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I must say the software that came with it didn’t seem to work on my system. I called for support and although they where very nice unfortunately they still could not solve my problem so they finally sent my case to an “expert”. I had my doubts that this expert would get it working but she was fast, new exactly where to go and what to do and to my surprise it installed the software. Cisco support are very nice and very helpful and I felt they went the extra mile to take care of me. Thank you!

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Although for the same price I probably could have gotten another router with the more features, the Valet had all we needed. Ease of use is huge for me when it comes to computers as I don’t have the time to spend on the phone with tech support if something doesn’t work. Just as advertised, the Valet was SUPER easy to set up. I did have a neighbor, who knows more about routers than we do help physically set this up (make sure the right wires went in the right ports – and this took him all of 1 minute) but as for connecting our actual machines, we just plugged the USB key in and within about 30 seconds, it worked. We live in a 2 story home, and our Valet is on the 2nd floor. My wireless connection (1st floor) is always at either “excellent” or “good”. I sometimes notice the internet slowing down for short periods (coincidently? around 4pm when kids are coming home from school) but it comes right back up. The wired connection seems to be fast and consistent also. I also added our Wii (1st floor) to it and it also picked it up with no problems. It named itself (a name we liked, so kept, to keep things easy, and kept the pasword too) so really, there was nothing to do excpet plug and go! This is our 1st wireless router connection so I have nothing to compare it to as far as speed and ease of connectivity but it’s as simple as it can be and our techy neighbor said he expected it to be more difficult to set up than it was. I think the unit looks great too. No complaints, other than, just wish it were priced a little lower. But seeing as I had planned on spending around $100 for a router, it was my choice to spend $30 more for something that is E-A-S-Y and so far, it’s been worth it – no regrets!

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I never had wireless in my home as I felt that my children should not have free reign to the Internet, unless it was for homework purposes specifically during the week. As a conservative parent who, although in agreement with progress and technology in general, I feel that the age of texting/instant messaging/email/Facebook/Twitter has somewhat ruined the art of conversation, letter writing and social skills in general.

I had also heard horror stories about setting up wireless in a home environment – complicated and time consuming to install.

The Cisco Valet Plus called my bluff – not only was it incredibly simply to install but it was intuitive and logical in the set-up process. It took about forty minutes to set up my two daughters’ computers and the parental controls were great. Being able to differentiate between a child and teen was a neat feature. One of my children would be on the computer from the minute her eyes opened in the morning to last thing at night before bed if she could, so it was great to be able to set the time limits accordingly for the school week and weekend hours. For $149.99, the price is reasonable and good value for money.

I think the Cisco Valet Plus is a must for all families, because it enables children to still have access to the Web, but, at the same time, can play a part in maintaining a family’s fundamental value system.

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My G router went kaput and without doing any research (a mistake right there), I went and purchased the Cisco Valet due to reading how easy it was suppose to be in setting it up. I’m moderately in touch technically, but really wanted something that I could set up easily. No fuss, no muss. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I found the process a bit confusing with the USB plug (instructing me to disconnect the USB and when I did it would inform me I needed to have it plugged in) and ultimately could not get connected. I have three laptops, an IPOD touch, and a WII, and I needed wireless access immediately. I did try to set it up manually, but just could not get it to work.

Honestly, it could have been me, but the product’s claim was that it was suppose to be simple. I’m fairly determined when I want something to work, but in this case, I was not willing to spend hours on the phone with technical support to get it going. So, I took it back.

After I did some research, I purchased the Cisco-Linksys E3000 High-Performance Wireless-N Router and had wireless in my home within 30 minutes and it works great. So, perhaps I just got a lemon Valet router.

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I got this Valet M10 from BestBuy yesterday. It is the same $89.99 at Best Buy so I just picked it up and use right away. The instruction is direct and simple. You need to use the RJ45 cable in the box to connect the Valet to your existing modem (I have ATT DSL wireless modem). First time I disconnected the ATT DSL modem and I didn’t know that I still have to use the ATT modem but the instruction says so. This was the only mistake I made during set-up; otherwise it is really a no-brainer set-up. About 5 minutes I was up and go on the new Valet network. The reception range got a lot better than before. I had three rooms in the house I didn’t have reception before; now I have only one room without reception but that is ok since my house is a 4300 sq. ft two story house with lots of walls. This performance is acceptable. One more thing, the Valet is set to auto channel by default. You may play around different channels under “advance setting > wireless” and find the best channel in your environment. It turned out channel 6 is the best for me. I got one more signal bar on channel 6. Valet support said that most people found #1, 3, 6 or 9 to be their best channel. Good luck!

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when i tried to install with key, told me to call 800 number to get assistance from Cisco. To my surprise they had people who were easy to understand and had knowledge of the product. They were very courteous an polite. More so they got me and my wifes computer up and running. So far, so good. I have trust in their support group if i incur any future problems. Kudos to Cisco.

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They do try to make it simple and performance as 300Mbps.

My XP laptop required some support and between myself and the support tech, we did get it working, to a point.

