Thanks for checking out this video. It was nice to get out of the office and travel around. If you want to see more from my Cabo trip check out my Instagram. instagram.com/_stevedoes
I just stumbled upon this WiFi 6 router yesterday, and I must say that you have really put it to it's paces. It's a very good value for money for what it costs here in India too (3,200 INR). Your review is the first one i saw, and it was pretty unique because you actually used it in a way it's meant to be used. That was my exact concern and now I've gotten my doubts resolved. Thanks for taking the time to review the device. You just earned a sub! 😊
It wasn't until my most recent hotel stay that I fully understood the value of a travel router. The wifi reception was horrible in the hotel room. My kids streaming services kept cutting out along with the connection to the wifi. Had I had a travel router setup using the lan connection, I would have had a strong, fast, reliable signal for everyone to enjoy.
AP/RE i'm guessing is Access Point/Repeater mode. If you set it to that, the config will probably prompt you to connect to a wifi channel & repeat the signal.
It's probably hidden behind the desk or tv stand area. If not most have their tv's hooked up via ethernet cable, I just take it off the wall mount and connect the ethernet cable directly.
Ensure your travel router has ability to connect to the hotel wifi that also connects to their login in page (captive portals). This is important to keep the connection to the travel router while your group connects to the travel router for access.
What is nice is if there is an Ethernet port, a MacBook can function as a router. No software to install. No hardware to buy. Works natively. I use that method whenever i travel.
@@marioStortuga while traveling, I’ve used my MacBook to provide internet access to my family and/or my team when wifi is bad and all we have is one Ethernet port. It’s fast and reliable.
@@mmt44ysame experience even the ones that do have them have killed the access on them - for an airbnb with a large group or family where you want to plug something in and 5 min later everyone has access it makes sense
I think something they can do to upgrade the little router that could would be add ports for optional external antenna like you got on some motherboards
I left the all the gear in the room, but to play that scenario out, i could connect the travel router to hotel Wi-Fi and share that connection. It's not a huge benefit, but it will allow all devices (mine and friends) to passthrough my VPN service. Surprisingly, I didn't have access to Pandora in Mexico. The VPN fixed that though.
Steve great video, I think I miss something, I watch video but I can’t find how I can connect this device to the cruise network to share with other devices and save some money, thanks
So you covered all the basis. Great, thank you. By the way, my question is, what about the service? Do you pay for an additional service or how do you get this thing to work?
OK, you have caught my interest.............. can I plug two computers into this box, and share a hard drive from it without connecting it to eithernet?
I think the last one they made was 7+ years ago. :) I haven't heard of GL.iNet, but i took a look on Amazon and see it's MSRP is $150. What makes it worth the extra cost?
@@SteveDOES Just looked on Amazon and GL.iNet routers range from $33 to $86. Their mobile app is amazingly powerful, with VPN features galore. I don't know much about the TP-Link. Surprised you haven't heard of GL.iNet, they are the most well known travel router brand.
@@SteveDOESThe GL-A1300 is listed at $89 with a $20 coupon bringing it down to ~$70 A benefit of the GL.Inet is that it uses (a fork of) OpenWRT and has a LOT of plugins available.
@@SteveDOES , no sir. GL-iNET AX1800 - Slate came out May 29, 2022. $112 on Amazon. They are the defacto travel router with years of experience. As I mentioned above, would be goo to see a non-biased comparison. Also, don't remember if you mentioned in your video, was this sent to you free of charge or you purchased?
does it have passthrough charging? like for example you tether your phone's data connection via USB, will it be able to charge the phone at a decent rate?
If you use an AT&T hotspot for travel, I didn’t know that anyone with that device can see your router WiFi password and log into it using your Internet and slowing you down, as well as having access to your devices. Attacking a router to it, allows you to turn off WiFi, and use your travel router for your devices.
Genuine question that I really want one of these tavel router reviews to address; why use a travel router when you can use your phone as an access point for your family?? What's the benefit?
Im with you on this one. I cloud see benefit if you are able to connect that thing to the planes wifi then share to multiple devices, instead of paying $29 per device, per flight..
When you turn on your mobile hotspot it turns off Wi-Fi. So you'll be sharing your cell service with all those devices and eating away at your data plan.
@@SteveDOES My Samsung S21+ seems to be happy connecting to my home WIFI and still offering an access point for my laptop to connect to, so I'm not sure that's the case.
Rate limit? You are using the same internet from the hotel. In this test, the only difference is that this hotel has a modem/router in the room. Probably not very common
@@sierpus i am talking about the speed or bdw here. If you cna have the same spedx from the hotel, you can rate limit it in the router to assigned specfic speed per user. Current have a rate limit at home and new user will only get my assigned speed per user or device. Using Omada device.
