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Kickstarter Tech Project of the Week: Skydog

Want a way-cool tech product before it officially hits the market? This week's pick for our favorite Kickstarter project gives you unparalleled control over your home network.

April 19, 2013
Kickstarter Tech Project of the Week: Skydog

Project Name: Skydog
Category: Technology
Goal: $75,000
Currently Funded: $58,636
Deadline for pledging: May 14, 2013

If a dog is man's best friend, Skydog is your home network's most trusted companion. Brought to you by PowerCloud Systems, a company founded and incubated at Xerox's elite R&D company PARC, Skydog will "keep watch over your network, alert you to problems, sniff out their causes, and protect your family, even when you're not at home," says founder Jeff Abramowitz in Skydog's Kickstarter video.

Skydog consists of two parts: an intuitive mobile app and a Wi-Fi router. Together they let you eavesdrop on monitor and regulate your household's Internet activity in real time. The app allows you to see who is online, which devices they are using, which websites they are visiting, and how much bandwidth they are using.

Do you have impressionable kids in the house? You can block inappropriate content and even set specific homework and recreational times. You can get a text alert if little Timmy hits his limit for online gaming, but also if your broadband service has gone down or a new guest connects to your network. PCMag's lead networking analyst Samara Lynn sees its potential and although she has yet to test it, she says the network performance data it provides seems impressive.

The Skydog dual-band 802.11n router operates at 300Mbps on both the 2.4GHz channel and the 5GHz channel concurrently. It also features robust WPA-PSK Wi-Fi security and gigabit Ethernet wired ports.

PowerCloud anticipates market price for the package to be at least $149 for three years and $179 for five years (with no monthly fee) for access to the data. If you're willing to help the company hit its goal though, you can snag it for a $99 pledge with an estimated delivery of August 2013.

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About Meredith Popolo

Assistant Editor

Meredith Popolo

Meredith Popolo joined the staff shortly after graduating from snowy Syracuse University, where she earned degrees in magazine journalism and entrepreneurship. So far, the highlight of her PCMag career has been covering the Mars Curiosity rover landing from NASA's JPL in Pasadena, California. When she's not writing about tech, tweeting about Syracuse basketball, or hunting Foursquare mayorships around New York, she's likely—wait, never mind, that's basically all she does.

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