When copying very large files, it slowed my XP laptop to unusable levels. However, performance was at 300Mbps.

Under ‘Windows Explorer’ where ‘My Network Places’ exists, you can click ‘Entire Network’ and then choose ‘Microsoft Windows Network’ to see other machines on the network, right?

After shutting down for the night and restarting the next day, the above options were no longer available. If there were pre-mapped network folders, etc., they were there and worked fine but browsing using the above was not an option. When I called for support, they told me that this was an advanced network issue and they DID NOT offer support for it. Fine, I’ll return it

My network has one XP machine wired to the router and 2 laptops (one XP and one Windows 7).

As it turns out, apparently, the 3rd party adapter can affect this so how things will show up may differ or may take time to resolve itself. Would be nice if they knew and could tell you that.

Since the whole point is to have a wireless network easily, I can’t give it a positive review considering the above tedium.

Try the WRVS4400N version 2.0 and couple it with an AE1000 adapter. It is more expensive but you get a small business-level support.

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Setting up a home network comprised of two laptops, a netbook, two desktops, and multiple iPhones was effortless. The setup was as easy as the advertisements said and resulted in a friendly – but secure – environment. The router can be easily modified through an interface to anyone who’s owned any other Cisco router, and there are some helpful options regarding content control as well. Overall, a well designed unit that I would recommend.

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Well, this is my 5th router (only 2nd wireless) and is by far the easiest to set up. I’m even thinking about getting my not-really-computer-literate parents one for when I visit, and I’m pretty sure they would be able to set it up without me. I like how easy it is to change the settings, etc., without having to go to a web-based setup page like previous routers. I also like the guest access made easy, though we’ve yet to have a guest to try it out.

There are a couple of negatives, though.

1) My previous router (Linksys WRTG or something) had some range issues. That is actually the whole reason I bought the Valet Plus, because it supposedly has extended range for larger houses. Turns out, the range is worse than my previous router. Spots where the iPod (specifically my bedroom) had one little bar now do not get a signal at all. The laptop used to get 3-4 bars here and now gets 2. I know the basement of a 3-story house is not the ideal location of a wireless router, but I really wasn’t expecting to be worse off than what I already had. I guess I will move it to the main floor and piggyback it to a wired router. Hopefully the ease of setup will continue with that configuration.

2) I had to reset my Slingbox, which is normal when there is a new router, but it could not get the remote viewing set up right. When I tried doing it manually, I discovered the drop-down box for router does not include the Valet, and there seems to be no way to enter it. Does that mean it is too new and Sling Media needs to update their setup software or is the Valet just not compatible with the Slingbox?

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We had high expectations for the ValetPlus but were disappointed when it was received to learn that it required a modem to operate. Our current unit is a combined Router/Modem. Nothing in the literature or ratings for the ValetPlus indicated that a modem was required. Also, it can only be connected via an ethernet cable; since our internet is delivered via coax cable we had to return the unit. One final note: while its speed is a plus it can only go as fast as the internet provider’s delivery speed. If you are on coax cable, check that first.

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I know a fair amount about computers, but networks, wireless and routers have have always scared me. The Valet looked like the perfect solution. I got it 5 days ago, and until about an hour ago, could do nothing to make it work.

Day one I called tech support–but I think we were not on the same page at all.

Day 2-5 I perused reviews online, checked out a few of my own ideas. I uninstalled my beloved Mozilla Firefox browser and installed Internet Explorer 8 since I had seen references to web browsers perhaps being the problem. I probed the support documents of my computer to make sure I really had a NIC, and I did. Every time I tried to install the Valet my IP address vanished and I lost my internet connection and then would have to reboot everything and repair the internet connection.

Day 5 I called tech support and lucky for me, Ryan answered. About an hour later, after a major effort, and Ryan taking over the controls at the end to finish up, I am connected. My daughter’s Wii and my ipod touch detected the wireless network, we used our new password, and logged in, at last!

Was it painless, heck no. Is it now working, heck yes! Am I happy, absolutely. Should have called tech support sooner. If you can’t get it working right out of the box, call Cisco support, until you get it fixed.

Cisco, because you let a trained tech support person spend a huge amount of time with me, I know you are serious about your products. Customer loyalty comes from the products and the support you give them.

RYAN you were terrific–THANKS!!!!!

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Their support offers no help in connecting a network printer (Brother HL-5370DW). I think it can be done but will require some research.

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Hey Cisco. When you figure out how to make this compatible with a static IP address, do me a favor and train your phone support people on the process. In the mean time send me back my $137. And when I figure out a way to get back my Sunday afternoon I spent on the support call for 2 hours re-setting the settings and typing in the static IP address, I want that back too. It did not “just work” and when I called the support number they did not log in and get it to work.

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Couldn’t have been easier…just plug in the thumb drive and follow instructions. Really that easy. I connected using Windows 7 on an older computer and a Comcast connection. Once set up, its was super easy to find the network name and password from the software and pass that on to my other devices – Wii and iPod. Hopefully I’m set for a long time.