I regret to inform that the BR range of routers have reached the End of
their Life. That means that we no longer support the product. But we will
be able to provide you any documentation that is already available and
drivers. The only exception to this case would be if you have purchased
the router within the past one year and you can provide proof of purchase
for the same.
Please fax a copy to the following no: 949 679 1085

If you need further assistance, please reply with history to this email.

Regards,"

Well, what about the limited lifetime guarantee? Is it limited by the release of the next version of the unit? Apparently they define lifetime as "UNTIL THE UNIT STOPS WORKING PROPERLY".

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND AVOIDING SMC PRODUCTS, UNLESS YOU ENJOY SPENDING YOUR TIME ON HOLD WAITING FOR TECH SUPPORT, OR SPENDING WEEKS WAITING FOR RETURN EMAIL.

There are many that said this router has a weak signal. Boy are they wrong! I guess it depends on the composition of your home though. I tried every room in our 2500 sq ft house and signal strength was not a problem at all. I even got a strong signal in our cement-walled basement. I drove down the street and lost the signal about 300 feet from my home. Not bad. I have a Dell Latitude C610 laptop with an integrated wireless NIC. I didn't have to do any configuration on the laptop at all. It picked up an IP address right away.

I wish that the print server port was USB instead of parallel. I haven't been able to get my Canon S750 working yet, but I didn't buy the router for the print server feature. Web based configuration interface is very simple and straight forward. It is set up to start NAT'ing addresses right out of the box. Documentation is well written but a little skimpy in areas.

I have noticed bandwidth degredation with the encryption turned on, but you'll get that no matter what wireless router you purchase.

Overall, I'm very pleased and would recommend this router to anyone.

I suggest getting a good wireless card to go with this, like the XJack 3Com card, which I have had particularly good luck with (on two laptops). Windows XP also makes installing wireless network cars a breeze because it will autodetect the SSID for the available network. Since a lot of Starbucks have now got wireless internet access you can take your laptop in and just start playing :)

Anyway, great router, and it's been solid for 6+ months.

1. install the wired connections first. then update the modem's firmware by using the link in the SMC installation software.
2. copy the ipconfig info for the wired connector, ex: 192.168.x.xx and force this into to the wireless adapter ( settings/ control panel/ network/ tcp/ip for wireless adapter/ properties/ IP address / "specify and IP address". Here enter the ip config copied from your wired addapter. Reboot.
3. at this point you should have a "solid Green" or a connection between the SMC router and your wireless adapter however you probably can not access to the internet.
4. Go back to settings/ control panel/ network/ tcp/ip for wireless adapter/ properties/ IP address / and now select "Obtain IP address ....". Ensure that your wired connector is not attached at this point. Reboot.
5. The SMC router should now recognize the wireless adapter.
Hope this helps.

Definitely recommend it.

I am not able to completely use the device as a print server. Due to the reviews here I am less than anxious to use the device be my primary router, so I put it inside my existing firewall. I can only use the print server on machines connected to the router. I can not print to it from other machines that are upstream from the router and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn that on in the configuration, even if I disable the firewall. Contrary to SMC's web site, it is easy to configure Mac OS X to use the print server and instructions are readily available on the internet.

Second, there does not seem to be a way to bridge wireless networks without having both base stations connected to the ethernet network. I am able to get the auto-roaming to work as long as they are both connected to ethernet. I was hoping to get some extra range by just plugging in one of the base stations and using it as a bridge but there doesn't seem to be any way to do this. Maybe I just haven't looked in the right place yet.

Third, I had read that the range on this device was better than my Airport and was looking forward to that but it hasn't happened. My base is upstairs in my house, and I lose the signal less than 100 feet from the station. I wanted to have it at least cover my yard (a standard city lot) but it doesn't even get close.

I am probably going to look at running some ethernet cable and placing the 2nd base station at the far end of the house and hope that I can get coverage that way. I do have the "bad" model but haven't had anything terribly wrong yet.

I established a home network with:
- SMC 7004AWBR Wireless Router
- 2 Dell laptops (XP Home, Win 2000) both with SMC wireless cards (SMC2632W)
- Epson Stylus 820 Photo Printer

I followed the instructions (Note: Instructions for XP should be downloaded from the web site) for connecting the Barricade to my cable connection and installation of the wireless cards. No surprises, and to my delight, I had Internet access on both PCs within about 1 hour.

