Good grief...I went through 5 videos until I got to yours.. the previous 5 did nothing but talk about the router's features.... yours were the only one that did a step by step walk through. Thank you so much for this.
Amen to that... I too been watching videos for over an hour now and finally found this one,,, onsite setup in hotel with screenshots is REAL WORLD content.... thanks so much for not being a YT influencer bot... *sub'd*
I’m writing this comment from 38,000 ft over the Pacific Ocean. I spent $20 instead of $80 for in-flight WiFi for the entire family. The device is VPN’d home via WG to my UDM Pro. Kids are happy, wife is happy, I’m happy. WORTH IT!!
Thank you so much for this video! Purchased a Beryl AX, set it up with Nord, and brought it to Sint Maarten this week. Walked into our timeshare and low and behold there is a Ruckus H550 on the wall by the living room TV. Could not have gotten any luckier! Plugged in the AX and it connected immediately. We have over a dozen devices connected. Even brough a long enough Cat5 cable so the AX can be placed in from of the balcony door and we have access down on the beach. I can't believe how well this thing works! Keep the videos coming!
Thanks a million! This saved me! I am currently traveling for work. I am currently using my GL-iNet AC 1300 in the hotel Wi-fi while I am using my work laptop, work mobile phone, personal mobile phone, and personal iPad. It works great. It also worked great when I was at work troubleshooting a new firewall installation. And lastly, I used it at the airport to safeguard my network traffic. Thanks again! Great video. Very well explained.
I did this for a road trip. Hooked up the travel router to a travel SIM card, connected the kids devices to the travel router. Kids and wife were happy and Plex, netflix etc all streamed without issue
Thanks for this video. I've been looking for a way to bring along the Chromecast while travelling without having to factory reset it each time for whatever wifi I was on. Bonus points for me because my non-technical wife can now bring this technical travel kit along even when I'm not there and still use the Chromecast. I just laminated some instructions and placed them into the travel case with the router, chromecast, cables etc. Perfect!
This is the exact video I was looking for! Every other video skips or is very brief on how this router connects to the internet. Thank you so much for giving us a demonstration!
I’m a total non techy and most of this went way over my head! But with the step by step process I’m hoping that once I get the router I’ll be able to follow along. Thanks so much.
I have a Slate AX (chosen over the Beryl AX because of the faster Wireguard throughput) - it's awesome. I absolutely love it. When I get to my hotel I get my stuff squared away, get the router out, and connect to the wifi on this, and bam - all my other stuff is already set up to use my router's Wifi so it's just online. I then leave the hotel, go do work at the office or wherever I am, and when I get back the router is still in my room, online, and wifi is waiting. I've never had any issues with cleaners turning it off or anything (though to be fair I do also reduce the number of times they visit during a stay). It's such a great little companion, all my family's gear is configured to connect to it as well. This now means when we go traveling somewhere on holiday I only need to worry about getting one device onto the destination network, be it a hotel or a family's house - I'm not having to then be IT support to absolutely every wifi enabled bit of tech that came with us.
I have a somewhat ironic update to this. I have found the power requirements of the Slate AX to be annoying. It requires 5v 4A. While it does come with a power adapter capable of this, there are limited alternate power delivery methods. I'm currently solving a problem involving internet access when off-grid, say on a remote road trip, or 4WDing somewhere to camp. I have chosen a Starlink dish, and I am in the process of converting it to run off 12V so it can use the same deep cycle battery system that powers the fridge, camp lights etc and is recharged by either the vehicle engine or solar. The Starlink uses 48V, though thankfully there are already ways to use adapters to take 12V up to 48V for this. I even found an awesome little thing called a Boondocker Dishy Dualie that converts the power AND handles PoE injection in the one small board - most other solutions separate these two tasks over different devices. It also has a method of powering your router as well, either via PoE or a 48V outlet on the side. Coming back to the Gl.inet router, its adapter won't run off 48V, and it is too power hungry to use PoE. And on top of all that, the circuit in the Dishy Dualie unit to power a router have a 3A fuse. In the end it turns out the Beryl AX uses 5V 3A, and it's possible to buy adapter cables to take PoE out of an ethernet connection and split it off to USB-C. So... guess I'm going to buy a Beryl after all. :)
I have the slate and I've been using it for more than a year as my home router. It's perfect. I can't complain about it at all. I always have a VPN enabled with adguard home to protect my connection that much more. You can stop your tv from spying on you so that's a plus by adding a blocklist.
