Following on from Tuesday's deal for travel routers, I set up a camel's alert for the GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) and got notified this morning of a 28% off deal for Prime members.
These seems to review well so grab one if you are in the market.
CamelCamelCamel.
Can you share info on that please?
you know, the thing
Oh THAT thing. I thought it might have been the other thing.
These are great (I paid the same price when it was on sale at the start of the year) - I took it on a month long trip to Europe earlier this year and then my daughter took it across Europe and the UK for two months (it was particularly handy for her since she was travelling with a group of friends for half the time)
Dumb question: why would anyone need a travel router? Isn't a mobile hotspot a proper alternative?
Its handy if you have multiple devices you want to run through a vpn. Dont have to individually set up each device. Also easy way to share a single login to hotel wifi. These routers are running a modified version of openwrt so you can do a lot more than most garbage routers out there.
IYKYK
DILLIGAF
imagine a family, with kids.
each has a phone
there's also some tablets
maybe a laptop
Use cases:
go on holidays
FREE WIFI
enter password that's really long and needlessly complicated to 7 devices - or one?
Adguard home on the go so you dont have to buy 100 games for your kids to play on the tablet, instead use the free version with blocked ads.
VPN to home, in case, you need to access some stuff at home, like home assistant integrations, surveilance cameras, media, etc.
portable nas
attach a nvme ssd and tadaa, who needs internet for media.
I don't have a travel router, but this is what I do for some of the use case above.
My Samsung phone has had Wifi sharing for a while, ie. if the wifi is on when you turn on mobile hotspot, it shares your wifi connection and if you turn wifi off, the mobile hotpot uses your 4G/5G connection. This was particularly handy when I went on a cruise, where I only needed to pay for one internet connection, and had about 5 kids following me around(more followers than I have on social media!). Also FYI, earlier Samsung phones need to have the wifi-sharing setting turned on, otherwise when you turn on mobile hotspot, it automatically disables your wifi connection.
As for the kids tablet, I assume it is an Android tablet, I use Adguard DNS, where I put in the Adguard DNS hostname in the Private DNS setting, so no matter which wifi the tablet is connected to, no ads in games.
As for VPN to home, my ISP uses CGNAT, so I can't technically VPN home directly. I use an app called Zerotier and create a virtual private network for the devices that needed to talk to each other. It works like Hamachi, particularly good back in the day when you wanted to game with your friends on a "local" network. I admit not as good as VPN to home, but works well for my purposes, ie. needing to access the home assistant server at home.
I don't have a use for portable NAS, so can't comment on that.
Brilliant. I didn't know about ad guard dns
Some hotels require you to login through a webpage to access Internet. Can you do that on this travel router?
yesish
log in on your phone
on router copy phone mac address and it should work.
i tried this on my old ar750s and it didnt work though
That website is called the captive portal
And this is one of the reason to get a travel router
You just need to do the login once in that website, then all your devices can connect automatically via the router
Adguard home on the go so you dont have to buy 100 games for your kids to play on the tablet, instead use the free version with blocked ads.
What is Adguard exactly (Some sort of Adblocking software I assume. I'll look it up after this post)? And what has it got to do with buying games? I'm not understanding how an adblocker correlates to games, or are you talking about ads in games?
And when you mentioned "free version" do you normally have to pay for it? I'm not well versed on adblockers as the only one I've ever used is uBlock on my web browsers. I've never used a system wide one or device specific adblocker before.
The other reason I am asking is because I read that uBlock is no longer going to continue working with Chrome, so I was trying to figure out what to use as a replacement, and/or if Adguard would be what I should look at. Any have any suggestions?
Does Adguard Home come integrated in the router or something?
adguard home comes integrated into that router.
it blocks DNS requests according to adguard provided blacklist, and according to your own whitelist/blacklist.
on android games, it blocks most ads. avoids buying games.
it does NOT block youtube ads.
it also helped me set up a reverse proxy for my home assistance instance.
it's also a full blown little linux computer i can ssh into, and mount my NAS to, so i can do fancy things.
you CAN use adguard free public dns filter without having your own local instnace, but with a local isntance i can control the whitelist, and etc.
I love it for having all my devices connected to it and only have to connect the router to a hotel's wifi once. Plus I can easily add a Chromecast, etc for devices that don't support captive portals. It now comes with me whenever I travel.
whenever I travel.
how 'heavy' is the item & accessories?
(the router also comes with a power adapter right?)
EDIT:
weight is answered here
I've got the Creta which is an older model which is pretty light - I leave the power adapter at home as a take an Allocococ Power Cube and run it off the USB ports on that.
this
If your hotel only gives you access for one device, you can connect the router to that connection, and all your other devices can connect to the router.
It will pay for itself in two nights if you want your tablets, phones, and laptops all connected at once.