Next, I installed the printer. Following both the printer installation guide, SMC's instructions for XP (Note: These sets of instructions often contradicted each other), and my intuition, I managed to get the printer working in about 2 hours.

I then tested signal strengh which was excellent to very good throughout my house and very good outside my house and at my property boundry. Then I determined that my signal was good to very good throughout my immediate neighborhood......time to worry about security.

Since there is little or no help on WEP encryption, authentification, and MAC filtering, I called SMC help desk, 15 minute wait. I soon realized that I was challenging the extent of both their knowledge and mine but togeather we were able to figure out how to establish WEP encryption in XP and determine MAC address (Note: I also sent them an e-mail requesting info on the setup of some security functions, after 4 days I got a reply that made no sense at all) Nevertheless, I still use a wired connection to the router when doing Internet investments or purchases.

In conclusion it all works and its great but..........setup is not fun, and can be downright painfull, and I know what I'm doing.

Four stars instead of 5 because the setup can be frustrating and information on security settings is missing. Also the dumb reply to my e-mail security question is worth at least minus 1 star...

After LOTS of research and consternation at not really understanding how this wireless "stuff" worked -- I picked Hawking.

WRONG! Not only did I receive the wrong equipment (because they assume a level of knowledge I didn't have), I couldn't get any useful support.

RIGHT! I should have gone with SMC from the beginning. I have three PCs in this house, happily sharing files, folders, drives, ISP access and a printer. The monthly savings in fewer ISP accounts, etc. more than pay for the SMC router and adapters for each PC.

Perhaps more important is the service I've received since purchasing all this. I had installation questions (of course). They answered them. Then I ran into a hardware problem necessitating the return of the router I'd originally purchased. SMC handled that smoothly and professionally, too.

I'm up and running on the Wi-Fi network courtesy of SMC, their technicians and outstanding support. I recommend them without qualification of any sort.

except...

The unit is incapable of handling large data streams. During normal web browsing and computering gaming, this is not an issue. But as soon as I attempt to do a file transfer between 2 stations on my network, the unit freezes completely. For an FTP transfer at full speed, this lockup takes no more than 20 seconds. If I throttle the FTP connection down to <10Kbps, it will transfer succesfully almost always. Worse, numerous customers have reported this issue to SMC (see www.practicallynetworked.com), yet SMC Tech support claims no knowledge of the issue. There has not been a firmware upgrade in more than 6 months.

Overall, despite the fact that the unit is otherwise feature rich, I'd recommend finding a competitive unit. Being able to copy files from one computer to another is a basic network feature that I personally would not be willing to do without. Too bad really -- it's the unit that might've been.

SETUP:
- SMC 7004AWBR Wireless Router and Access Point
- Canon S600 printer
- Compaq laptop (W2K) connected to router via ethernet cable
- Dell laptop (XP Pro) connected via wireless card (SMC2632W)

EXPERIENCE:
I followed the instructions for connecting the Barricade to my DSL connection and printer and then ran an Ethernet cable to the laptop running W2K. Within 15 minutes I was able to access the Barricade's setup page and also connect to the internet.

Next, I installed the SMC2623W Wireless network card onto the laptop running XP Pro. The system recognized the card and installed the drivers. The signal indicated Very Good to Excellent (only 5 feet away) but I could not access the internet. I played with the IP settings but still no luck. After 20 minutes plus another 20 searching the SMC website, I decided to call their customer service. I was on hold for about 10 minutes then someone took my name, email address, product info and immediately patched me into a customer service rep queue. After 30+ minutes of assistance they were not able to find a solution. Not only that but changes made during our conversation resulted in complete loss of the wireless network connection (i.e. my card did not recognize the network and several network setting options related to the card became unavailable). The rep said he would send me an email in 24 hours with his solution. 1 week later and I still have not received an email. Determined to fix this ASAP, I restored my system to a point before the wireless installation and then reinstalled the card. Within 30 minutes I was able to get it working.