I purchased a Beryl AX a couple months ago in preparation for a family vacation. While en route to the destination, it worked great as outlined in the video to provide connectivity to my family’s devices without reconfiguring the devices. Once at the destination, I enabled the Beryl’s VPN (wireguard client back to a UniFi UDM Pro) to provide connectivity to a UniFi G4 Instant. As I used the same SSID as my home network, no reconfiguration of the G4 Instant was needed. I was very surprised how well it worked. Beryl was over 500 miles away from UDMP. Both routers were behind typical home ISP connections (UDMP>DOCSIS & Beryl>GPON). No stuttering. Maybe a second of delay. Definitely plan to do it again when needed.
It's been on my list for awhile to get one of these. Just did it. Amazon has a $31 coupon right now for the Beryl AX bringing the price to $79 before tax.
I've got the AX1800, which I've already used for connecting to networks when I'm away. I'm using it for iPhone, iPads (Multiple), Telescopes, and laptops. Got it working great with my UDM Pro using Wireguard. It's great as I can setup in the middle of a field, and have a nice stable connection for everything.
Good video! I used to do this years ago and still have the mini travel router that I used back then. But now I simply take my 5G T-Mobile trashcan with me for anything more than an overnight stay. Same outcome, and completely bypasses all hotel networking and security considerations.
@@ErwinChung I believe (newly) it may be geo-fenced to a degree, and also possibly more-so with the newer equipment, so YMMV. I have heard of the geo-fence literally from a T-Mobile rep, and yet the exact opposite from another T-Mobile rep in another store (who helped bypass their sign-up address check when I acquired a 2nd one for a family member). Mine works across the entire United States (literally) without being throttled. At least, so far. I toss it in my backpack and off I go. Soon though, it will be displaced for travel by the Starlink Mini that I just acquired.
Another great use for travel router: cruise ships. It’s similar to the RV situation. But cruise ships cost even more, usually around 20 bucks a day. I used one for my last cruise as a repeater. I had to spoof my phone’s MAC address on the router for the ship to think it was my phone.
Great video! If you need to connect more than a couple devices to the Internet every time you move around to a different hotel, a travel router is definitely needed. Just to remember the various situations I had to set up my family's devices to a particular network gives me the creep. Such a waste of time, and a travel router sounds like a very good solution for this!
How about connecting your phone to the hotel's WiFi and then starting a hotspot from it and connect everything to that? Seems like cheaper and one less thing to carry around ..
May I suggest looking at getting a 4g Sim card router instead. Cheaper, full functionality of a router. More ports, and if you need it you can slap a Sim card in and have internet on the road in a camper/tent. (Power needed of course.)
@@plebius Mobile hotspots don't have the features of this router. GL.inet also sells mobile hotspots (routers) with their software on them though. But you can just tether your phone to the router he featured in this video. Same as a mobile hotspot, better actually.
Bought this one for myself for Christmas 🎄 Set it already up and testing works just perfect in my home environment (all Unifi gear). Looking now forward to my next travel abroad next year 😊 Love that gadget 😌🙏
I have this exact model and use it on Holland America cruise ships, this has been amazing on my last cruises as they have upgraded to starlink for the onboard wifi!
Perfect timing as the fam is set for our first euro trip soon enough and it has been oh over 15 years since I gave up on our one portable router, was an apple airport express I think. This Beryl AX seems solid. Bought one, SSIDs all set up, can't wait to give this a go. I went with our current SSIDs, hopefully will work. Thanks so much for the video 👍👍
Absolutely amazing video! I was just about ready to toss my unit out the window, but thanks to your incredible step by step, it’s still in one piece-and now I'll actually be able to use it! Your tips are a lifesaver. Huge thanks for sharing this amazing information!
