Photos: Redesigning the router

Art students from Goldsmiths at the University of London have come up with four clever and cool concepts for bringing sexy back to Wi-Fi gizmos.

First up, the Jellyfish. It's designed to be the center of attention: yeah, we can see that. It has an "organic" breathing sequence, which glows to indicate bandwidth strength. Perhaps inspired by this infamous advertisement, the Jellyfish connects up to eight Ethernet cables for people to link up like they're in an episode of "Doctor Who."

The Route O'Clock is split into 24 glowing segments, colored to indicate signal strength. The idea is to choose the best time to carry out certain tasks, depending on how much bandwidth it'll eat. We're not sure what color it glows if your broadband is being throttled. It's a neat idea--make it a bit smaller and we'll talk.

The Hybrid Router is apparently a "sexy side table and a bold style piece." It looks like a coffee table with a router in it to us. Still, it has flashing lights.

To us, the Energy Saving Router is the concept which, with a little extra work, could have legs. It features four hooks for hanging keys on, house keys being an indicator that someone is in and the router is needed. When everyone is out and the hooks are empty, the router switches off. You can also set a timer for downloading.

It's another neat idea, but it's a shame it's so ugly. We'd like to use this to create a landing strip for your keys and wallet and the like, and perhaps combine it with the Hybrid concept to build a charging station too. Set it to work via Bluetooth signal from your phone as you walk through the door and we'd be in geek heaven.