GL.iNet GL-AR300M16 Portable Mini Travel Wireless Pocket Router - WiFi Router/Access Point/Extender/WDS | OpenWrt | 2 x Ethernet Ports | OpenVPN/Wireguard VPN | USB 2.0 Port

So figuring out how to set this up and how to make it work was not the easiest thing I have ever done. Let me say, I am not a tech guy, but I have, over the course of my years working in small offices where we had no tech person, done more than my share of setting things up. That said, it's not a daily routine and I don't have "muscle memory" for it. That means each time I have to do some sort of home or office set up, it takes me a little figuring out how to make it work exactly as I want it to. I almost always succeed and my family requires me to do most of this work, so I'm good at it, just not immersed in it.What I struggled with was how to enter DEVICE credentials versus INTERNET credentials I also had to use the same network name as I use at home to make this do what I wanted to, so that also took a minute. Also figuring out which "mode" it needed to be in was not self explanatory. On my first try, I think it took me about 30 minutes (after initial home setup) to get it logged in to the hotel network.So what does this DO for you? I can't speak to what its full capabilities are, but here is how I use it.1) Some hotels (the higher end ones) charge a daily fee for internet and limit the number of devices you can use. I use this to connect to the hotel/rental wifi. Because it's a single device, there is only one IP number connected to their network. Then I share the signal with my other devices (phone, laptop, tablet, etc.). All now have access to the hotel wifi for the cost of one device.2) When traveling, I find it tedious to connect every device to wifi -- particularly when my wife and I are working and need our work devices in addition to my personal ones. This applies to connecting to family members' networks, to vacation rentals, etc. Because I name this wifi the same as my home network, all my family's devices instantly recognize it (even my work devices because I have a hybrid remote job). This solves the problem. Get this one device logged in and set up and voila! -- internet for every device.3) Smart devices like Alexa devices, or the other brand if you use it, sometimes make a trip better. I love being able to ask about the weather, to listen to Sirius XM news channels and to unwind to my favorite playlist. I don't have to set them up at all. I just connect them to my home network one time and, since this broadcasts the same network name, I have music and more with the sound of my voice.I took it to a friends' beach house and my wife was amazed that she was "just connected." I told her I brought Old Trusty and had set it up and she said, "Oh!" and looked at me like I was using some strange voodoo. My grown daughter who lives in another city met us at a vacation cabin that had wifi. She looked on the fridge for the wifi credentials, went to her computer to log in and wondered how she had internet and why my home network was being broadcast. I told her since she had visited my house and connected to my network, her devices instantly recognized my travel router. I find connecting this item to the travel network ONE TIME and getting instant access on my work and home laptops, my work and home cell phone, my wife and daughters' devices makes it worth the three minutes it takes to set it up at a rental house.So that's how it works for me. Like I said, I had to "figure it out" just because my tech skills don't get a daily workout like they once did, but if you have a little patience, understand the concept of what you're doing and read a tutorial and follow the directions, you're good to go. Really a small, portable, powerful little bit of home convenience on the road.

Good little unit, especially for the price. With OpenWRT it has extraordinary features and flexibility, while pulling down just under 1W on average, so my typical "10,000mAh" battery pack could run it all day.Various small things could be slightly better. It should use USB C power - who uses micro-USB these days?Also, as a travel router it should have some sort of cable management for packaging the cables you need. It weighs almost nothing because inside is mostly air that could instead be cable storage/management. They should recess the sockets so cables can stay attached, perhaps with guides to wind the cables around the unit when it's packed.Of course 5GHz ac and a USB 3 port would be awesome (a mini-Beryl), but for $30 it's hard to find something significant to complain about.

My wife was getting bombarded by 5G when she wsas getting ready to go to bed and having sleep issues. She started turning the Verizon modem off at night and cutting my Wifi connection . I needed an alternative so I could continue using the internet at night. Did my research and decided this would be the best solution to remedy those issues and the price was extrenely affordable to check out, even if it didn't work out as planned . I hooked it up last night. The input and output of the MINI was similar if not more than what the whole house modem we had been putting out. It's almost a plug and play installation with some minor tweaks which I took upon myself to make. Summary: The Mini could be used as a temporary modem when no Wifi goes down. I'll use it backyard and when travelling on vacations and as an emergency back up if the internet provider goes down and you have no wifi connection to the modem. But only have access to your cell phone. To top it off the MINI has OPN VPN included. The durability which I can't vouche for at this time, since I've only had it for a day. I would proabaly put it in once place and leave it to extend it lifespan. Finally, I checked to see how hot it was going to get when in use. The report I can give is: barely warm unlike my whole house modem unit. LOL DYOR🤔

I wanted to use this to create a VPN tunnel between two of these devices using the wireguard function. I have two serial to Ethernet devices which communicate on a local LAN but I need to have that communications over the Internet. This device should have been able to do this. I was able to setup the server device and added a client but when I tried to create the configuration file for the client it errored out every time. I spent a couple days farting around with this thing but couldn’t get this part to work. I even tried to SSH into it but there was no file created. I tried to create one from scratch but that failed too. Too many trips down the rabbit hole on this one, I sent the devices back and gave up in frustration.I’m going to try this with the more expensive GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) next and see if it works any better for me. It’s supposed to have a better UI with more memory to support that. Fingers crossed.