Good video. Thanks! I own one of these and travel a lot. I mostly use it as a repeater with the bonus of having Adguard for blocking ads on all my devices.
Just got off of a cruise and I saw this after my cruise but I knew about the router and took mines with me. With Carnival you have to pay for each service and I didn't want to pay for my daughter tablet. I configured my router and put it on a battery pack and kept it with me and worked flawlessly. Pared with Nord everything was protected for me, although it through the app off it was perfect. This is a great in-dept video I saw before use and I figured it out on my own.
I've purchased that same model last september. I've already made two holiday travels with it and it is phenomenal. Best geek purchase I've made this year by far. I also recommend to purchase the travel pouch of the same brand.
Are you saying that you have not purchased anything better than a travel router?!?! in the 362 days prior to your comment??? You don't have very much of a geek life if that's the case...... Really weird thing to say. You sound like a shill
The only reason I don't care for this setup in a hotel space is a possible shared throttle limit since the hotels network treats it as one device and the throttle limits are usually set per MAC, unless someone knows if any hotels would be dynamic enough to somehow make the limit be per room number, like a dedicated VLAN per room.
This is awesome video, back in the day I used to travel with a spare router, but as more and more hotels took away the ethernet cable. I pretty much stopped using it. I didn’t realize we could utilize routers like this to act as a repeater. Very very cool. I’m definitely going to check one of these out. Thanks for making a great video as usual.
Thanks for the video, comprehensive and straight to the point, no waffle, which seems so common on TH-cam these days. It made setup easy, which was all I wanted, great job.
I just purchased the GL.iNet Beryl AX to bypass device limits in campgrounds and Hotels, and for the added security. We have, and will be camping at a campground in the western Sierra's that has ZERO cell signal but does offer paid WiFi that allows 2 devices. Last year we used our Starlink with minor success due to the 100 foot trees. We ended up using the campsite's paid WiFi, but w/o a travel router could only use 2 devices. VoIP with Starlink was no-go due to the many drop outs but streaming was tolerable with some buffering. VoIP did work with the paid WiFi but everyone found that Facetime worked better, to our surprise, but it saved our lives since my wife owns her own business and NEEDs to stay in contact via text and voice. You mention the adverse effect that double NAT has on VoIP and since using the travel router in repeat mode with a captive portal will create a double NAT I have a question. My question is this: Is there any way to fix the double NAT problem so we can use a cell phone via WiFi calling? Mark
I have a travel Roku and travel IP Phone. What better was to connect it and other devices than with a travel router. Great video! Thanks for the affiliate link. It's been ordered.
I have a Slate and they are handy and it still works great. The Unifi Express excites me…but I think Ubiquiti missed the boat as it could have been a great travel router also.
@@derrysannot only that i think the price went up too... been needing a second one but it's only ever been in stock twice and once was at 4am pst for 15 min
@@AChilds52 I had a hard time getting my UDM Pro SE not long after they came out of EA. Best place I have found to get Ubiquiti gear is from the UI store. Stock can be an issue but the prices stay where they are supposed to. Probably get bought out and marked up higher on other platforms because of demand.
I have a few GL.iNet routers, from 2 of the AR750S to the GL-AXT1800 that I carry every day in my bag. One of the most important features is ensuring your devices only ever connect to your travel router and no other SSIDs, repeating any upstream networks you may connect to. I also travel quite frequently in the air, and I will purchase the in-flight WiFi from the flight and then connect my travel router to the airplane network, and then rebroadcast that WiFi out to the rest of the passengers on the plane for free. I QoS that network of course so one passenger doesn't hog the whole connection by streaming their Netflix or Plex channels. I've been doing this for many years with my AR750S, and now my AXT1800. It works great and nobody on the plane is the wiser. One of the biggest downsides with repeating hotel WiFi is the captive portal will reset every 6-12 hours so you'll need to re-login into the captive portal landing page to continue to use the WiFi. There's no way to keep the connection active across multiple days, even with MAC cloning.
