Conceptual 4010-Overdress router covers can't materialize soon enough

C'mon, let's be honest with ourselves here -- we all think our current router is unsightly. Like, truly hideous to look at. In fact, the bulk of us spend the first 20 minutes post-unboxing trying to figure out how to best hide it. Berlin-based designers Johannes Laue and Johannes Schroth have done what should've been done by multi-national corporations years ago, with the 4010-Overdress project delivering an array of delectable wood and metal enclosures that simultaneously make your router / set-top-box beautiful while maintaining all of the core functionality. There's no indication of when (or if) these beauts will ever be produced for public consumption, but seriously, someone at Netgear or D-Link should ping these fellows as soon as possible.

[DougieBear Posted Mar 2nd 2010 7:38AM]

http://media.uxcell.com/uxcell/images/item/catalog/ux_a08042100ux0022_ux_c.jpg

[a dumb cat Posted Mar 2nd 2010 1:25PM]

@(Unverified)

"the bulk of us spend the first 20 minutes post-unboxing trying to figure out how to best hide it"

Too true!

[GenericMessage Posted Mar 2nd 2010 7:45AM]

I actually think my NETGEAR is rather lovely with its large blue dome that flashes!


But how is this thing beautiful?

[nachotech Posted Mar 2nd 2010 7:46AM]

You would have to have way too much money/time on your hands to go out and buy a custom router enclosure. I don't think too many people put their computer components on display for visitors to see.

[Stick Posted Mar 2nd 2010 7:49AM]

Brilliant! How come no one thought of this before? Mr.Laue is an inventive mind, by a look at his website. Keep it coming, er, covering...

[FreeRange Posted Mar 2nd 2010 10:28AM]

@Stick I think others have thought of this before.

The article here is about how routers are unsightly so we hide them. Apparently everyone thinks about this. They take the router they don't want people to see and they put it somewhere out of site. This guy made the "out of sight" place be in a wooden box that looks like a router. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't hide my router because it's an eyesore, I hide it because I don't think it warrants space on my desk and I don't want to have to worry about running into Ethernet cables.

If someone really wants to put their router into a wooden box that can be put on display, maybe they should get a cigar box to put their router in...

[Prevacator Posted Mar 2nd 2010 8:04AM]

I actually like the way my DIR-625 looks. Personally I think that wooden enclosure is hideous, and putting a metal box around the wireless router would frankly be idiotic.

[nkear5 Posted Mar 2nd 2010 8:16AM]

That looks awful. All of the variations looks awful.

I'd rather a router that looked like a mid-century radio (seriously).

[radiorental Posted Mar 3rd 2010 7:11AM]

@nkear5
something like this? (o;

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/28/classy-wooden-router-literally-gauges-network-utilization/

[Hobsie Posted Mar 2nd 2010 8:19AM]

My Time Capsule sits out nice and proud :P

[giby Posted Mar 2nd 2010 11:54AM]

@Hobsie
Couldn't agree more. No desire to hide it at all.
My favorite non-technical feature: I can set the light to blink, or not. I'm not a fan of blinking lights so mine glows solid.

[meeku Posted Mar 2nd 2010 9:00AM]

I think all of those router covers look awful; they just seem so tacky, toy-like and utterly redundant that I'm left baffled at any apparent market opportunity that was spotted.

I also don't agree that all routers are ugly; in fact, I think that some such as the Linksys WAG-160N (which I have), Belkin N1 Vision and the Netgear WNB2199 are actually rather attractive in their own way. Also, I fear that placing your router (regardless of how ugly it may be) inside a metal box would be simply daft.

[ReadyKilowatt Posted Mar 2nd 2010 9:04AM]

I think routers just need more super-bright blue LEDs. They never get annoying.

[DoctarPeppar Posted Mar 2nd 2010 10:08AM]

This is ugly as fuck, seriously...I made my own router with an ATOM board and I have a rather nice mini-itx form factor case from antec...

[FreeRange Posted Mar 2nd 2010 10:32AM]

Unrelated to the topic but entirely related to my post above: I hate how working in consumer electronics has made me write site instead of sight. I know there are a few other tech words that sound like normal words and I default to the tech when I mean the normal. It saddens me. At least I got it right once.

[joebob Posted Mar 2nd 2010 10:40AM]

I think this is silly, the router serves a very blunt and inelegant purpose, it routs data, nothing more and nothing less and it doesn't need to be seen doing it.
Its like asking Ferrari to create a line of designer bulldozers.

[ricorich196 Posted Mar 2nd 2010 2:53PM]

I think my Linksys wrtg2 looks pretty slick.