GL.iNet - GL-MT3000 travel router with an experimental repeater function

From my recent trip with Genting Dreamcruise, I have learned the torture of staying on board without any internet connection for a few hours let alone 4D3N. At last, I finally decided to purchase their onboard "premium" WiFi which cost me S$54 for a single user. Fortunately, the WiFi account is not tied to a single device and can be "moved" between users (via login/logout process). So end up, I have to share my WiFi (via hotspot) with the rest of the members and my phone battery was taking a toll.

So that motivate me to improve the situation for future trips by getting a travel router to share such paid WiFi among members within the cabin. A search on the internet and some review, GL.iNet GL-MT3000 seems to fit the bill.

Beside functioning as a wireless router, it does have a "repeater" function. Just take note, "repeater" mode in this context is basically a wireless router with it's WAN connected to a wireless SSID (instead of typical wired connection to the WAN port). As such, you can share the "paid premium WiFi" by creating another SSID setup in your travel router for other members to connect to.

What I dislike about the product

The "repeater" function doesn't work out of the box and I have to manually connect a LAN cable to it's WAN port to access the internet to upgrade it's firmware. Thereafter, I'm able to connect to my home wireless SSID to test out the repeater feature.

Although it was successful, however, when I start to use my Samsung mobile acting as a hotspot for GL-MT3000 to connect to, it couldn't discover the SSID at all and that prompt me to perform a Google search on "GL-MT3000 repeater unable to connect" and numerous hits were displayed with similar encounters.

After much googling and reading, my final remedy is to access LuCI (advance setup menu based on OpenWRT) to change the WiFi network country from Germany (default) to Singapore.

Next, WireGuard setup wasn't that intuitive as it doesn't auto-generate public and private keys. So I have to used my Windows client to generate those keys instead.

What I like about the product

There's a side button which allows you to pre-program in the setup page. In my use case, I have programmed it to enable/disable my WireGuard VPN connection.

This travel router is powered via a 5V supply via it's type-c port. This certainly increases the portability with most mobile chargers supporting type-C and 5V output.

Should you buy it?

If you have a spare phone lying around, then no, you will save S$115 from such a purchase which you can just hotspot from your phone connected to a charger.

#networking #gadgets #review