@@sigsauer9246 Just look at the router that gave your GL its IP, and visit that in a browser, it should bring up the captive portal page. Sometimes going to the hotel's main website from a connected device inside their LAN also helps. Lastly, connect directly with your laptop or tablet to their network, the use the GL.iNet to clone that device's MAC address, and you shouldn't get the captive portal prompt any longer, since your device should now be authenticated.
Thanks for explaining the Wi-Fi repeater option and showing the steps to set it up. That's exactly what I needed that was missing from other videos I saw on this device.
I watched your video and it convinced me to purchase one of these routers and I love it! In your video you configured everything using the browser from your laptop however i found it easier to configure it from the android app. When I used it at the hotel I was able to connect the router to the hotels wifi from the app without having the spoof the mac from my phone.
These things work great. Thanks for sharing, Chris. Got a couple of them for a couple of unique use cases. The GL.iNet iPhone app is good for a quick config change too. I was thinking about a UniFi Express for this, but for about half the cost and the side switch for added convenience is really great.
Very thorough video. You did a great job using verbiage and analogies that a layman (me) can understand. I picked up the Slate AX last week and set it up last nite. Hope to use it this weekend at a hotel.
Hi, Chris. I am a cargo pilot who spends, literally, half the year in a hotel while at work. Based on your recommendation I purchased the AX-3000 through your affiliate link. I'm LOVING it! I was successful in setting it up with Wireguard connected to my home's OPNsense Wireguard server. Prior to getting Wireguard setup I attempted to get Adguard Home setup on the Beryl but I failed. I wasn't getting The Internet - no doubt a DNS issue - you would think I could set it up correctly since I have Adguard Home running within OPNsense on my home network, but alas, no. That's when I gave up and setup the Wireguard connection. Request: Would you put together a tutorial for setting up Adguard Home on the Beryl, please? This would then allow me to not have to pass through my traffic back home - the advantage is that some hotels actually have fast Internet (8Mbps at the one I'm currently at) which is faster than my home's 2Mbps UP (and I save data usage on my home's 1TB/mo. subscription.). Thanks!
Been doing the Roku stick trick (I actually use a chromecast) for years now and it's been amazing. Never heard/thought of doing a travel router. Definitely getting on board with this!
I am using a similar setup to also control some of the devices with smart plugs. For house rentals is really nice because rarely they have switches near the bed
Just got the Flint 2 and I love this thing so much that I purchased a Beryl AX too, to use it as my router/WireGuard client when I'm on the go. I will get it in a few days and I can't wait
I have a MUDI that I have traveled with for several years now. I love the versatility of it, but do I occasionally get frustrated as well. I like the MUDI because of its integrated battery and cellular radio. This was amazing when I had Google Fi, where a data only sim was super cheap. My biggest frustration is that it seems like the wireless radios become unstable after several hours of use.
I have a ONT/router/AP combo thing that my ISP provides which I use to cover one corner of my home and another quite good TP-link router that I use in AP mode that I use to cover the majority of my home. Never ran into problems with wifi on the tp-link one but that ISP-provided once needs to be restarted daily for optimal performance. I guess it's just with cheap routers their firmware and memory isn't that stable.
Thanks for the guide, you've answered a few questions I had about how to setup the VPN using a third party service. I have GL-SFT1200 version / AC1200, I believe its the regular Beryl version. Its a very simple version of the Beryl AX . There almost no extra memory on board, so I tried and installed AdGuard, but it seem to bring the AC1200 to its knees. I ended up uninstalled AdGuard. I'll have to consider upgrading before my next trip.
