Connectivity technology Wi-Fi
Frequency band class Dual-Band
Operating System RouterOS
Wireless Type 802.11ac
CamelCamelCamel.
I used to take all my movies and music on these for long flights, to share on ipad for family. Plug HDD into one, it shows up as a share, and play from it.
But, needs portable battery, the router, then HDD, so plugs / wires everywhere. I would just plug portable usb direct into ipads now they let you, so not as useful for me anymore (plus no more long flights O/S!!)
Interesting use case. I really wanted on to share hotel wifi (eg.in instances where they only permit two devices per room), but sharing content is certainly a good use case to.
I have one setup to VPN home and it broadcasts the same SSID as at home. I can connect to services on my LAN remotely without port forwards.
Used it when we had to evacuate due to bushfire (stayed at parents) and when we travelled to NZ (in-laws) in the middle of the year. It meant all our devices (mine, wife's, kids) worked without needing the wifi details for where we were staying entered on all of them.
Also some accommodation still limit their access to one device, so connecting multiple devices behind a router gets around this limitation.
They're great in places like Japan where every hotel room has an ethernet port. That way you'll get a stable connection on all your devices regardless of the strength of the hotel's WiFi signal in your particular room. Good for Chromecast when there's an ethernet port too.
Chromecast/Fire/ATV would be great for travel, but hotel wifi totally kills it.
That's where a travel router comes into play. You create your own subnet and can then use your Chromecast/firestick etc.
Lots of hotels have the TV plugged into an ethernet port. Back when I was travelling a lot that was always the first port I ever tried for my travel router and pretty much always worked. Also tended to be much quicker than the more obvious inroom ethernet/wifi as it's not something they expect a guest to use so isn't shaped so draconianly.
Great tip!
This has been fantastic for giving our colour laser printer wireless connectivity - we have been able to place it wherever we want (yes, it was strange the printer didn't have WIFI built in). We've found this model bullet proof as a wireless client for that purpose. The fact it just has a micro-USB power input meant the printer could power it and we just stuck the router on the side with double-stick tape.
About the micro USB: have you found that the USB port is recessed a bit too far inside the plastic case? Many of my generic micro USB cables don't fit because the socket is so deep. The white USB cable that came with the device of course works fine, but if I lose it, I'll have to go digging around for a cable that fits.
You can use it at home as a wifi bridge eg for older printers that only have an ethernet port an no wifi.
I use a mango travel router with British smart dns to watch BBC and ITV on the native apps via a roku stick.
Also hotel wifi doest always work with my fire stick so travel router makes that a non issue.
For years I had a mobile phone, which I used as a phone, and a travel router with a Huawei 4G USB modem plugged into it that I used to connect my home LAN to the internet. It worked well.
Then I realised that with data allowances going up if I spent some money up front I could spend less each month and get way faster internet by getting a cheap 5G phone, and signing up to 5G, and USB tether it to a GL.iNet Slate for my LAN. No-ones home when I'm not there, so I didn't need two accounts for accessing the mobile network. And it would have been a good idea, except that Telstra charges an arm and a leg for 5G, Vodafone doesn't have it in most places, and Optus makes its 5G network the fastest in Australia by preventing as many people as possible from getting access to it at home.
GL.iNet Slates and Beryls are nice pieces of gear. They'll do anything a travel router will, more, and better. Like having 3x LAN/WAN ports. But, yes, they cost more. And I could be sure my Slate would work USB tethered to my phone. A TP-Link travel router might, but it wasn't something the manufacturer was willing to say it was designed to do, and would work. So I was happy enough with the TP-Link travel router when that's what I had, but i'm genuinely impressed with the Slate and consider it worth paying more for.
In the car and when travelling! My kids have the iPads in the back, but instead of buying cellular versions for everyone I've just bought the WiFi iPad models.
They link up to the portable router which is powered by ciggy lighter, and then they've got access to either the storage device attached, each other (when playing multiplayer on local network), or online when you set up a hotspot/USB tether via the mobile phone.