To achieve double nat
Great deal. I paid $118 from AliExpress last week and am still awaiting delivery
its a whole lot larger than the mango. reckon it's worth it for the size/weight tradeoff?
Depends on use. VPN speed is better than the Mango. This has higher power requirements. Mango is out of support. This is dual band. etc
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/compare/
https://www.gl-inet.com/support/firmware-versions/
Ooopps…Mango (GL-MT300N) is out of support, Mango v2 (GL-MT300N-V2) is in support
These are neat, the slightly better Slate AX is also discounted currently: https://www.amazon.com.au/GL-iNet-GL-AXT1800-Pocket-Sized-Ex…
Beryl AX might be the value sweet spot though with this price
another reason to prefer beryl would be weight.
beryl - 11.5 x 8 x 3 cm; 196 Grams
slate - 12.5 x 8.2 x 3.6 cm; 540 Grams
There's also comments around about the Slate overheating and crashing, which turned me off a bit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GlInet/comments/143gjdx/beryl_ax_gl…
My Slate AX overheated, ran hot, and crashed. Maybe a bad one? My Beryl AX is great, and I think you will be happy with it.
Same here
Doesn't the unit, also need a power-supply?
Is the power-supply factored into the weight?
Beryl takes USB-C for power.
I brought a USB power hub on my last trip to power everything (iPad, laptop, phone), and compatible cables (USB-c, lightning)
@Jiv: Which USB power hub did you get ?
Was it GaN type ?
I'm on a mission to collect good performing, lightweight, quality devices.
( Lightweight because of hand-luggage travel, etc. )
@whyisave: Yup, one of the GaN type.
I think it was the 65w model.
- Laptop 30w
- Beryl 8w
- Phone 10~15w
- iPad Pro 18w
It was enough to charge all of them at once (4 devices)
beryl - 11.5 x 8 x 3 cm; 196 Grams
slate - 12.5 x 8.2 x 3.6 cm; 540 Grams
Slate AX: 245g
from the manufacturer's website - https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/
I received one of these from Aliexpress a couple of weeks ago to replace my Mango, paid just over $100AUD delivered. Not an AU plug from there though, but I just use a single Anker charger for this and my laptop anyway. I use it when remote, on public WiFi, etc to VPN back home. Pretty happy with it, VPN speed is good, no more issues on Teams meetings compared to the Mango.
Does that router support VPN? It doesn't seem to.
it's not a travel router, so not really comparable
Will this be ideal, lets say I have a wifi public/ family house internet, will this unit get pass the Great Firewall? ( CHINA )
If you mean VPN back to your home connection - it can as it supports wireguard/openvpn and tailscale out of the box.
That said, I found that unreliable.
This router can install Openclash (see github) though, so if you’re technically inclined, you can set up alternate connections through a provider like wannaflix.
I setup ShadowsockR server at home using my Synology NAS (via docker), then in Beryl I installed SSR plus client
This setup works most of the time when I am in the hotel room using hotel wifi during my China trip, the router will automatically connect to my SSR server at home and able to access all streaming contents just like when I am in Aus
When I am outside, I use an app called Shadowrocket which is also a SSR client, but running on iPhone (there’s another app for iPhone called Potatso which also works)
If you do not want to setup your own SSR server, there are also paid SSR service which are pretty cheap, around $10 per month. You just need to pay during the time when you are in China
I need to learn more about this, for China trip.
Transit in China last month (and last year), and none of my SurfShark VPNs worked on the smartphone.
( Google, et. al. don't work anyway)
most of the Shadowsocks service are chinese base (given its only requires to be used in China..)
I found one of the site that has english and support paypal for payment https://justmysocks.net/
you purchase a subscription plan of a dedicated Shadowsocks server (each server has different price, here are the screenshot: https://ibb.co/nn6zCxs)
the plan wont automatically renew, I normally just purchase for 1 month (eg. US server has a USD$5.88 plan which include 500GB bandwidth/month, up to 5 devices)
once you have paid for the plan, you will receive the Shadowsocks connection details
this document shows you how to config Shadowsocks client in GL iNet router: https://docs.gl-inet.com/router/en/2/app/ss/#shadowsocks-cli…
Apart from setting Shadowsocks in router, if you are not connected to the router (when you are out of the hotel)
You can also setup Shadowsocks client in your phone
I am using iPhone, so these are the 2 apps I normally use for SS VPN
Potatso (free): https://apps.apple.com/au/app/potatso/id1239860606 <- a bit unstable, sometimes randomly disconnect
Shadowrocket (paid): https://apps.apple.com/au/app/shadowrocket/id932747118 <- more stable
I would recommend using Potatso first to test on the connection first, then if you want more stable connection then pay for the Shadowrocket app
For Android, the shadowrocket app is free
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.v2cross.pr…
@littlesoldier: just found on youtube about purchasing VPN subscription for china
maybe useful for anyone travel to china: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjHjsWkXI0
the VPN protocol in that tutorial is from https://cp.v2-tun.com/ which is using V2ray
V2ray is also being supported by SSR plugin in GL-MT3000 Beryl AX
May be a dumb question but could you use this for a LAN only (no internet) for home assistant with zigbee devices? Looking to have a separate local network for home assistant so it can keep running if the internet stops working.