This is a really cool idea. As a network engineer whom travels a lot I had no idea this was a thing with captive portal and a repeater in the mix. however I can see once these catch on and more and more people start using them and circumventing the billing process with multiple devices they will start putting measures in place to block them. One way to do this is to a black listed enable rouge detection list and have the hotel AP's spam your SSID with deauth packets effectively making it useless. This is a grey area with the FCC however there is nothing stopping a lawyer from writing up a ToA that is part of your agreement when you stay at the hotel. Good practice here to not add more fuel to the fire is to turn down the antenna gain (transmit power set to "low") so you are not causing more interference and further giving them a reason to "deauth" you.. I still want to try it and use it as long as I can. Hopfully hotels and paid public wifi wont catch on, but when it comes to making a profit (even a small one) companies will do anything and everything they can.
Very good video. I purchased this router because we travel in our trailer to various campgrounds etc. I find it odd that you don't like Nord VPN, they don't keep logs nor are they part of the 5, 9 or 14 eyes countries.
Chris, two questions as follow-up: 1) First, I'd love to get more details on finding and using Ethernet ports in hotel rooms. I used to see and use them regularly, but they seem to have disappeared from common availability. The last few hotels I've stayed at, including Hilton and Hyatt properties, have not had an obvious port. So, tips and tricks on where to _find_ them, and how to _test_ or verify that they work would be useful. (This might be a separate video; Maybe you could record port searches across a few of your upcoming trips, and then knit it all together?) 2) The number one problem I've had with all four of my various travel routers (DLink years ago, GL.iNet these days) has been getting the captive portal to appear, so I can get through it. It looked like you used a Windows-based feature to notice the Wi-Fi issue and then access the captive portal; is that correct? Is there a similar way to force a captive portal recognition on macOS? Or a general mechanism to force it to appear? It's absolutely _maddening_ to know exactly what needs to happen, but not be able to trigger it...
I don't think he really cares if you could find an ethernet port or not my friend, everything he said in this video is to help him make money off of purchases as an affiliate. He's not actually going to hotels and using these.... As you pointed out, It's not even possible in most hotels
1) Many hotels don't have LAN ports anymore. Use the repeater function of router. 2) Sign in to captcha portal with your phone. Then with your phone, log in to your GLINET app, and clone your phones MAC address. Now all decides connected to router no longer have to sign into portal.
Most Hotels have an ethernet port for the smart TV. If you're taking your own streaming device like suggested in the video, just unplug the TV, and use that ethernet as your WAN for the travel router.
Nice video Chris, I have this router myself and it's much better to travel with instead of in the past havin to connect each device and now bringing my own streaming device. One thing I have started doing and is not for everyone, I disable broadcasting 2.4G, all of the devices we bring can connect over 5G and the rooms are small enough that it will connect from anywhere.
I connect an old smartphone without sim card to the hotel wifi and then I create a usb cable (the charging cable) connection to my pc and share the connection with the pc (inside the smartphone network settings) . Since the WiFi of my laptop is not in use now, I create a wifi Hotspot with it and now we have our own private network. I use the Gnome desktop on a Linux machine, it has the WiFi Hotspot option preinstalled in the networking settings. Years ago I did the same with a Windows machine, but I installed a program for that (no idea anymore what it was). A dedicated router is a far more elegant solution, but if your video streaming box is not accepted by the hotel login (happens nearly all the time to me), this is a pretty simple solution.
Just bought one. One feature I wish it had: Power over Ethernet. That way I can just leave a switch setup in my camper. No need to even think about power.
The way I see it, most of the time when you travel you aren't getting high speed internet. So you won't often take advantage of higher speeds. So I imagine an ideal travel router as something cheap, small, and maybe power efficient. So I got the AR300M used for $10. It still supports Adblocking, OpenVPN, USB file sharing, etc. Plus its small and runs on USB. I do wish though it was USB C instead of microUSB.
Thanks, this is helpful. I'm finding the bigger problem is hotels/casinos locking down their televisions. You can't change the input at times. I bought a universal remote which helps sometimes. Looks like they are using the phone jack in the TV to lock down certain features. Removing that connection can cause problems. I haven't gotten around this yet.
