You can go ahead and grow a plant in it though, making life literally green

Nov 26, 2013 08:10 GMT  ·  By

Usually, when using the word “green” to describe an electronic device it means that the power consumption is pretty low compared to others of its kind. The Cybernetic Meadow router, however, takes things a lot more literally.

While the power consumption is decent enough, the product is literally “green” because of the plant on top of it.

Or rather, the plant you can grow in the flower pot that is the top facet of the router. That's right, you can pour dirt and water on it, or in it, and not worry about the failure of the electronics.

And the reason is pretty clear too: the router is encased in a single block of marble, or rather covered with it, while a plank of wood comes between the base and the ground.

It is because of this design that the newcomer is called the Cybernetic Meadow router, despite actually being a normal TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 clad in wood and stone.

Then again, calling the TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 normal might be stretching it, since dual-band routers aren't exactly normal yet.

On the flip side, the maximum performance of 600 Mbps (300 Mbps over 5 GHz and 300 Mbps over 2.4 GHz), while considerable, isn't really high.

Well, it kind of is, but it doesn't measure up at all to dual-band routers with 1,750 Mbps top transfer throughput.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to, not when the price needs to be of a relatively reasonable $350 / €350. Without the marble and wood, it would have been much, much lower, at $85 / €85, but we digress.

The router has two USB ports, IPv6-ready Gigabit ports and WAN to LAN throughput of over 800Mbps via NAT.

An integrated media server is available too, allowing for content to be shared with other devices, computers included.

Cooling is the only uncertainty here. Maybe the marble acts as a heatsink, helped along by the water you periodically have to pour in the dirt.