Starry recently announced plans to offer a high-speed internet service in the United States by delivering wireless broadband signals using millimeter wave band active phased array technology.

But the company’s first consumer product will be an expensive WiFi router called the Starry Station. It’s expected to sell for $350 and features a touchscreen display that can provide details about your network.

starry_01

It looks pretty slick… on the outside. But thanks to a few photos posted in the FCC listing for the Starry Station, now we know what the inside looks like.

starry station_01

Inside the triangular box, there are WiFi and Zigbee antennas, a system board, a 3.8 inch LCD display, and the whole thing looks a bit like a science project or a homemade radio.

Anyway, it’s what the Starry Station can do that really matters. The router supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi as well as the upcoming 802.15 standard, has a dual-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and 8GB of flash storage, and features Gigabit Ethernet input and output (although there’s only one Ethernet-out jack: this is very much a WiFi router, not an Ethernet router).

There’s a proximity sensor, speaker, and microphone. And the display on the front can show you an internet “health score,” results from the latest speed test, and information about connected devices. You can also view your complicated, hard-to-remember password on the display.

Starry Station also lets parents restrict screen time, allowing their children’s tablets or phones to only connect to the network during certain hours, for example.

Does all of that make this router worth spending $350 on, when there are plenty of sub-$100 options on the market? I dunno. I’m pretty happy with Netgear R6250 802.11ac WiFi router I have, although I have had to unplug it and plug it back in a few times in the year or two that I’ve owned it. But I also bought it for less than a third of the price of the Starry Station… which makes the new Google OnHub routers look cheap.

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18 replies on “Starry Station $349 WiFi router looks a lot less fancy on the inside”

  1. This is a great product as the design of it looks very efficient as it has an inbuilt power supply, 3.8 inches LED screen. Though it looks not so fancy but more affordable due to its high-speed internet service. For more information, you can directly contact us on facebook

  2. in the USA $349 wifi router is in high demand it is a combination of millimeter waveband and array technology which is providing a super speedy network but this has no elaboration in its decoration but it works very fast and giving people a desirable connection. it is a modified network and it is providing a accurate connection.

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  3. It looks like the main product they’re selling is Wi-Fi access, this is part of the package. Many folks are stuck with one cable company and no other choices, some competition would be welcome.

    They said they’re starting Wi-Fi service in Boston soon, but do not give a schedule when other areas would be able to access Starry Wi-Fi.

    They may be successful if they can get reliable Wi-Fi to people so they can dump the ever increasing cable bills.

  4. So where exactly is the so-called “millimeter wave band active phased array technology”? I see only two WiFi & one ZigBee antenna labeled. Where is the coverage of just how this mm-wave stuff is supposed to work? How much does the alledged service cost and are there caps and overage charges?

    1. there is another piece of hardware. you have to attach it outside your house somewhere. then I think these two devices interact with each other.

      1. Ah, I see. That makes sense, mm-waves don’t like obstructions. Thanks.

  5. Can we see how it functions and then compare it to what we see inside?
    If it works well it’s moot point.

  6. More interested in the broadband antenna itself. I know its in beta right now, but I have to wonder how much they’ll be pricing it at if they plan on selling these routers for $350.

  7. A few days ago I learned that, in the US, plural for non-insect antennae is antennas!

    Anyway, it does seem like Starry focused on getting something working and released. Does this come with the mm-wave transceiver that’ll be used for their service or is that $350 only for the Wi-Fi router?

    1. Hah. I did think about that before writing it. I’ll fix the post.

      And nope. This is strictly for home networking. You’ll need a separate device to hook the Starry Station up to their upcoming broadband network.

      1. Wow, then $350 seems a lot for this. At least, I personally wouldn’t pay that much for the Starry Station’s advertised capabilities.

  8. Wow. They put the wifi antenna right next to a large switching transistor in the power supply! Genius! This kind of device tends to have an external power supply for a very good reason… It all looks rather shoddily designed and shoddily assembled to me. A design ‘win’ for stylish houses. I shall not be buying one!

    1. For the electronics noobs (raises hand), can you explain why this is a bad thing? I’m guessing transformers are electrically noisy, which affect wifi reception?

      1. Switching power supplies typically generate square wave signals to convert voltages (the “switching” part). In the frequency domain, the square wave signal is represented by several frequency tones. In a real system, the harmonics (integer multiples of these frequencies) will also be present. This noise at multiple frequencies can bleed into other components of the system through the board and air. RF (ie. Wi-Fi) signals can be very sensitive to this noise when it’s within their operating frequency band.

        There are techniques to mitigate the affect of the noise and one of which is just physically placing sensitive components far away from the power supply. Since Starry didn’t do that, they hopefully implemented other mitigation techniques.

        The other way around can be an issue too. RF noise (the Wi-Fi signal) can affect the performance of the switching power supply.

        1. Isn’t wifi frequency is 2.4GHz and a switching power supply (DC DC converter) usually switches at about several to 100k Hz? Also, this DC-DC converter have high inductor so that anything get filtered out. As on the wifi side, the wifi signal band width of 2.4GHz and channel bandwidth of 20MHz. I think it shouldn’t be an issue. Also, for most laptop, everything is so clamped together. Inside a laptop, there are many DC DC converters and signal sources that can bleed to the wifi module. I don’t think what Herbary think is gonna be a real issue. Besides, isn’t running a longer signal and power cable to the wifi circuit would pick up more noise rather than have them really close together? Idk, I am not really an RF engineer. I am more an embedded and electronic engineer. However, I’ve built a few RF devices that I put the power supplies and the RF antenna really close and I don’t see much of an issue. Perhaps I was lucky. However, I do agree that they should put the power supply outside of the housing. That’s what we’ve done for our RF systems. It’s also a good design habit too.

          1. I’m just answering Bob’s question about how switching power supplies are known to generate a lot of noise. The switching frequency of these power supplies are typically hundreds of kHz to single digit MHz. Since the signals are square waves rather than pure sinusoids, the frequency content of the noise is spread over a wide bandwidth. It’s possible these harmonics can be within the frequency band of the Wi-Fi signal. If the Wi-Fi signal is downconverted to a lower IF, then that can be affected too. Also, transient spikes caused by the switching can result in errors when processing the signals.

            As you’ve noted, physical location of components is only one of the ways to mitigate the affect of the noise. Filtering the input and output of the power supply reduces the noise. Linear regulators can be used to further reduce ripple and spikes. Shielding can reduce EMI. Layout of the board can minimize traces from picking up noise. There are others and I’m going to assume Starry did these things because physical separation seems difficult for this form factor.

            So, I agree with you that physically putting the antenna near the switching power supply may not result in noticeably reduced Wi-Fi performance if other mitigation techniques are used.

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