Yes, you can use it for that.
Great thanks heaps. Trying to make sure when I do set up home assistant it can run without the internet.
wait that's possible ?
my kogan smarterhome lights don't work when i lose nbn connection haha.
no google assistant control if it offline
would be good to have dual wan.
If your kogan lights are controllable via app, it may still work offline, on wifi. Unless it insists on phoning home is actually a shitty web app in a phone app wrapper.
Google assistant will die, its brains live online, but you can set up home assistant locally and have an entirely offline speech recognition system, yes.
Its not as simple as nerds will make out, but is almost infinitelty customisable. I intend to come home and be able to scream "ASIZ, LIGHT!"
Your lan will keep running if your internet link goes down, on whatever device is currently servicing it. Say you have a wifi network provided by your "internet" router, devices will still chat locally if the internet goes down.
Your routers serve local (lan) and internet (wan, or wide) seperately. Its not all or nothing.
You dont need a secondary device. Unless youve got the most basic router in the world, that doesnt have spare network ports, and isnt serving wifi.
Is this only used when connect to the LAN connection in a hotel?
Usually the hotel LAN connection asks you to sign in guest username and password like WIFI?
No, that is not the only use.
It really depends on the network configuration of the Hotel. If they provide a LAN port, usually it doesn't require a captive portal login, it will assign you a LAN ip address when you connect, at least that's what my experience taught me.
If you need to run it as a Wi-Fi repeater or if it does require a login, you can connect and authenticate to the Wi-Fi/LAN using whatever PC/mobile you have first, and then set the router's MAC address to the same as the device you just made connection.
So this will work as a wifi extender? I live in a granny flat that isn’t attached to the main house. Could I put this as close to the main house, connect wirelessly then broadcast that signal in my flat?
You could - but it may not extend the range all that much compared to buying a built-for-purpose extender.
Yeah fair call. I guess Amazon have good returns so maybe I'll give it a go. Thanks for the reply!
Really good use case for these, and it can be done in a way that makes efficient use of the airwaves.
The best thing you can do with extending wifi is to change the frequency as you go. Most extenders or repeaters just retransmit on the same channel. Because wifi devices need to wait for quiet to talk, this limits the speed of anything in range.
So lets say the granny flat can get signal from your 2.4ghz. That likely has the best range, and you should set to 20mhz for reliability and to get 3 non-overlapping channels (1,6,11)
Lets say main house uses Channel 1 and 6.
Cheapest option:
Get an AR300m16 Shadow. Connect to Channel 1 and rebroadcast that in the granny flat. (this leaves channel 6 in the house relatively quiet too)
Middle option:
Set up one of these Beryls or a Slate Plus/AX to connect to the main house Channel 1 or 6 and repeat that.
Also set up a wifi on 5Ghz and get as much in the granny flat to use the 5ghz:
Top option:
Set up an AR300M16 as a wifi client only, then connect by wire a second GL.Inet router which is broadcasting 2 wifi channels:L
2.4ghz on channel 11 (ie one the main house isnt using)
and 5ghz on a free channel
(for wifi, 2.4 especially, think of channels 1,6,11 as lanes. if you can dedicate lanes to things, you'll have a better time with wifi. personally i like to have cameras and devices on one channel, and another one for my personal devices like phones)
Wow what a great reply. Really appreciate that. Networking has always confused me but that really helps!
hey thanks! nice response thanks for taking the time to say that
btw the models i mention aren't the only options.
for example the ar300m16 model is cheap, tiny and low power, but the 'm16 means it has very little space for additional software packages. you'll struggle to add any features to the router. There was an AR300 which had more space, but thats discontinued :( The mango is similar but has more space. So why the AR300M16? because i forgot to mention the AR300M16-Ext variant specifically, its external antennas could be very useful to get a bit of a range boost. That may be worth looking at.
the AR300M16-Ext variant specifically, its external antennas
These are often on sale for $35 on Amazon https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07794JRC5 …
I grabbed one recently to dip my toe in the travel router waters, and because my $120 Telstra 4GX MF985T Hotspot is crazy slow for transferring files between devices in my campervan on the road.. So far so good, file tx speeds are 2x the T$ router and it doesn't crash all the time like the T$ router, but I kinda wish I had purchased one with 5GHz wifi, this is 2.4 only, I didn't pick up on this before purchasing… (I haven't started dabbling with vpn yet)
You forgot the best option, directional antenna built for this purpose. They arent even that expensive.
