WiFi router/repeater/extender

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Discussion

E-bmw

Original Poster:

10,937 posts

166 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
Good afternoon all, we have a motorhome & without going to a 4g/5g wifi router with the inevitable additional data charges I am wondering if there is an easier solution to achieve what we want to do.

I have seen these devices the like of the thread topic & wondering if they will do what we want to do.

I am thinking that if they are easy enough (obviously through their own app etc) to reconfigure then all we need to do is to link all of our phones/pads/computers to the output of the device and then whenever we arrive on site we just have the one device to link to the on-site wifi rather than do it with everything at every site.

Has anyone tried this, does it work, will it do what I want, do you have any hardware recommendations etc?

Many thanks.

RizzoTheRat

26,699 posts

206 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
If you have an old phone lying around, see if it can create a WiFi hotspot from a wifi connection rather than it's own mobile data connection. I was quite surprised when I discovered my phone does that, and apparently it's a been a feature of most android phones for quite a few years now.

E-bmw

Original Poster:

10,937 posts

166 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
RizzoTheRat said:
If you have an old phone lying around, see if it can create a WiFi hotspot from a wifi connection rather than it's own mobile data connection. I was quite surprised when I discovered my phone does that, and apparently it's a been a feature of most android phones for quite a few years now.
Thanks for that, I was aware of that but do you know if there is any speed restriction by doing that?

ETA.

I have just had a look at my current phone & never having had the need to try it before I see that WiFi needs to be turned off to enable the phone in mobile hotspot mode, so it seems it only works with 4g/5g data.

Whereas I am looking to use a single device to share wifi with multiple devices but only have to do one log-in at a new site.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-SFT1200-Wirele...

I am thinking something like this.

Edited by E-bmw on Wednesday 11th June 15:10

Mr Pointy

12,470 posts

173 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
Get yourself one of these travel routers:

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-AXT1800-Pocket...

It's a brilliant little device: it connects to the site/hotel Wi-Fi & then you connect to it. Your side of the Wi-Fi doesn't change so you keep the same SSID & password on all of your devices & to the site it just looks like one client. You can run VPNs if that's needed. I think you can even plug a 4G/5G modem into the USB port but I've not needed to do that.

E-bmw

Original Poster:

10,937 posts

166 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
Mr Pointy said:
Get yourself one of these travel routers:

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-AXT1800-Pocket...

It's a brilliant little device: it connects to the site/hotel Wi-Fi & then you connect to it. Your side of the Wi-Fi doesn't change so you keep the same SSID & password on all of your devices & to the site it just looks like one client. You can run VPNs if that's needed. I think you can even plug a 4G/5G modem into the USB port but I've not needed to do that.
Thanks for that, exactly what I was looking for.

I assume there is a UI accessible either via app or www page?

Mr Pointy

12,470 posts

173 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
E-bmw said:
Mr Pointy said:
Get yourself one of these travel routers:

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-AXT1800-Pocket...

It's a brilliant little device: it connects to the site/hotel Wi-Fi & then you connect to it. Your side of the Wi-Fi doesn't change so you keep the same SSID & password on all of your devices & to the site it just looks like one client. You can run VPNs if that's needed. I think you can even plug a 4G/5G modem into the USB port but I've not needed to do that.
Thanks for that, exactly what I was looking for.

I assume there is a UI accessible either via app or www page?
Yes, initially it's easiest if you connect a PC to one of the two LAN ports as it hands out a 192.168.8.xx IP address via DHCP & you use a browser to log in to the Admin page on 192.168.8.1. There's also an app for iOS or Android but I haven't played with it. You can set up 2.4 & 5GHz networks & even a Guest network on each as well & it should also handle the login procedures for site or hotel Wi-Fi which sometimes have a landing page, but again I haven't used that.

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