Netgear WAG102, where to go?

Recent connectivity issues with my phone (Sony Xperia XA2) has prompted me to look at my home wifi setup.

I run Netgear WAG102 devices -- three of them. They've been great, after repairing the power circuit (capacitor) and finding an old dd-wrt firmware (now rather out of date).

These are Atheros AR5312 (4Mb flash and 12Mb RAM?) which seems to be well behind OpenWrt; though I only need the simplest wireless bridge -- no web UIs or anything.

Environmentally I don't want to chuck these out, as the form factor and feature set (including PoE) seem to be perfect for my needs and no issues until the smartphone.

Though I did wonder if 15/19dBm power is low by modern standards and is part of the problem with the smartphone? I am in a busy city.

So, any recommendations on where I should go next? Keep in mind I have 3 of these plus one spare ($$)

  • scrap them and replace them; for what benefit?
  • keep running old dd-wrt firmware, ignore possibly security risks and work out what's wrong with the smartphone
  • devote some time and attempt some kind of OpenWrt build?

Or is there some OpenWrt already that would actually work on these devices? There is AR5312 "support" visible in the code, but I have no idea how different the devices actually are, or if they were just re-badged and almost identical to others. I think I might be in a different ballpark with the RAM on this device, though.

I'd even be happy with just a raw Linux or OpenBSD (or similar) OS.

Thanks, any advice appreciated.

16 MB RAM are a hard no-go - and honestly, I don't see any value in keeping those running (especially considering the used markets, you can find concurrent dual-band 802.11n -and often even 802.11ac, especially if you have a little patience and persistence- devices for a song).

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The only path forward here is to replace those APs. Your phone supports 5 GHz so you want something dual band.

There are adapters to convert from PoE to 12 volts to plug into any router. To be more future-proof check that the ones you buy are gigabit ready.

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Thanks, good info. I am ok with the current feature sets and speed. Though I can see now it's not worth investing much time in these devices when the time comes that I am not.

I have managed to achieve, I think, and increase in reliability by lowering the power to 12 dBm (instead of 19). I imagine either the existing amplifiers could be on their way out, or they were just set too high in the first place.

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