@@nakamag-trader3319 who cares really, are you going to resell hotel connection?... It's not that you get full speed of the hotel internet - this guy was just lucky - everyone else were on the breakfast :) Try the same evening when they watch Netflix... Will it be faster? probably. Significantly? Maybe not
hmm....so bad still 3G/4G, using 4G/5G will be better, or direct able to plug in sim card will be nice, is this support usb hotspot? using cellphone data as hotspot
At 8:37 I see that you're only getting 100Mbps from the gigabit port. Are you using an older cat5 cable? If so, you may want to consider getting a newer Ethernet cable (5e and up) in case you can take advantage of faster speeds beyond 100Mbps. If you aren't, then I guess the hotel is using the older cable.
@@lsterk1693I saw the popup at 7:32 that says the hotel WiFi was 100Mbps, and usually hotels give out the WiFi only and not advertise the Ethernet. So if I missed the part where he says the hotel Ethernet was also limited to 100Mbps, then whoops my bad!
He says the hotel is only providing 100 megabits a second so that means either the hotel is using network management software to limit each connection to that speed in order to make it fair for all the guests or more likely than not because it was also the ethernet jack in the room doing it the hotel was probably wired with older cat 5 wiring versus cat 5e or cat6 meaning the buildings wiring is physically limiting the speed
I am a traveling tutor, I am looking for something that can create a temporary network between all my student's laptops so I can use it with Veyon... Will this be the product I should be looking for?
All these RU-vid skip the most important part, the configuration and installation of programs. Everyone knows how to check for speed and everything else.
I believe the captive portal should be working OK with this router. Once you have this travel router connected to the hotel network, just need to use one of the device to attempt to connect to internet, then captive portal page should appear. Once successfully authenticated, it should be able to share all connection to other device without needing to enter captive portal again
trying to use this to get around blocks on the wifi that dont allow certain programs on their wifi (school). Will this allow me to run any program I want? Im trying to run my xbox in the building haha
I assume since you are asking, you may not know much about VPN's... It's not a bad thing; everyone is at that point at some point in time. VPN's are always tricky; there's literally NO perfect answer and cannot be answered because of all of the variables. Unfortunately, there is NO short answer due to the variables. Wifi /wired connections at many hotels/and free wifi hotspots can and often are a) shared and b) throttled. You'll never be faster than the throttled speed. Every place is throttled SOMEWHERE- PERIOD. When using a VPN, you must select an endpoint where your connection "exits". The closer to your endpoint- the less lag and better speed. OpenVPN: OpenVPN puts a heavier load on the router CPU and is quite limited speed-wise. Wireguard is not as limited; In reality, you'll end up with better speeds with Wireguard, from more than double the speed on good hardware, to about 6 times faster on slower hardware... Most good products advertise the speeds that the hardware will support; those that don't- usually don't because of embarrassment. Because Wireguard is significantly faster, choosing a VPN provider that supports Wireguard is a critical choice you must make if you desire speed. Hardware: Older hardware designs perform worse than newer designs. I'd suggest looking at the Slate AX if you are planning on going on a cruise ship as some cruise ships require EAP. Otherwise, I'd suggest the newer & cheaper Beryl AX from GL.Inet. For example, I'd suggest AVOIDING the GL.Inet Opal if you plan on using VPN, because it's CPU is antiquated and SLOW. VPN: I am not sponsored; ExpressVPN is only OpenVPN; so I would not recommend ExpressVPN; Look at Surfshark VPN, if you are looking at ease of use, or just running the VPN on your device directly ( always an option). Proton VPN is the only other I'd recommend, but if you've never used a VPN, Surfshark would be my choice unless you want absolutely better privacy. But configuration with Proton is NOT as simple as it is with Surfhark. !!! Exceptions: If you are streaming videos from services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc, you may need to put in exceptions to use such services. Gl.Inet routers have the ability to put in exceptions; I don't know about the TP-Link. OpenWRT also supports exceptions. If a service can be viewed in a web browser like Edge, start playing it in the browser, open the Developer Tools ( F12 ) and look at sources to determine which URL's might need to be excluded. This information on how to find these exceptions is VERY hard to find otherwise !!!. Take this as a HINT !!! I have never used this tp-link; I would likely not buy it either. It's missing key features like external antennas and WPA3.. External antennas will give you better range !!! . WPA2 is relatively easy to defeat; it's not as secure as it should be. A travel router SHOULD always be secure due to where it's used, thus should require at least WPA3 !!! The listings on Amazon don't suggest anything really, so IMO, they're not proud of their product enough to advertise its features otherwise. I have used the Opal, Slate AX, Beryl AX from GL.Inet and the Cudy TR3000 from Cudy.. Generally, I'd recommend the Beryl AX overall, unless you need the features of the Slate AX, like EAP which is required on certain cruise lines. If you are running off from a USB power bank, the Slate AX is more power hungry than the Beryl AX. I would NOT recommend the OPAL as it's severely underpowered. The CUDY I have mixed feelings about; and is not one I'd recommend at this point in time. It's not terrible ; the firmware just has room for improvement. In the end, most people need about 10 to 25 Mbps to stream media; towards 25Mbps+ for working remotely, and more if multiple devices are streaming at the same time; In the end, as long as you get sufficient speed, don't be too concerned about the speed otherwise.
