Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router (F5D8232-4)

by Belkin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 2 x 10.4 inches ; 8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000U78XOS
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: F5D8232-4
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,283 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 22, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Amazon.com Review If you've ever sat staring at the little blinking lights on your Wi-Fi router, wondering for minutes on end whether or not your Internet connection was hosed, you'll appreciate the quick visual feedback from the LCD screen mounted to the front of Belkin's N1 Vision router. You'll be able to suss out whether you have incoming/outgoing data, whether you have someone piggybacking on your network, and more. The N1 Vision offers draft 802.11n connectivity and a full complement of Gigabit Ethernet ports in back, and it compares well to other draft-N routers for speeds. It also has a handy guest access feature, which allows you to offer online connectivity to others while protecting your own PC network.

Belkin's N1 Vision enables you to view Internet download activity as well as manage some security features via the LCD screen (click to see larger image).

You can view both download and upload activity, current and 24-hour activity for PCs accessing the network, or just display the current time.

The N1 Vision offers easy plug-and-play setup, for the most part. Configuration is done either by the software from the included disc, or going through your Web browser (by typing in "routersetup" into the address field). It can configure your Internet settings from a range of embedded ISPs, and we selected Comcast. However, we weren't able to automatically connect and had to do the unplugging dance--first the modem, then the router, then restart each one. After we were up and running, we made sure to select security settings (which, largely, can only be done via these two methods).

Featuring one of the best looking router designs around, the N1 Vision's main claim to fame is its monochrome LCD and push-button navigation for accessing stats as well as some control over security. The inital screen provides an overview of all functions--including detected Internet connection, whether wired or wireless computers are using the network, and if security is turned on. Pressing the left/right buttons on the navigation pad gets you to more granular info screens, showing upload/download activity in speedometer format, current speeds, connected users, and date/time. We caught ourselves staring at the speedometer quite a bit, but happily discovered you can set the screen to turn off after two minutes of inactivity (which helped return our focus). On the downside, there's no view of throughput between PCs on a network--you just get Internet upload and download activity. And we found that the navigation buttons were frustrating to operate (they require a hefty press). Also note that the N1 doesn't come with a USB port for connecting a NAS hard drive or printer.

As far as speeds, the N1 Vision compared closely to our Apple Airport Extreme--both of which reside in the middle range of throughput for 802.11n routers--and we were pleased with both its reliability and overall performance in downloading large multimedia files quickly and efficiently. Over Wi-Fi, we downloaded an 80 MB QuickTime file from MySpace in just a little over 2 minutes (an average of 633 KB per second, or about 5 Mbps). In PC to PC transfers, a 200 MB file was transferred in an average of 32 seconds over Wi-Fi (6.25 MB per second, or 50 Mbps) while it took only 8 seconds via Ethernet thanks to the router's Gigabit speed. Because of its draft-N capabilities, the N1 Vision provides excellent Wi-Fi range, and we seamlessly streamed 128K MP3 Internet radio without it rebuffering up to half a block from our home (over 200 feet).

Comparing the N1 Vision to our Airport Express, both had similiar Internet download speeds and the Belkin easily bested the Non-Gigabit Apple router in the wired Ethernet PC-to-PC test. However, the Airport Express did a better job with intra-network transfers over Wi-Fi by about 20 percent.

Aside from the screen and the speed, the N1 Vision also offers some interesting security features. In addition to standard WEP and WPA (the latter being the more secure), the N1 lets you to set up separate service set identifier, or SSID, which basically enables you to set up guest access to a Wi-Fi connection without allowing access to other areas of your network. It's easily accomplished via the N1's LCD menus, which creates a second Wi-Fi connection called "guest" and provides a passkey that can be shared--all the while continuing to provide your main Wi-Fi network.

While the LCD screen is one of the big selling points of the N1 Vision, the router loses a bit of its wow factor when the LCD is programmed to turn off when not active. But it was helpful to have to check when Internet download speeds seemed clogged. And overall, the N1 Vision provided sturdy (though not at the top of its 802.11n class) Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet speeds as well as a broad coverage range. --Agen G.N. Schmitz

Pros:

• Steady, sturdy Draft-N Wi-Fi and Gigabit networking
• Excellent Wi-Fi coverage--strong signal easily reaches up to 200 feet
• Handy LCD screen provides quick view of activity
• Guest feature offers wireless access partitioned away from main network

Cons:

• Wi-Fi speed is in the middle range for 802.11n routers
• No USB port for connecting hard drives or printers
• Navigation buttons were frustratingly hard to press
• No LCD view of PC-to-PC network activity--only Internet download/upload

What's in the Box
N1 Vision router, AC adapter, RJ45 Ethernet cable, QuickStart guide, CD with manual and set-up software

Product Description

N1 vision Wireless router

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy setup, useful display, very good range and speed (ver. 2000, not 1000). See fix for disconnect every 2 hours., November 5, 2008

By 

Eurodude in NJ (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router (F5D8232-4) (Personal Computers)

I suspect most of the people with issues or complaints have version 1000 and / or old firmware.
Additionally one needs to use this in conjunction with 802.11n wireless adapters (preferably Draft 2.0 for future upgradeability / compatibility) in order to obtain the maximum benefit out of the router, at least from a wireless performance perspective.