Would love a video of what you would pack when traveling after watching this I added the Beryl AX and a HD Chromecast with Google TV to my cables/adapters, usb power suppy, and backup battery.
How can I use my home IP address? I was told that you buy 2 of these and leave one home and use the other for travel. Can you do a video with this demonstrating?
One negative of these GL.inet routers is that the SMB and DLNA servers are very old versions and very finicky. If you plan to use it as a media or file server off a portable storage drive, it’s probably not a good idea. You have to disable some security settings in Samba to get file sharing to work. I’m not sure how to get DLNA working, as best I can tell sometimes it just decides to work, most of the time it does not.
On my last business trip, I took a Unifi Express with me. I had to cut the zip tie holding the network cable in the room from being useful and did mostly the same thing as Chris. The problem I ran into was the useless low speed they give per login to the network. 5Mbps is unacceptable with the cost of a 1Gbps connection these days. I don't want to pay the $5+ a day for a few more Mbps. I also had problems getting PIA to work as a client with Unifi, and I do like the fact the one in this video did repeater WAN and had Ad Guard built-in. May just pick one of these up. I also have a mAP from Mikrotik, but it's only WiFi4 and is not very powerful.
In a scenario where I lose my luggage - what do you advise would be a good method to protect yourself? Let's say I have the Beryl AX configured, and it's set to VPN into my home network on boot - or with the toggle as you showed. What's to prevent someone from just plugging it in, and getting immediate access to VPN'd network? A few ideas come to mind, like revoking access to the VPN (changing the key, or password), as well as setting up a VLAN, and sufficient firewall rules to prevent access to certain things from the mobile connection. But, are you aware of any other kill switch? Or perhaps, a method that would require me to authenticate somehow on boot? As the cost of some convenience?
Thanks for doing this. The only problem is that it "kind of works". Not sure if this is a Mac issue, or a European issues (I have been in Europe for 2 weeks), but getting the captive portal to open in hotels or airports is quite a voodoo experience. What I do NOT understand is why they cannot open an embedded browser when creating the conection to the WiFi, letting you get to the captive portal to resolve the registration and then return to the console when everything work. The captive portal is the biggest pain in the butt. This is why I will likely default back to my previous solution: an old 11 inch Macbook Air, with nothing on it except the browser and an ethernet port, plus a an access point connected to the ehternet port. I fire the Macbook, connect to the Wifi, pass the captive protal and I am done. This works _ALL_ the time. I do not have to open 50 browsers, pray, wait, change the Mac address, etc to get the captive portal to popup. So, good try, but NOT reliable.
I have run triple NAT in some cases, although I don't do that much with VoIP it's usually not an issue because the things you need to get around NAT you can't anyway because you can't punch through the main NAT connection. Occasionally it is nice to be able to connect into your own router from the WAN side occasionally from across the hotel Wi-Fi if they allow that type of thing. and Now I'm not saying I have a high sample size but most of the hotels I have used ethernet at do still have a captive portal! I was at one where I connected and I had to re-open Firefox and had about 100 tabs redirected to the captive portal that was fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's when I decided Dailey Firefox profile back ups are the way to go. And some don't even have ethernet in any room as you know Wi-Fi will just solve everything. Yeah that'll work when I'm trying to stream outbound 1080 P video for a live broadcast of an event with 100 people in the room.
Set up a VPS on free tier cloud. Configure a vpn. Travel router will auto connect and you can punch holes through the nat straight to your hosts. It's how I used to get around CG-NAT.
Again an excellent video. It covers just about every question I had for selecting between the Slate AX and the Beryl AX. The only answer which remains is regarding the support for EAP. Not being an expert in networks - Will I be missing out on this feature? The router will be used mainly to connect to ethernets when travelling but I can not figure out how common it is for hotels to use this kind of authentication.