Be sure to look up EAP if you are planning on a Cruise ship. Some cruise lines require EAP; but they're probably not going to be very forward about their wireless security as you're talking about a device that shares internet, and they want to sell you a per-connection only service.. I have not been on any cruise that has wifi; spent too many years in the Army's navy to think about boarding another ship, smh.
I am a nomad and I take my 5g router mu5001 with me switch over sim in any country. 150 min download speed upload I am getting 25/30 upload. What use is that thing! Except a waste of money. And it’s smaller that my phone.
Never trust public internet, would be great if this unit could take a sim card, i guess you can always tether a phone via the cable but that means you need a dedicated phone just for internet.
Every one of these damn travel router videos shows the user using a lan cable in a hotel room. It’s 2024. Hotels have this thing called WiFi. Show us how to actually use this in today’s world.
@@chrisgarland9632 Here in the states, unless you go to a motel 6, most of the hotels I've been in had an ethernet port to use. Some of the older hotels I can see not having them and just utilize wifi.
because if you change hotels you need to connect each device again individually, but if you have this you dont have to just connect the router to the Ethernet port in the hotel and all your other devices will connect automatically to the router since they are already configured, saves a lot of time and makes your devices safer and more secure.
A video about a travel router that doesn't use Hotel/Cruise ship wifi is nearly useless. Also, not showing how to get by the Captive Portal makes this much less usefull. If all we had to do was plug into an RJ-45 jack, we could probably just use a switch (much cheaper) and whatever VPN our device has.
The cheap solution that I’ve found (by accident) is using my older Samsung S10+. Unlike iPhones, you can connect to a Wi-Fi network (one with a Captive portal, for example), and once connected, you can activate the hotspot simultaneously, creating a separate network. You can install your preferred VPN app on the phone to add a layer of security. It’s not like a router, but I get great speeds, and it solves the issue that this video bothered to solve. I survived six months on the city's public WiFi using this method!
The only people that are complaining about captive portals are the people that haven’t used a travel router, because if you’ve used one, you’ll realize that it’s no different than connecting to the hotel WiFi directly. The captive portals still show up on your phone.
That was the feature i wanted to test out the most! Sadly, they didn't offer an internet package on our flight. Maybe because it was less than 2 hours.
why not just use the mobile hotspot on your phone, you can connect multiple devices to that. I do see the benefit of having one VPN setup on the router and maybe if your hotel room has an ethernet port connected to the internet which not all do. Somewhat limited use case scenario while traveling.
@@SteveDOES You can use your phone hotspot when not in range of wifi. I do find that sometimes the cell service signal might even be better than hotel wifi which can vary quite a bit. Also sometimes hotels charge more for premium connectivity with higher speeds or to even connect at all.
@@oui.monsieur I get unlimited on my phone and it allows me to take my service with me when traveling to some countries such as Mexico. It's just an easier solution to have internet even when not in range of wifi.
Explain to a non tech person how to have wifi anywhere on the road, no ethernet. Who is the service provider once you buy device? Not using cell phone data
😩Was this trip back in the 1990's I dont know of any hotels that have ethernet connections now adays. All hotels I have stayed at for years are only providing WIFI. You claim that it works with wifi but cant evidentially find a hotel with WIFI. THe Problem with using it on a hotels WIFI is that teh Portable Routers DONOT provide the ability to login to the hotel service. That must be why you didnt demonstate how to connect to the Hotel WIF since it does not wmork ( I tried it with several other portsable routers and never got it to work. As for that cruise ship trip you plan you wont find any cruise ships that have Eithernet they all use WIFI only I would love for you to do a new RU-vid and prove me wrong and show there is a way to do a Router on WIFI only without using Ethernet.
