Setup

Gryphon representatives had made a strong pitch in person when I met them at CES about how making setup user-friendly was a key part of keeping the network security feature intact. After all, the ever-online world today has kids talking to people across the world they have never met, and perhaps they do not yet know of the potential dangers associated with such anonymity. Those who do may not be familiar with setting up a router, especially if they do not know what an IP address is and what 192.168.1.1 does in this context. As such, the company has chosen to go all aboard mobile installation for their products, with apps available for iOS and Android. I can only speak for the latter, and installation is as foolproof as any other from the Google Play Store. Once done, the app requires you to create an account to set up the router, which may come off as strange for a company that markets security, but there is a good enough reason for it as we shall see soon.


Once your account and associated email address are verified, the app walks you through the setup of the Gryphon Tower (or Guardian, as applicable) with an illustrated step-by-step process. There is also a linked YouTube video in there for a better visualization of the process for those who might benefit from it. It includes connecting the modem to the router via the provided Ethernet cable, powering on the router, and using the onboard LEDs to see the current status of the device during setup. Here is also where the QR code on the bottom of the router comes in, and you will need to allow the app to access the phone camera for this to happen.


At this point, you will either be prompted to initiate a firmware update, if available, or set up the wireless networks. The former can take a while depending on how many updates are available, but the app does make it simpler by queuing it for you. The first two times, it actually did not update completely, and I never got a notification as it should have done, but it did work the third time. Regardless of whether this happens or not, you can then customize the SSID for the 2.4 and 5 GHz networks (which share credentials here), as well as for a guest network. You are also prompted to set up two-factor authentication to access the app, which is highly recommended.


If you end up with more than one Gryphon router, you will have to manually add them via the app. The Settings menu has the option for doing so in the "Add mesh repeater" item, which is effectively the same process as for the first unit except that you have to have your phone and the repeater both close to the router during this process. This arguably was where things were most challenging, with it taking four attempts before a successful pairing. The process, once again detailed in a video, went through without a hitch until the very last step for checking the link quality, wherein it failed thrice in a row, although once done, I was able to move the mesh repeater unit anywhere in my dwelling as I was still in the network range of the primary router itself.