I have used older similar devices for a few purposes:
Same, from what I can tell the GL.iNet routers have a lot more functionality like VPN server/client.
I travelled with a Mango for years before covid and it was so damned useful for taming hotel WiFi and Ethernet connections.
mango is only 802.11bgn btw. (I do have one, miss connecting to 5GHz WiFi)
This is 802.11ac.
Some might prefer speed over functionality.
And the slate is more than double the price ATM.
I've now used both the Mango and Slate at home as WiFi extenders.
Both work - but the Slate seems to 'punch' through double brick a bit more effectively.
In addition, the 5GHz channel (missing on the Mango) now reaches the whole house (nice).
Mango is being repurposed as purely a travel router. Travel… Remember doing that!
@lostincanberra: That's because it has external antennas hence better signal strength.
Travel? You mean actually going somewhere instead of watching old youtube videos?
@gadget: Ah! I'm an idiot. It's not a 'Slate' - it's a Creta. Still, a noticeable improvement over the Mango. But no external antennas.
You'll give me upgraditis! Perhaps I'll take the hint from @littlesoldier and hang out for a Beryl deal…
@lostincanberra: I have Mango, Slate and Beryl
To be honest since getting Beryl I never used Slate anymore, much faster and stronger signals
Mango is still my best travel given the size is just very portable and can be powered by 5V 1A powerbank, so convenient if hotel rooms wifi signal are weak and only have signals near the room door (as the AP is located at the corridor)
agreed
why does it keep telling me I am associated with Amazon can one of the mods remove this I can't untick it.
thanks.
Imagine what you could do with this power.
It's $39 currently at Umart and PCbyte if you don't have prime
test post yay it works.
I guess that these can also double as a wifi extender at home??
yes, but with only an internal antenna I suspect the 5Ghz range won't be great.
I used one of these a few years ago on an Emirates flight. Business class on the A380 have giant screens with HDMI input, so I used my Chromecast to watch some anime (Shokugeki no Soma).
Shokugeki is hot. I bet the girl next to you was getting excited watching the food battles
Lol my wife?
But seriously, it felt weird watching something like that on a plane so I stopped after a few minutes.
Hahhah
Don't be embarrassed be proud.
The people on the plane were secretly impressed and jealous of your 1) technological prowess and 2) the size of your TP link
Can these be used to extend your Wifi signal?
The 5Ghz band at the front of my house which a bunch of TV related devices are only gets 1bar of 5Ghz and i've been trying to come up with a good solution to boost it
I'm going to test it too
Also purchasing Beryl
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08MKZXGBY/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt…
And will see which one is better
Frankly I was about to buy a nighthawk m5 as sick of the bad reception
Ethernet port is 10/100 Mbps not Gigabit if that's an issue.
I already have one of these and it's rock solid for running smart clocks etc. off a LAN in student dorms etc.
And the best thing is most people in hostels don't use the LAN ports, so little network congestion, unlike the overloaded WiFi..
edit: $1 more expensive direct from Amazon and 16 days sooner delivery. Just bought a second one.
Mango has 2 ethernet ports, but is slower bgn wifi compared to AC type in TPlink.
Depends on your priorities.
Thanks!
"A total of 226 potential security vulnerabilities were found in the devices from Asus, AVM, D-Link, Netgear, Edimax, TP Link, Synology and Linksys, which are in circulation by the millions. The front-runners were devices from TP-Link with 32 vulnerabilities (TP-Link Archer AX6000) and Synology with 30 vulnerabilities (Synology RT-2600ac). "
https://www.iot-inspector.com/blog/router-security-check-202…
Regular price of these is $49 at PLE so keep it in mind if you miss out on this deal and need one.
Note they cannot connect to any WiFi network that requires a username and password, as you can't input a username. Only a password.
What do people use travel routers for? Genuine question