I have tried Adguard home and it was a bit challenging to get setup on my devices but I still had NextDNS I've had for a couple years and absolutely love it! I was wondering if you could do a video for me of Adguard Home and NextDNS? Would love to hear your opinion on both the pros and cons and what you prefer to use. My preference would be NextDNS, totally worth the $20/yr for my home network!
Thanks for the detailed video Chris. I just purchased one via your link. I honestly hadn't thought about using these travel routers like the way you mentioned. We recently had a baby and travel with baby cameras/monitors + IoT 'sound machines' and it's a pain to have to reconfigure them each time.
a number of years ago i had a travel router. i couldn't use it at most hotels due to the captive portal. the travel routers at the time didn't really have a way to login through them.
I've always gone back and forth between the GL.iNet devices, and a Firewalla Purple. Both are fantastic travel routers. Curious if you've tried the Firewalla Purple at all, and if so, which do you prefer and why? Ideally I'd love if UniFi would come out with their own Travel Router that is similar with the WiFi repeater functions.
I've a Firewalla Purple as my main home router/firewall, and I think it is overkill for the price as a travel router. It has great functionality, but when you're traveling, I assume the last thing you'd want or need is to utilize the feature set it offers. Something you can do if you have great internet at home and a suitable FW, just configure the GL.iNet to connect to Wireguard which will funnel it back through your home network and then utilize your security policies/features from your home network.
I have a GL Inet travel router and bought a used Firewalla blue for pretty cheap. I comnect the FW Blue to my travel router and boom extra security and i can monitor devices on the travel router just like my home network. If people realized how easy it is to get hacked on public wifi extra security isn’t a bad idea.
Great little router and having WireGuardVPN is great. Lets say that Amazon delivered my router the day we were expected to travel so I did a quick WireGuard Peer VPN generation on pfSense but other than confirming it can connect didn't do any further testing. (Hey folks MTU is important). Once we got to the room there was no ethernet connection so WiFi it was and for some reason when the router connected via WiFi there was no logon page needed. Once connected I connected to the local WiFi of the router and made final configuration settings for device access setting the SSID and Keys. Reconnected and working well. Then flipped on the VPN, it connected but what, no access. Turned out on the pfSense box I have security by remote IP and had to add the new router to the alias for access and wow it worked but very slow. Then realized that I had to change the MTU of the WireGuard config to 1420 and things ran fast. Now everyone in the room connects their devices we use my piHole at my home network and trombone out to the internet as if we were at home.
I am surprised no one mentioned that it is connected to PRC. I actually find it interesting that all these kind of cheap devices are having some security history and related to the PRC
Most Internet traffic is encrypted (TLS) between the endpoints now-a-days. Even TH-cam provides end-to-end encryption. While it is possible that a third-party (man-in-the-middle) may determine what site you visited, they would be unable to determine the content that was accessed due to encryption. For example, while it is possible that a third party could determine that you visited TH-cam, they would not know what video(s) you watched. In addition, as an American residing in the United States, I have much greater concern with the American government than the Chinese government. After all, the American government can fine me, imprison me, and even kill me; the Chinese government, not so much.
Thanks for the great video. I have the Beryl AX on order. It will replace my TP-Link AC750 which works fine, but the added speed and features of the Beryl AX convinced me to make the move. Captive Portals can be an issue sometimes. Any insights on getting past them when using the Beryl AX?
this video convinced me to get one. thank you thank you for showing how to set this router up. if we set the router using wifi connection via phone browser, how do we set that portal login you've shown us in windows, there's like "open browser and connect" will it do the same if we're using our phone browser?
*lets say you travel to locations around the world with open Wi-Fi and you visit these same locations* *Is there a way that it can automatically connect without having to put the credentials in?*
Thanks for the video.....just purchased this unit for a cruise tomorrow. Question: Once the router is connected, can you shut off your computer or does the computer need to be connected while using the router? We will be using tethering mode. Hope you can reply before we leave! Thanks!
