NETGEAR has announce that it has been named an International CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree for its NETGEAR Genie application.

The products entered in this esteemed program are judged by a distinguished panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the media to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting edge consumer electronics products across 32 product categories.

The NETGEAR Genie is a desktop application that runs on both PC and Mac providing a simple dashboard to monitor, control and repair home networks. The application is currently available at no cost for the WNDR3800 and WNDR4500 with additional routers to be included soon.

With its innovative Genie application, NETGEAR has effectively solved customer frustrations when they are unable to diagnose home networking issues. Genie puts all the necessary tools in a single application to keep networks running healthy. Genie automatically sends alerts when networking issues occur and with a click of a button, automatically diagnoses and repairs them, or helps the customer repair the problem. It is also an easy-to-use dashboard for launching additional NETGEAR applications including; Parental Controls, Broadband Usage Meter, Wi-Fi Channel Selection, Network MAP, USB Disk Printer Sharing, and more.

Netgear is offering the application for free for the WNDR3800 and WNDR4500 range of routers, with compatibility for additional devices already planned for future releases. Earlier in the year, the networking vendor offered a new hardware replacement service to its customers. 

The prestigious Innovations Design and Engineering Awards are sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the producer of the International CES, the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow, and have been recognizing achievements in product design and engineering since 1976. The Best of Innovations honor is awarded to the products with the highest judges' scores and will be featured in the Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase at the 2012 International CES.