Question on Airlink AR430 Wireless Router

I just got one of these. Set up easily, works fine, and provides more signal strength than my old Belkin. But here's the question:

On one end there is a small, square, translucent plastic button. When pressed, a blue LED inside the box illuminates the button. There is no mention in the user manual of this button.

What does it so? (Note: I am not talking about the recessed "reset" button on the rear of the box).

thx

Isaac

Reply to
isw
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Is this the one?

The user manual is at:

Hmmmm.... no mention in the manual or quick install guide.

My guess(tm) is that it's part of some kind of SES (Secure Easy Setup) or AOSS wireless client setup feature. However, there's no way to tell from the Airlink docs.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

As Jeff says it will be an "easy" wireless security set up system button. Later Airlink models use WPS( WiFi Protected Setup) so if it is the same system on your router you may get more information on how to use it from one of the more modern router manuals.

Reply to
LR

Ah. Thanks.

I already have the security stuff running, so I guess I don't have much use for it. Still, I always like to know what all the buttons do...

Isaac

Reply to
isw

Beware of unlabeled buttons. There's always someone that just has to press the button to see what it does.

In kollege, I did a psychology experiment on exactly that. I placed a doorbell-like button outside an office in the engineering building. The wires went to home made counter (Veeder-Root counter with a 10 second timer). The 10 second timer prevented repeated pressings from counting as more than one button pressing.

For 5 days, the button was there without any label. It was pushed about 150 times, presumably by 150 different individuals. Two weeks later, the button reappeared, outside a different office, this time with an engraved sign displaying "Buzzer". There was no buzzer. In 5 days, only 25 button pressings were recorded.

My paper concluded that curiosity motivated 6 times as many people to press the button. I also concluded that there were at least 25 people that either can't read, or don't believe what they just read.

Put a label on the button and your friends and visitors will be less tempted to press it.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Is it possible people thought it was a doorbell for the engineering building for after hours or something?

Reply to
Evan Platt

Nope. It was located directly outside the instructors office door, on a wall that was adjacent to one of the larger lab rooms. There was no way to mistake it for a doorbell to either the office or the lab as it was roughly half way in between the two doors. It was also at eye level, which is rather an unusual elevation for a doorbell button. The idea was to position it in a manner offering no clue as to its purpose or function.

I suspect I would have obtained similar results if I had placed the doorbell button on the ceiling, with a broom and chair located nearby to make it easy to poke.

Incidentally, somewhat later, I found myself engaged in the design of one of the first microprocessor based marine radios. We were limited to 16 buttons on the front panel. The mechanical designer came from telecom, where all the label are traditionally tiny, abbreviated, incomprehensible, and/or absent. The front panel was all of those. While doing booth duty at the annual Cow Palace boat show, I noticed that a substantial number of visitors were having a difficult time operating the radio, and were poking at buttons almost randomly to see what the display would do. The front panel labels were subsequently enlarge, de-obfuscated, and generally made readable. The next year, the amount of random button pushing was dramatically decreased.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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