Just when you thought Android was on everything, something new pops up. Home networking hasn’t advanced much since WiFi, but Soap could change that.
Network configuration is a real pain in most households, because not every product is designed with home use as the primary focus. Knowing things like your default IP and navigating the usually half-baked web interface for your router can be a real pain.
A new Kickstarter program for The Soap smart Android router will change that, though. The soap is a wireless router with a 7 inch touchscreen display that has an Android interface. No more google queries like “default IP for Linksys wrt54g” or logging into frustrating web portals.
The Soap smart router is about far more than just convenient home network configuration, though. On top of convenient access to the same features most other routers have (network visibility, parental controls, diagnostic tools, and etc), The Soap offers tremendous support for just about any home automation service you want.
In addition to typical router features, The Soap also comes with 32GB of onboard storage if you want to store any files locally. 32GB isn’t great if you want to store a lot of media, so there’s a SATA2 connector available as well as an SD card slot for convenient file transfers.
The soap also supports 802.11/ac, but also supports a/b/g/n. Dual band 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz WiFi ensures compatibility with just about any WiFi connection you want to make, but still has 4 gigabit LAN ports. It also has Bluetooth and NFC compatibility. It might be difficult to find a device not supported by Soap.
To top it all off, The Soap, being Android, obviously has app support, meaning you can control it from your couch using a smartphone or tablet. The creators are also encouraging an open ecosystem, meaning Soap is only scratching the surface of potential features out of the box.
An open ecosystem does mean there is potential for people to start installing malicious apps right onto their router, which could be problematic, but being sure to only download apps directly from trusted sources would likely eliminate this issue for most people.
Soap is already well past its $80,000 funding goal, but has additional stretch goals at $200k and $500k, so head on over the Kickstarter page to check it out.
Source: Phandroid
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