Comcast is expanding the utility of xFi, its home WiFi management platform, with a feature that enables real-time updates that are focused on security.
When enabled, those WiFi-related, push notifications are delivered to the customer’s smartphones and TVs when certain events on the home WiFi network occur, including:
-When new devices are connected to the network. Customers can also go into the xFi app on smartphones or on the web to assign those new devices to a member of the household.
-When a WiFi name or password has been changed, important in part because customers will need to reconnect WiFi devices when those credentials have been changed by an authorized user.
-When security settings are changed.
-If the home WiFi’s network name has been hidden or unhidden. xFi has an option that lets customers hide their WiFi network’s name, an option that comes in especially handy in densely populated areas.
xFi customers are also told if their internet service and gateway has been activated for the first time, and if the home network’s IP address has been changed, Eric Schaefer, SVP and GM, data and mobility services at Comcast, explained in a blog post about the new features.
Comcast launched xFi in May 2017, and it’s now available to more than 15 million customers (via Comcast’s xFi Wireless Gateway -- formerly known as the XB3-- and the xFi Advanced Wireless gateway, a new DOCSIS 3.1-based device formerly referred to as the XB6.
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Last August, Comcast rolled out another set of new features for its cloud-based xFi service, including “timed pause,” enhanced parental controls, and some initial notification center elements.
