GL.iNet GL-AR300M16 Portable Mini Travel Pocket WiFi Router - Extender/Repeater for Hotel&Public Network | VPN Client&Server | Connector between WiFi&Ethernet | OpenWrt | USB Port | Internet Security

The main router in the house is an expensive "dead spider" thing which cost me hundreds. It's great but, cheap IoT devices like smart bulbs and plugs _really_ don't like the shared 2.4GHz/5GHz airspace. I lost hours of my life trying to sync £10 supermarket bulbs reliably, it's a pain in the proverbial when you've got several in one room and pairing manages to link three out of the four. Enter this teeny-tiny little bad boy. 2.4GHz only and a frankly astonishing range in a house which has internal walls two feet thick. Every Smart device in the house connected in seconds and solidly. Even the Gen 1 Echo connected with it, and that's been sat in a cupboard being a gormless paperweight for two years. I don't use 99% of it, but the functionality offered is exceptional. Its default firmware is more feature-rich than most regular users will ever need, and it natively supports OpenWRT - it's literally a tick box in the settings - which will keep the most ardent of hackers and hobbyists happy. Superb product, they could have slapped a zero on the price and I wouldn't have felt too hard done by. Purely from a home automation point of view it's one of the best £20 I ever spent. I'm seriously considering buying another one just to tool about with.

Bought this for remote Wireguard VPN access to my home server and to bounce off my home broadband to get UK iPlayer etc. when travelling. Very neat, flexible and clever little device running OpenWRT under an excellent custom UI which smooths out most of the complexity, although setting up private VPN links as opposed to the large menu of commercial providers is buried pretty deep in the menus and needs a bit of thought and subnet planning. Upgraded to the (beta) 4.3.6 release 2 firmware which is working fine so far and offers a few useful advantages. Draws under 5W so will work with pretty much any USB charger / laptop port. Only 2.4GHz / 802.11b/g/n radio and 100M Ethernet so not the fastest thing on the planet, but given the constraints of most hotel / transport Internet is not often going to be a practical limitation. Really wish they'd bring out an updated, equally light, tiny (and cheap!) version with USB-C power, Dual band WiFi 5 / 802.11ac, 2x 1G Ethernet and a more NOR & RAM space but really can't argue with the value and utility of this thing!

I got this as a VPN server and didn't need the wifi at all so i've not rated it and i'm not using it, i'm sure it will be good enough for most people, it is a travel router with built in VPN so you can access public internet securely, I've not tried this feature yet, but I have configured as a server to access home internet when away, this was very easy to set up. features like built in wireguard and DDNS make this very good value for money. The only issue i had was one turned up and was faulty with the LAN ethernet port not work, was returned and replaced with no issues. I would recommend one you have configured your router, power it down for about 30 seconds and reconnect as I found some of the setting didn't take until this was done. Highly recommend very simple to set up and use, loads of guides on the internet if you get stuck

I use this as a repeater running Proton VPN to access my internet banking as the bank blocks my mobile broadband router due to its frequent IP address shifting (allegedly). I've used this same system with a GL.iNet GL-AXT1800 which is many times more powerful for a couple of years now with zero problems. The Shadow was needed for a distant room. Probably best to update to the latest firmware before doing the complete setup as there is jump from 3 to 4 release firmware which may cause the loss of certain settings. Startup with VPN running is slow at almost 5 minutes but once running all is fine and works perfectly if slowly compared to GL.inets more powerful models. Highly recommended for the price, performance and great versatility. Gl.inet make great products.

This is a brilliant little router. Very easy to use, weighs practically nothing and runs from any USB power source. Despite having an internal only wifi antenna, it has a surprisingly good coverage. I have a 3 floor house and can get a solid signal anywhere in the house. You can set it up and share a wired, wireless, or tethered internet connection in seconds. double NAT in router mode was a concern at first, but it seems to work well. You can set up an OpenVPN, or Wireguard VPN also so that everything connected to it shares the single VPN. If I were to criticise anything it would be that the Wifi is only 2.4ghz, and not 5Ghz. Having said that, for general browsing, streaming and office work, its more than adequate. £25 well spent.

When I first powered it on I was amazed to see that it has DLNA media server capabilities and also usb file sharing. I did all the configuration needed and was very happy with the result. So why only 3 stars? well, ...I was prompted to do an update of the firmware, so I did, and then both media server and file sharing dissapeared. I could not re-install it, nor anything else...No space Left. Less than half mb free. So now I find it functional but limited. So many options but no resources to implement them. I should have spent £4 more and gone for the TP-link TL-WR902AC. I may still do this.

Dies after 5 seconds of plugging it in. Second one i have had. Absulute rubbish. Poor customer service needing item to be returned to China. Keep away from this item.

As Raspberry Pi’s are almost impossible to get at the moment, I’ve instead used this as a home VPN server so I can access it from abroad. Not too difficult to set up if you are reasonably IT competent. I’ve powered it from the USB port on my router. Works well. Absolute bargain.