The inside story of Sereniti, a new wireless router company

We recently had the opportunity to meet Wade Callison. Wade is bringing a new wireless router product to market and we thought it'd be interesting to go inside a new company and learn what goes into developing a product like a home network router.

We here at Computing Unplugged were amused (we amuse easily), because at the time we first met Wade, the Joss Whedan movie Serenity was just coming out into theatres. As Firefly addicts, it took us a few conversational tries to understand that Serenity, the movie, and Sereniti, the hardware company, were different beasts. Fortunately, this discussion was about Sereniti, not Serenity. Don't get me started about Wash!

Please introduce yourself and explain your role at Sereniti.

My name is Wade Callison and I am the Vice President of Product and Program Management at Sereniti. My team is responsible for defining and designing products that will provide consumers with unprecedented capability, support and security for their home and Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) networks.

So Sereniti is a post dot-bomb venture funded business. We haven't seen too many of those recently. Can you tell us about your financing, mission, and the company's direction?

We are indeed one of the new generation of start-ups. Sereniti's mission is to provide consumers and SOHO customers with the same level of PC and networking support that the business world has enjoyed for decades. Internet technologies have brought the burden of managing technology into the home and we strive to make that as pain-free as possible.

At Sereniti we bring simplicity, security and support to home networks through our subscription-based service for the home and SOHO user. Sereniti provides an all-in-one bundle of networking hardware, storage, management software and whole-home technical support to simplify the user's experience in the Digital Home. For home computer networks, Sereniti offers a menu of around-the-clock support services that are ideal for users who find themselves in the unintended role of supporting their home technology.

We are backed by premier venture capital investors Sevin Rosen Funds and Rho Ventures.

You've told me you have a neat little router box. But it's more than the typical router. What else is in it that we wouldn't expect?

The Sereniti Smart Home Server is much more than a router. It's is really the all-in-one hardware product that not only provides wired and wireless access in the home but also includes an 80Gb hard drive for backup, a USB print server and shared network attached storage (NAS).