Cisco Valet Wireless N Router Setup Guide Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,559 words · ~7 min read
0:00
The Cisco valet series of products claims to be the simple way to connect
0:05
your PC to a wireless network however I haven't really had a chance to put it to
0:10
the test yet so I've got a couple valet
0:13
series products here first of all I have the valet valet valet however you prefer
0:18
to pronounce it I'm going to say valet or valet I don't know I've got the valet
0:22
router right here so this is a wireless end router it's got 4 1000 Ethernet
0:28
ports and then it supports Wireless obviously that would be without wires
0:32
okay so here's the back of the router that's basically what it looks like and
0:36
then I have the little USB key that comes with the valet so I'm going to do
0:41
two different scenarios first I am going to connect the valet to a computer
0:46
running a thirdparty wireless card okay
0:49
and then I'm going to use a linkis valet
0:55
connector so this is their own valet
0:58
branded USB Wi-Fi card and I'm going to see how much different the process is if
1:04
at all versus connecting to a third party one this is the networking corner
1:09
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to unplug my DGL 4500 plug in the Cisco Val
1:16
and then we'll go from there okay the indicator lights we've got on here seem
1:20
to be indicating Wireless is working our internet connection is active and I have
1:24
one Lan Port plugged in so that is the
1:28
one that goes to uh as per the label the
1:31
side bedroom so that's where I'm on my way back to okay that didn't take nearly
1:35
5 minutes but it did take about three um so congratulations you are now connected
1:40
to the internet remove your easy setup key and keep it in a safe place you will
1:45
use it to connect other computers so the easy setup key is basically just like uh
1:50
WPS button as far as I can tell because
1:53
it did manage to connect me to the network but I don't think it really did
1:58
anything advanced like along the lines
2:01
of what in the heck okay hold on maybe it did some more
2:06
advanced things it changed the name of linkis 36 whatever whatever to shiny
2:11
cheetah and also created uh a guest
2:16
login as well that's kind of neat so
2:20
they've generated some kind of okay well hold on let's open up the network check
2:24
so it set it as a work Network which is
2:27
interesting rather than as a home Network and it's name change the name
2:31
okay so let's let's dig a little deeper and let's find out what exactly the easy
2:35
setup wizard has done for us here so connect another computer or another
2:39
device to Your Valet so you can add
2:42
devices say for example another computer in your house okay so basically this is
2:45
just a a wizard to walk you through
2:48
walking down there and connecting the easy setup key okay uh here we've got
2:53
wireless printer what if I wanted to do this
2:57
refer to the printer's documentation okay so these are just little Wizards
3:00
let's say oh Apple iPhone smartphone what if I were to do that I have an
3:05
Apple iPhone smartphone here right in front of me okay so what would I want to
3:11
do okay so here's the security key and the security type that it gives me and I
3:16
can print these settings and then I can connect my smartphone I'm not going to
3:20
bother doing that I know that'll work okay back back what else do we got we
3:24
got guest access so allow guest access yes or no so I could turn that off I can
3:28
set how many guests so I could say only one guest is allowed I can change the
3:33
password it looks like the password by default is kiwi 52 which is not bad they
3:37
should connect to the wireless guest Network listed above open a browser and then enter the guest password Neato well
3:43
that's a cool option so you can set it up so that they have to enter a password
3:48
besides just haering into your uh your
3:52
shiny cheetah guest
3:55
Wireless account neat okay so I can
3:59
finish that I'll go back I actually I really like
4:02
this the Cisco Connect software is looking pretty good to me right about
4:06
now because this is the kind of this is the kind of layout that like my Aunt can
4:12
use and um that is really my Benchmark
4:15
for anything that is supposed to be simple is if my aunt can do it then it's
4:21
probably simple don't tell her I said that but uh what else do we got here so
4:25
valet settings so I mean telling her open up a browser and type in 192 .16
4:30
8.1.1 and then go to the advanced and then there's no way there's no way
4:34
she'll be able to handle that so this is the kind of thing that she can actually handle so safe web surfing aler see if
4:39
you're about to visit a potentially harmful website here's your Valley name
4:43
and password update or create an easy setup key okay looks like you don't have
4:47
to use the one that's included here's advanced settings what do we got so this
4:51
is for expert use only so stay away this is exactly the kind of thing I would be
4:56
pretty happy for it to tell my aunt before she goes in and messes up with
5:00
things so admin I copied the password aha so now we're going to
5:05
192.168.1.1 I don't have a password on it now or apparently I don't I don't
5:10
know that's odd because it gave me a password to use okay so this takes me to
5:14
how to actually set up sorry about that my memory card filled up uh so this is
5:19
where you can actually control the router the way that more advanced people
5:23
would be able to do it okay so we'll close that close that all right so then
5:28
we'll okay we're finished in here and last but not least let's have a look at
5:32
the parental controls so parental controls password let's make it uh
5:38
oops let's make it Muffin Man five
5:47
okay all right and the secret question will be do you
5:54
know Muffin Man and the answer would be yes
6:03
Okay so we've set that up let's have a look at what parental controls does for
6:11
us okay restrict access on test PC block
6:14
internet access here you got times block sites and appropriate for Block specific
6:20
sites need o and then finish so thank you for checking out my uh my one way of
6:25
doing things actually no you know what let's uh let's do it with the valley
6:28
connector now and see if it's any different all right so when we install
6:32
the Cisco uh valet USB Wi-Fi thing so
6:36
there it is okay we get a similar wizard
6:40
okay no not that not that this and we
6:44
get a setup guide so why don't we try that setup and please wait this may take
6:48
up to 5 minutes okay well I'll be back then well after a couple seconds it
6:52
prompts me uh to tell it whether I have
6:57
an easy setup key which I do but let's pretend for the sake of making
7:02
things more difficult for ourselves that I do
7:05
not after a couple more seconds it comes up with a list of which wireless access
7:11
points there are around me which I can select one and then I can enter the
7:14
password for shiny cheetah okay well I don't remember what
7:19
the setup or what the uh password is and
7:22
uh other than putting in the easy setup key I don't really know of any way that
7:26
I can figure it out at this point but it looks like here basically this is my
7:31
conclusion on the valet the router is the big one so if you get the valet
7:35
connector obviously you are assured that it'll be compatible with the router
7:39
which can be a bit of a problem for wireless devices but the router and the
7:43
easy setup key seems to be where the magic happens so I would definitely
7:49
recommend based on what I've seen so far from The Cisco valet router getting this
7:53
for your less uh well technologically
7:57
inclined relatives or friends and it
8:00
looks like it should be quite a simple way for them to set up not only just
8:04
connecting to the internet but also managing some basic configuration stuff
8:08
like parental controls and guest networks and stuff like that thanks for
8:12
checking out this episode of lonus tech tips don't forget to subscribe for more
8:15
unboxings reviews and other computer
8:18
videos