Pepper in her absolute favorite spot: my $200 router.

Your $200 toe bean warmer

Bean warmer.

Beam former.

Two for the price of one.

Okay but can you please explain how it is not for sits, given that it is unequivocally made of warm?

Maybe get a cat thermal pad. They are always cold. I had issues with mine cuddling up to my warm thighs after a physical therapy cycling routine. She was causing issues so I got a pad on a hunch and a whim about her thermal motivation. She is on this thing ~23/7 since 2020.

I actually have one, as well as a 3d printer, I was sort of toying with the idea of taking the thermal pad, printing a base that looks like my router, and installing some tiny fans to blow the slightly warm air upwards, it would be a biggish product but I'd be down for her to keep the spot while I keep my router free of heat damage

I actually did a similar project for her which you can see in the Bottom left, it's a little monitor that actually works and used to play bird videos so she could sit next to my desk and feel like she had her own monitor. Since then I've repurposed it to run a media server but she still gets to look at it i suppose . The back says peppersoft
- The back says peppersoft
  
  This is too cute 🥺
tell ur cat she's a pretty one :3
- She is a very pretty, spicy girl
Wouldn’t work unless it was more expensive or fragile than the router ;-)
"spoiler"?

Im in ur networks, killin ur wifis

Woah, an "icanhazcheesebugers" reference in 2024! I love it.
- Those were better days.

Connected via CAT1 ~~cable~~ tail.

Transmitting wirelessly at several gigapurrs per second.

cattail

Do the red racing stripes make it zoom faster?

It's to hone the palantir's connection to the other 6 palantirs

If not for sits why is it made of warm?

Lil bonus pic from this morning of her really relaxing cause people seem to enjoy her

Regular router maintenance...

dusting - check
hairballs - severe

Router warmth benefit increased by surrounding turrets.

I'm always more at ease when I'm well defended by turrets.

Does she give you tortitude if you try to move her?

Holy fuck she gives it even if you don't

I hung my router on the wall and replaced it with a warming pad. It’s all adorable fun and games until your router’s cooling vents get clogged with floof.

I heard before that the internet was for transmitting lolcats but this is getting ridiculous(ly cute)!

Gorgeous kitty! 😻

If I were a goddess I'd make an evil throne out of your $200 router too.

Can you flip it upside down so it looks like they are riding a robot spider?

Looks like Olive!

Aww what a beautiful kitty, would most definitely kick peppers ass though when she went to start a fight 😂 she's tiny but she won't accept that fact
- Olive is fairly petite. She has a six inch tail! :3

Looks exactly like several video game mini bosses standing on their evil spawn points.

I have that router. It's a great router. Never drops out, never needs to be reset. It just works, and works well.

My only complaint is that it has a tendency to refuse to switch back to a DFS channel once the airwaves are clear, but I mostly use ethernet anyway so it's not the end of the world. I'm just happy to finally own a router that does what it's supposed to without needing a power cycle every few weeks.

Edit: Model is Toilet Paper-Link Archer AX11000

It is fantastic, still i have it set to power cycle every few days regardless to be safe, but I've never had all the issues I have with past routers
Do you live near a base or airport? I had to disable DFS channels as it was multiple times a day that it would drop and switch.
- Nowhere near either.

NGL, i was a little disappointed when i scrolled down and she wasn't sitting on this. Yours is probably more comfy!

I see dust despite duster presence

Lmao called out, though I think that's actually silvervine dust i sprinkled on the table next to it for her a few days ago

Cats like heat

One does not simply walk into Mordor

Serious question. What does a $200 router do that my shitty Xfinity One doesn't?

A lot of the ISP provided routers don't even let you change the DNS.
Better range, better speeds, better control panel, and some extra features that can be great for gaming or self-hosting servers (eg: network-wide adblocker, nat loopback)
- Just be careful with IPv6 if you enjoy that. A lot of consumer owned routers have trouble getting configured properly for that.
Lot of comments but the real answer is that generally router firmware is pretty shitty and price does not equal performance. If you want something good for cheap get a 50-100 dollar (can find even cheaper especially if you don’t have crazy internet speeds) computer (like a raspberry pie clone) stick on open wrt, and get a separate Wi-Fi access point. Will blow past any consumer grade premium router because a lot of them are sold the be “all in one” with the cheapest, low power hardware imaginable and while not universal, software that never updated. Also, Something like openwrt has something called cake sqm which can massively reduce latency as well as constant software updates that fix vulnerabilities.
Mostly directional range, but mine also offers a huge suite of features so I can have total control over my network, as well as wifi 6 which is nice and a bunch of high speed ports
An ISP provided router is generally going to be the cheapest device they can buy that will be functional on their service.

This means that if you are using more than a handful of devices it can overwhelm the processing power of the router leading to lag, drop outs, loss of connection, sites taking ages to load, etc.

When you buy your own router you get to choose a device that fits your (and your families) needs.

If you shop at an actual tech shop instead of your local big box store, you will find a huge number of different devices available that are far more capable than either the ISP's or big boxes stores offerings.

There are even entry level professional units that can support about a hundred devices connected to it without breaking a sweat.

When I switched from ADSL to fiber years ago I purchased a D-Link DIR-879 router which at the time was good enough for my needs but had some drop out issues so I have recently upgraded to a MikroTik RB960PGS Router which is both a wired only router (no inbuilt WiFi) and much more powerful both in performance and features.

I can use a Wifi access point or two to get WiFi where I need it and it can be upgraded as new WiFi standards come out without replacing the router.