I recently purchased version 2000 of the N1 Vision (check the sticker on the bottom of the box). I have it mated with two PC's with 802.11n Draft 2.0 (2T2R - 2 Transmit 2 Receive) wireless USB adapters (each with just an internal, but high quality, antenna).

I was up and running in no time.
I also had no problems using VPN to connect to my office network.
I am using WPA2 with AES encryption.
For extra security I have it set up with (broadcast SSID set to 'off' and have specifically only allowed my two wireless adapters by entering their MAC addresses in the 'MAC address control' of the router's setup utility).

Upstairs (one room away from the N1 Vision I get 95 - 100% signal quality and 90+ signal strength with a pretty consistent connection speed of 270 Mbps! (not the full 300 maximum but certainly close enough for me). :)
Downstairs (one floor down and all the way on the other side of the house relative to the router), I get something like 45 - 75% signal strength depending where I am in the room. The speed varies between 45 Mbps, at worst (will have to verify this tonight as I only used it one night and believe this minimum can be improved upon), to a more typical 170 or 210 Mbps (wide range, I know, but I only tested it one night and haven't tweaked settings or placement yet via the flexible silver mini extension cable).

The display is useful in that you can see who connected to your network in the past 24 hours (if an unexpected visitor enters your wireless network, at least you will have a way of knowing it).

I am pleased with the Vision N1's speed, range and overall performance, other than the disconnect issue for which there is an easy enough workaround until they fix it permanently, hopefully, via a firmware upgrade for the 2000 model).
Keep in mind my testing was done using Draft 2.0 802.11n wireless USB adapters. Wireless G adapters won't have the same performance or even close to it.


The one thing to note is that there is a known issue where the N1 Vision disconnects every two hours (wireless or all around). This occurs when the router software connects to the time server to get the time (check the router setup page's security log and you can see the entries every two hours).
There is a firmware fix for this for version 1000 but ironically NOT for the newer version 2000.
The N1 Vision 1000 hardware has other issues (reported overheating etc.) though, so I still much prefer version 2000.
For version 2000 there is a workaround to stop it from disconnecting every 2 hours (search the net for it as it requires accessing a "hidden" page).
The workaround works very well and is only required to be performed once after a reboot of the router.
I haven't had to do so in a long time.

I gave it 4 stars due to the issue with it disconnecting every 2 hours and the fact that version 2000 does NOT have a firmware fix for this, even though the older version does.
This should have been caught during pre-release testing. If not, at worst, a firmware fix should have been created for version 2000 very early on.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Belkin N1 Vision has VPN problems, October 22, 2007

By 

J. Lewis - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router (F5D8232-4) (Personal Computers)

Doesn't seem to do transparent ipsec tunneling over UDP either with Cisco Windows Vista Client or Cisco WinXP client. Switching back to a Linksys router, I get a VPN connection no sweat. Belkin tech support says I have to create a virtual server with an open port to match my work VPN server (IT says no go - it's security violation to reveal the ports they use). Belkin says opening the ports will create some security risk so I should close them whenever I'm not using VPN - what a drag compared to transparent VPN connections with my old Linksys router. A Google search shows that other people complain about VPN problems with Belkin routers.

The product did setup easily out of the box - but don't run the Setup Wizard unless you need it. Running the Setup Wizard screwed my settings and I had to manually undo the damage.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Pretty, everything else Sucked, February 18, 2009

By 

D. Daily - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router (F5D8232-4) (Personal Computers)

So I am going to make this brief for those of you who don't want to read a lengthy review. This router is pretty, lots of bells and whistles ont he outside and has a real nice display for easy setup, and on the wired side it does connect at 1Gig, but it does not sustain wireless connections for more than 6 hours, the gig speed really isn't gig. On the G and N bandwiths it has roughly half the range of other routers. Finally, tech support (India) was useless and pretty much kept asking me to reboot the laptop that would not connect, turned out that 20 feet away from the router was too far and hence the problem. Bottom line but a Dlink or Linksys, you'kk sepnd less money and have a more reliable product, just no pretty pictures.