Or a fibre run strung up between buildings, because you dont have to worry about lightning conducting down it.
Cheap single sfp port switches, transceivers from fs.com, and you've got a rack of lamb.
Thanks OP. Been keeping my eyes peeled for a deal on this. Bought.
Can I connect connect it to a mobile hotspot? And share with family
Sure, why not. A mobile hotspot is just another Wireless Access Point. Connect the router to it and share away.
Thank you
Learned a lesson about dual band. Even if you want a cheap option, try go for one with dual band. (Slate plus for $85 is good)
Dont get me wrong I love the tiny ones like the Mango/Shadow in principle, but recently used a Shadow in accomodation with terrible 2.4ghz wifi.
from my laptop:
2.4 was around 5mbps at best
5ghz changed as you moved around, but was often 40 or 50mbps
If i had got a dual band i could have positioned that in a good spot and then broadcast my own.
Its not the device, at home on my 20mhz 2.4G wifi several rooms away, the AR300M16 gets 30mbps.
Each cabin had a tp-link dual band AP and unifi rocket m2 mounted next to each other on a pole above a tin roof. im no expert, i came to the conclusion it was 2.4ghz interference from the backhaul. Either way, wished i could have tried a 5ghz GL.iNet
Side point for power usage: AR300M16 uses about 1Watt, Slate Plus hovers around 3watt (3.4w doing dual band wifi repeater+router over wireguard)
try go for one with dual band
But this one IS dual band?
【DUAL BAND AX TRAVEL ROUTER】Products with AU Plug; Dual band network with wireless speed 574Mbps (2.4G)+2402Mbps (5G); Tethering Compatible; 2.5G Multi-gigabit WAN port and a 1G gigabit LAN port; USB 3.0 port; Wi-Fi 6 offers more than double the total Wi-Fi speed with the MT3000 VPN Router.
yeah my post never claimed it wasnt dual band. my advice is for those considering alternatives.
Curious if you plugged in a USB Hard drive, what's the fastest speeds you'd get copying files to/from it? Just wondering if this could potentially be used as a Cheapy NAS at home.
if this could potentially be used as a Cheapy NAS
Looks like it can.
https://hagensieker.com/2023/09/18/gl-inet-beryl-ax-review/
"That same USB port can be used to add an external hard drive and a Samba server can be enabled making your Beryl AX a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. Lastly you can enable a DLNA media server"
i have a 1TB nvme and a enclosure connected to it, the speed is…meh at best…….depends what you copying…using big moive as a test, maybe getting to 70MByte/s but feels very unstable……
i also have an nvme on mine. haven't yet used it heavily but 70 is much better than my ar750s which would do 7
turn ad guard off when you doing cashreward tracking stuff, or just all together with VPN as well.
has been great little device. you can also swap around the LAN and WAN port to get the 2.5G port as LAN for NAS use.
I use Pi-Hole at home and always has it on, surprisingly tracking works fine for both Cashrewards and Shopback.
Amazon Review:
if you purchase the "Amazon version" of it, it will include ONLY the plug for your country!
If you want the best value, get it straight from GL.iNet's web site, thus getting all the international power adapters
Price is about the same on Aliexpress. Better warranty and fast delivery with prime so that's the only difference
However Topcashback is running so you can arr slightly better off, maybe few bucks with Cashback
Can i plug a mobile phone into the USB and use USB Tethering to hotspot my mobile data?
Thanks!
Thanks OP
all the stars seem linin up for me as I was waiting for this deal for my upcoming trip :)
Cool. Same for me, going on a trip with 7 other people, so this will be ideal for easily sharing wifi at the various hotels.
Thanks OP, I have been using this router on holiday all week and it's been fantastic. Easy to connect to hotel wifi everyday and devices auto connect. Turned on adguard + PureVPN and even though purevpn is slow, adguard removes so much unnecessary ads/trackers that I wouldn't even know the VPN is 10mb/s. Everything loads super quick, I can't believe it. When I tried purevpn direct on my phone it was unusable.
I'm just going to use this router all the time at home now. Also USB mobile tethering works great too.
Cool man, glad it's working well!
For anyone interested i got my router delivered on Friday. Man this thing is awesome! I live in a granny flat and i've been using a netgear wifi extender up until now. While it has worked i find i have to reboot it every second day or so and managing the thing was an absolute pain. Even with the app it was very hard to do simple things. This router does the job perfectly! It's super easy to manage, give me great speeds that the wifi extender didn't plus the added bonus of using a hard drive for network sharing works absolutely great. Especially for my meta quest where i can just stream stuff straight to the headset. So happy with my purchase, just annoyed i've been living here for 2 years and not had this thing sooner! :)
I stacked it with the $20 Amazon thing