What I Would Like To See In iiNet’s Next BoB Modem/Router

I got pretty excited when I got my BoB2 after enjoying my BoB1 for almost two years. It’s a great little device, and you can read my full review of BoB2 here. However, after using BoB2 for quite some time now, there are a few improvements that would make BoB2 an even better modem/router, which I hope iiNet would read and consider implementing it in the next BoB2 firmware upgrade, or the next BoB device.

BoB2 Enhancements

• Make the time on the login page (home page) of BoB2 display like 15d, 8h, 39m rather than just 15:8:39 – without context, this doesn’t mean much
• When you click on the “Diagnostics”, “Security Log”, or “ADSL Status” buttons, the password entry box needs to become active so you can type your password straight in without having to click on it
• When you change default password of “admin” to something else, the text that says “The default password is admin” should be removed
• When viewing your call logs, provide the ability to erase, delete all, and backup the logs. Also, increase the amount of calls it logs, or possibly synchronise it with iiNet Toolbox. Other improvements could be sorting through calls (like in Toolbox), and splitting up the logs for each VOIP account
• The call logs section should also expand for those who have larger screens
• A link to the call logs on the home/login screen
• A way to erase call history (apart from restarting the modem)
• Improved access  and parental controls. Condense the configuration options, but keep the features. It needs to be redesigned to be a little more user friendly. For example, it says “Computer Filter Rule”, which once clicked; it goes to a “MAC Filtering Table”. The wording on this section is pretty bad and confusing
• Provide the ability to set bandwidth limits and speed throttling on individual devices at certain times
• Record a list of URL’s that have been accessed through devices – make sure you can turn this feature on and off though
• Implement something like the Tomizone Hotspot so you can sell Wi-Fi access to other people. The payment gateway can be through iiNet, which iiNet can take a small cut for the processing of payment, and revenue generated can be added to the customer’s bill as credits.
• A quick links section to certain things like call logs, ADSL logs, Security logs, DHCP lists. Trying to find ADSL logs after logging in can be hard. But before logging in, it’s easy to find.
• Dropdown menus for the main navigation links to speed up access to things, rather than having to wait for the next page to load
• USB support for a print server
• USB support for a USB Hub
• Provide more handy tools such as DNS Lookup, and WhoIs Lookups
• The DHCP logs should tell when the computer was last online and the total time online. But having Online/Offline is still useful

 

BoB2 Handset and Answering Machine Enhancements

• Allow the handset (or other DECT handsets if possible) to synchronise with the phonebook in iiNet Toolbox. There isn’t a global address book that all DECT phones can access.
• Allow the built in answering machine to synchronise with iiNet’s Message bank
• Someone how messages sent to BoB2’s answering machine and to email – currently, you can only have one or the other
• The default idle setting of the handset is incredibly bright, especially at night. I wouldn’t want to sleep next to it – maybe have white text on dark background, not black text on white background
• Play messages through your computer, instead of through BoB2 when you play them back through the BoB2 Administration screen

 

Problems with BoB2

• Some of the wording and capitalisation. There doesn’t seem to be any consistencies for words in titles to be capitalised. E.g, “Set up my wireless”, “Set up my Voip”, “Handy Tools”, and “VoIP Settings”, “ADSL status”
• On the homepage, there are 4 icons, but only three tickets. Where’s the forth tick?
• Voicemails are still emailed to me, even though the Toolbox settings say forward to email after 45 seconds, and BoB2 has forward to answering machine in 30 seconds. If the internet is down, I would still like to get an email voicemail just in case, but use BoB2 Answering machine for when it’s up. (Note: I have got the Answering machine working by setting the Answering machine time to 29 seconds, instead of 30 – after 30 seconds (even though it’s set to 45 seconds in Toolbox), seems to not work properly)
• Cables should be plugged into the back, not the side as it can look a little untidy
• Pulling out some of the cables, like the LAN cables or even a USB can be somewhat difficult in confined spaces
• The time on the BoB1 handset does not sync with the time with BoB2, and there is no way to set the time manually with the BoB1 handset

 

Problems with the BoB2 Handset

• I can’t find the “last called list” on the handset
• It’s actually quite hard to pick up the handset from the cradle. You cannot just “grab” it like the BoB1 handset in its cradle. It takes some skill picking up the BoB2 handset
• Have the time automatically set on the BoB2 handset, like with BoB1 – it doesn’t appear to sync
• Although the room monitoring feature is really good, it would be nice if it could email you recordings as well (or simply record the sound) – and if the next BoB has a camera… image capturing as well. It would be handy if it didn’t say “Calling” and the phone number when it detects sound – a little more stealth would be nice.

 

That’s It

That’s all the things I can think of to improve BoB2 in the future. Most of them are little things that can be easily fixed, but I do hope to see them in a later firmware release. Although, there are quite a lot of improvements, overall, it’s a great modem/router.