4 ms·
Ask HN: What's a solid, non-mesh/-repeater/-cloud WiFi-GbE bridge ~100 USD?
I'm looking for a compact, reliable 5 GHz WiFi-bridge that either has 1 Gigabit port that can bridge multiple Ethernet MAC addresses or 4x 1 GbE ports that can do the same. So far, I've tried numerous products from TP-Link, Linksys, and Netgear but I don't want to have to deal with a used Cisco IOS AP or anything cloud/mesh with $$ licensing, backdoored/never updated firmware, analytics, added complexity, or corporate kill-switches. I'm ambivalent to F(L/B)OSS, while open to any stable platform.
I also have an occasional need for a solid single Ethernet client WiFi bridge, but all the ones I've found so far (purpose-built and travel routers) suffer from unusable, unstable pathologies.
C'mon HN, these can't be unique use-cases.
- hengheng 6y agoPowerline a possibility?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrismeller 6y agoMy go-to is always Mikrotik, they have devices that fit just about every possible niche. 1: https://mikrotik.com/ https://mikrotik.com/
- eps 6y agoDon't know about their hardware, but we had more than enough run-ins with bugs in their firmware to strongly advise all our users against using anything Mikrotik. The issues were so bizarre that the only possible explanation was a blatant incompetence on the software developers' part. Something that would normally require a fire-emergency patching, only to be reluctantly patched weeks if not months later. This was several years ago, so perhaps things changed. I will try and dig up the details.
- 1MachineElf 6y agoFortunately, OpenWRT has been ported to a decent number of Mikrotik hardware: https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128 https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128
- chrismeller 6y agoIve never had any problems with any of their basic stuff, just a couple of things related to VPNs, so I still highly recommend them.
- scifi 6y agoPick up a pre owned Aruba MST200. Yes, it supports mesh but otherwise it’s a plain old bridge.
- xchaotic 6y agoI’m happy to hear what’s on the market currently. I’m still using older Apple hardware which works flawlessly. I wish they’d kept the network products in production.
- dementik 6y agoCheck out Engenius, for example their EWS330AP is nicely priced well-performing locally managed bridge. I have used that for multiple outdoor and indoor wifi bridge needs.
- phonon 6y agoPossibly https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088H2FCHL https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088H2FCHL which has been working well for me.
- magixx 6y agoI've been using a Netgear AC2600 without any issue so far. The AP is about 8 feet away and has line of sight however.
- mindcrash 6y agoIf you're not afraid of DIY: - Get a PC Engines 4x 1gbit APU (like this one: https://www.pcengines.ch/apu4d2.htm https://www.pcengines.ch/apu4d2.htm) - Get a PC Engines case (like this one for the board above: https://www.pcengines.ch/case1d4blku.htm https://www.pcengines.ch/case1d4blku.htm, also available in red or blue if that is more your thing) - And a SD Card which you can use to install Linux or BSD Then configure the thing however you want. Will cost you a little bit more than ~100 USD but full freedom (from firmware onwards) is priceless :)
- yanko 6y agoUbiquiti or just a lot of value for the money: search for N-BOX-S2 in aliexpress like: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000893344365.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000893344365.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000738202595.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000738202595.html