up for by being one smart cookie of a router. From the very beginning, it shines over many of its competitors, with a straightforward setup process, a super-simple task that you can do with the ASUS Router app. Granted, the app itself isn’t the prettiest, and it feels a little rough around the edges, but once you’re up and running, it’s thorough enough and is regularly updated. You can also control the router using Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant.

Family management is one of Blue Cave’s strong points, with ASUS’s AiProtection enabling you to collect devices into groups, then apply usage restrictions to manage what those groups are able to access and when. The app makes it easy to set schedules and to view reports on internet activity.

You can also add per-device bandwidth limiting, to prevent someone hogging all the data. In addition, there’s security built in from TrendMicro, which adds a layer of protection to everything on your network, including notoriously vulnerable Internet of Things devices. Blue Cave also makes the most of the various functions of that aforementioned USB port with built-in FTP and Samba file sharing, and its own print server.

WE’VE TESTED ROUTERS WITH MORE POWERFUL DISTANCE COVERAGE, BUT BLUE CAVE’S DUAL RADIOS, WHICH BROADCAST ON DISTINCT 2.4GHZ AND 5GHZ NETWORKS RATHER THAN MESHING THE TWO TOGETHER, ARE NOTABLY SNAPPY.