GL.iNetGL-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.

The product comes with pretty good instructions and the website has good videos to help you set up for your particular need. That said, it requires a basic understanding of networking and may not be the best choice for a novice that just wants to plug it in and have it auto configure.The GUI is well designed. It is pretty easy to navigate and find the settings. It is also boots quickly and the interface is reponsive. It is feature rich for its intended purpose. Given its, price point, size, capabilities, and low power usage, it is a great value.

Item took a small time to learn and works great as intended

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.

Awesome device. I wrote a horrible review early in this process. I'm redoing that...USB tethering worked great. My provider theories me to 5mb but I'm looking for stable internet for devices, not speed. I can use my phone itself for large for transfers.Huge note: your phone is the internet using this device. It provides a network but you're phone ISN'T ACTUALLY ON THAT NETWORK! Beware media casters. Frustration will Mount I promise.Onto wireless tethering through my phone hotspot. This works great BUT... For devices connecting through this device is great but for devices communicating within the network speeds are ridiculously slow. What I think is happening is if you're serving media, for instance, all of the traffic has to come back through the router to the phone itself, then get routed and then back through this device. Device. It's truly unusable for device to device connectivity when using your phone's hotspot to connect to this device. But otherwise it works great and that's possibly the best way to use the device that I found.To get around this device to device limitation, I'm actually using the repeater mode to pass through my phones hotspot or to USB tether to the device. Then I use the ethernet port to provide internet to an actual full-size router that I have here in the house. All of my devices connect to that and internal communication is at that maximum speed. But external communication is then through this device and everything works perfectly. I would take this to a hotel and a heartbeat or a cruise ship but you have to keep in mind the device to device is going to cripple you.This device to device issue does not exist. If you're using router mode or USB tethering because in that instance the device handles communication between devices and only internet traffic itself comes back through your phone.Overall I love the device. I got rid of cable and my house is not online at all but all of my devices are stable and when I walk in the door I turn on my mobile hotspot. This device automatically scanned recognizes that it's there, connects to it and then passes traffic through it until I leave the house again. I don't have enough speed to serve media online, but I can I can watch video and surf the web and all of my devices are connected to the internet when my phone's in the house.It's a great device that I initially gave a horrible review to. My horrible review was the media server speed in repeater mode. Use USB. It saves your phone battery and you don't run into this nonsense of device to device.But in all instances your phone providing the internet is not on the resulting network. So you create a network and connect all your internal devices to it and then go on your phone which is the source of the internet. Start a video and try to cast it to one of your devices and those devices aren't there because your phone is on a different network.