Recently my old tplink TL-WA850RE range extender has stopped working. I want to buy a replacement soon, and now I want to pay more attention for it to be compatible with OpenWRT, because that one had too little memory of both kinds.
I want to use it without WDS, as one does with a common repeater. The primary router on the network does not run OpenWRT, so it would probably be harder too, but I think that it is also unnecessary.
I was looking at a few models of different manufacturers that I can pick up from a local IT shop, and also have an entry in the ToH with the most recent OpenWRT release, I have included a list of these at the bottom. All of them are 8/64 memory devices, I know, but thats what I can afford. Which one would you buy, or rather, do you know if any of them works properly?
I so much hate shopping cheap because all you find is the garbage, but thats what I have to work with, sorry guys.
The aformentioned list of devices, and so far what I have found about them:
TP-Link RE200 TL-AC750 WiFi Range Extender
5 GHz not working, which is only a problem because thats the second radio
V4 support is not listed, never even mentioned yet on the forum, while for my region only V1 and V4 firmware can be downloaded, which I assume means I could only get the V4 version
TP-Link CPE210 2.4GHz 300Mbps 9dBi Outdoor CPE Access Point
Netgear EX6120 AC1200 WiFi Essentials Edition Range Extender
Netgear EX6130 AC1200 WiFi Range Extender
Ubiquiti LOCOM2 airMAX NanoStationM 2 GHz loco Station Access Point
D-Link DAP-1325 N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender
I have not yet looked at all of them, I'll continue filling up the details when I get around to it. It'll probably happen relatively soon, so please check back if you find the thread bumped.
that is just my opinion, but if you need a repeter,looking at your old device, you should look at an mt7621 device. i see your list have indoor and outdoor devices.so not sure about. you can find supported devices for same or less price than your list.
Hmm. I am in a bit of trouble with the devices on the tri-band list.
For the record, I'm in the EU.
The Linksys WHW03 is 192 EUR.
The Linksys EA8300 and MR8300 are not available here, they were ~150 EUR.
ASUS Lyra (MAP-AC2200) is not available either, but I cant even see a historic price on the country-wide shop tracker, so maybe this was not available in the past either.
Same with NETGEAR RBR50 / RBS50, SRR60 / SRS60.
GL.iNet was never a brand here.
Linksys MX4200 is 177 EUR.
And here I stopped, because I have seen that the numbers (model and CPU power) are going up.
As I see, these devices can provide quite a lot of performance, but we dont need that. The primary router on the network is an old and cheap device, with way too low amount of storage to install OpenWRT on it, so that is a real bottleneck.
I should have painted a more complete picture about the intended operating environment.
The device does not need wired connections. Maybe 1 ethernet jack will be useful sometime, and its fine if thats only 10/100. The internet access of the network where the device will be is quite slow, maybe 10 mbps (and I think symmetric, its microwave) if I can recall, but certainly in that maginute. Significant LAN traffic is not expected, other than that of 1 or 2 literal junk IP cameras with relatively low bitrate, smartphones will rarely use it, computers almost never. This significant LAN traffic part might change somewhat, but it is not planned.
It is rural area, we dont need to worry about congestion. The device will be outdoors, but under a roof, at a place that is said to have airflow. If the device is closed (does not have open wents) thats preferable, but then the repeater that failed was closed, while the said old ASUS router on the attic isnt closed and still works fine.
I should have written it earlier, my budget is 80 EUR, maybe 100, but if the described task can be served by a cheaper one, thats even better. Of course, I'm not looking for 40 EUR cheap (unless it really is ok for this usage and does not have serious quirks).