Next problem: WEP encryption and MAC filtering not working. This time I sent a detailed description of my problem via their email support form. After no reply in 4 days (other than the standard confirmation email) I once again called. After a 10 minute wait, someone helped me to walk through the settings. They were not able to explain why it wasn't working or why the settings they gave me would work but nevertheless I was finally able to get everything working the way I wanted.

PERFORMANCE:
The setup was not pleasant but now that it's working I love it. I'm in an older home with plaster walls and the Barricade is in a room near the front and along a main street. I live in a densely populated city in New Jersey which is only .5 miles from midtown Manhattan. Reception is Good to Very Good up to 20 feet. At 30 feet it ocassionally drops. At 50 feet the signal drops frequently.

I've been using it all day every day. One day I completely lost connection to both the internet and to the Barricade from both machines. I could not access the Barricade setup even after rebooting both machines. I used the reset button but unfortunately this resets all of your settings so I had to do everything over. Not sure what caused this but that was 4 days ago and it hasn't happened since.

The printer works fine and I haven't had any trouble with my ZoneAlarm firewall software.

I gave it 3 stars primarily because of the awful customer support. The product itself seems to live up to its reviews once you get beyond the setup frustrations.

I started searching for wired solutions, but my mother completely FORBID me from spawning cables across my house, which meant I had to go wireless!

I started searching for solutions and I ended up to try an SMC one, with this SMC7004AWBR, a PC-Card and 2 PCI wireless LAN adapters (not bought here, though). I had never set up any kind of network before, and the thing that took me the most time was... physically instaling the 2 PCI Cards in the computers! As for their software, it was a straight-forward 5-minute task for each PC, and for the router... I only had to power it on!

It ended up to be a good investment. The signal is pretty good in my father's office - 35% (7m - 25feet and 2 6" brick walls), and I have network everywhere in my 3-stories brick house (the router is in the middle story), and it was a breeze while I set this up for WEP (I was told to, as some users were being hacked through their routers).

The print server also runs excelently with my LaserJet!

The only problem I had was setting up WEP in WindowsXP (the supplied software woudn't run in it - in Win2000 it worked just fine) and installing the PCI/PCCard adapters in Linux... I simply haven't made it up to now! I believe more detailed instructions should be given in the documentation...

Upgraded the firmware here (Upgraded to v1.41.004):

[URL]

And the range problem was fixed instantly! (had to ipconfig /release; ipconfig /renew the Win XP laptop) Seems to be rock solid now.

The configuration UI is obviously designed for IE and uses a number of ugly hacks, so it doesn't work smoothly for Netscape 6.x, Mozilla, or lynx. This makes administration from a Linux box painful, but doable.

I'm giving this device a 4, not 5 because of the problems. The only reason it didn't get a 1: they were easily fixable with a firmware upgrade. (Range of 10 feet would otherwise have caused me to return the device!)

I have a 2-story home and my office is above the garage, and I can go downstairs into the kitchen (at the back of the house) and the signal weakens only 50%. If I walk outside to the patio the connection drops. I may relocate the router in the house to see if I can increase the signal throughout the house.

The only thing I can't get to work is WEP. But I'll figure it out... the website's no help...

First of all, this product truly works right out of the box. I was able to unbox it, plug in the power, plug in my cable modem to the WAN port, plug my PC (already configured for DHCP) into one of the LAN ports, and I was surfing. And since IP is IP, it makes it a truly platform independant product, meaning you can run Windows, Macs, Linux, UNIX... any thing that has a TCP/IP stack! That makes it a great product for anyone looking to secure their home networks.

But what makes it enven better is the rich feature set available for us networking gurus to tinker with. Between all the options for the wireless comunications (SSID selection and encryption type) to the firewall features (port forwarding and IPSec support). Oh, and the built in Print Server is defintely a plus.

I am using this product in conjunction with an SMC 2632W V.2, and I have to say, other than a small driver issue at installation, everything works seamlessly.

The problem isn't simply that some of these don't work, it's that getting a replacment or refund took me hours and hours of time on the phone nearly threatening people to get any kind of resolution. I'm left wondering why a company which knows it has a malfunctioning product risks losing customers who are likely to go around spreading the news of their terrible experience to hardware-buying friends, familily, coworkers, and in public forums?

If you buy one of these, I sincerely wish you a better experience than I have had. I will never buy from SMC again.