The Asus Blue Cave is an AC2600 dual-band wifi router unlike any other-- the design features a antenna-less design with a hole in the middle, making it look like a Dyson bladeless fan.

First presented at Computex 2017, the Blue Cave promises "smooth wifi" and "smart protection." It runs on the latest Intel wifi chipset, and includes Trend Micro protection for "every connected smart devices on the network, including IoT devices." A companion app provides granular control (such as network usage, family time limits and app internet access) while IFTTT support provides means for users to create formulas to run their smart homes and digital lives.

TP-Link is the next company to announce a home wireless mesh networking system-- the Deco M5, a means to blanket the home with wifi using three access points.

Similar to other mesh networking offerings from the likes of Google, Netgear and Eero, the Deco M5 covers up to 450 square metres using 3 access points. In case customers need more coverage the system scales scales to 10 access points. Wireless comes through a dual-band system using the AC1300 wireless standard, and promises speeds of up to 400Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 867Mbps on the 5GHz band.

Netgear adds a pair of devices to the Orbi mesh wireless system-- the RBK30 and RBK40, both similar to the original RBK50 kit but featuring a smaller AC2200 router instead of an AC3000 unit.

The RBK30 consists of a single AC2200 router and a small signal-boosting wall plug satellite, and covers around 325 square metres. The RBK40 consists of a pair of AC2200 routers and covers 370 square metres.

Like the RBK50, the routers use what Netgear calls a "tri-bend mesh system." Essentially the router sends out three channels, one to extend internet to the satellite and two others to feed the connections of other devices. The router supports 802.11ac wifi with speeds reaching up to 3Gbps, and the satellite can be placed anywhere to create a unified network with a single user-selectable SSID.

Asus announces a combination of modem and router with the DSL-AC88U-- a piece of networking gear the company claims is its fastest yet through to the use of Broadcom NitroQAM technology.

The DSL-AC88U supports the G.fast standard, as well as ADSL, ADSL2/2 and VDSL2 services. It promises broadband speeds of up to 18x faster than VDSL2 services allow, and also connects to the internet via regular ethenet. Meanwhile NitroQAM (1024-QAM) technology enables wifi data rates of up to 2167Mbps on the 5GHz band and 1000Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, for concurrent bandwidth of up to 3167Mbps.

Further connectivity comes through a pair of USB ports-- one USB 3.0 in the front, and one USB 2.0 in the back. This allows users to turn the router into a NAS or share a printer across the home network, and the ports also handle compatible 3G/4G USB dongles to add cellular connectivity as a backup.