Outdoors, Wi-Fi generally reaches about 300 feet from the access point, although Wi-Fi 6 is supposed to reach 820 feet. However, it is unlikely that a reliable and consistent signal will reach near 800 feet away. The 2.4 GHz band generally reaches farther than the 5 GHz band, although there is usually less bandwidth in the 2.4 GHz band.
Thanks to your recommendation and review, I have purchased my first travel router :-) Beryl AX GL-MT3000. Setting it up now. I was wondering all you are doing via pc, can be implemented via Mac? For example how do you check the pig? On PC I would use "run" and ifconfig, but I am new to Mac as well. Thank you for your time and great channel.
With macOS, to use the GUI to ping and obtain other network information, you can access the Network Utility. To access the Network Utility, you can visit System > Library > Core Service. Alternatively you will find it by clicking on the Apple Menu > About this Mac > System Report > Window > Network Utility. Or, just type Network Utility into Spotlight and open it that way. If you would rather use the command line to ping, access Applications > Utilities > Terminal (or just use Spotlight and type Terminal).
I ordered the Slate AX. Its performance stats are much better and I don’t need 2.5 Gbps in a hotel. I’m curious to know if the Beryl’s 2.5 Gbps makes up for the quad core specs of the Slate.
Personally, the reason I chose the Beryl AX over the Slate AX was _size,_ not CPU or Ethernet performance. (Neither of which seems critical in a hotel room.) The original Slate is quite small, and the current Slate AX is significantly larger. The Beryl AX was just enough smaller (in the middle of the two) that it fit into the small case I use for it and associated cables.
Yes the Slate AX is the faster more powerful device. 2.5 gig wan is not necessary as the device cannot do either VPN at those line speeds; yet the Slate AX has twice the WireGuard performance of the Beryl here. So yes it’s a much more powerful device.
I have 4 GLiNet devices, one I keep in my laptop bag at all time, one I use to provide a hotspot off of an old LTE tablet, I keep one in my camper and I have one for a non-profit group I work with for when we set up a control point. All of them connect back to my UDM Pro at my house for VPN and accessing my file server.
I can do exactly the same thing with my pixel phone. I can use my hotels Wi-Fi and use my phone as a hotspot to connect at their devices through it. This also works on a plane. No need for an extra device this way and would suffice for most users
Based on OpenWRT. But I wish OpenWRT itself had such a friendly dashboard for some of these features! I always install adblock, parental control (time- and MAC- based WAN access blocking) is kind of a nightmare. And OpenWRT also needs an "easy" way to designate IOT devices and put them on a vlan. Off topic I know, but I'm impressed with GL.inet's usability improvements.
Two questions: 1.) is it generally safe to use the same ssid and password as my home network, so all devices connect automatically? 2.) can you set up multiple 5ghz ssids? Like multiple networks? I want to have my home network ssid for vacation but also want a separate one for when I use this device to stream travel baseball games.
This video is thorough and awesome! Thank you. In the event where it's required to configure the router, do you think it's possible to get away with not bringing a laptop travelling, and just bringing an iPad for configuring? I see there's a 5 GHz signal to connect to the routers wifi, but is that reliable signal that will always broadcast and be able to connect to? And once connected to the router, what would be the equivalent of running ipconfig on the iPad to find the default gateway?
Thank you so much your so detailed at explaining clearly. Please can you answer this question - I work remotely in the UK and I'm moving to Bangkok Thailand my Work place uses AWS (Amazon workspace) if I use this and follow your steps will I be able to work remotely but still have access to AWS and look like im working within the UK? This is my current challenge as when I move I only have WiFi options for now. Look forward to your reply!
I am not an expert on this, but if you use a VPN with an endpoint in the UK, then it should appear to your employer that you are connecting from the UK. However, one possible problem is that AWS may detect that you are using a VPN, by having a list of IP addresses that VPNs use, so they may block the VPN connection. You can always test this using a VPN while in the UK. Beyond the technical issues, would you be able to just inform your employer that you are working remotely from Thailand?
Good grief...I went through 5 videos until I got to yours.. the previous 5 did nothing but talk about the router's features.... yours were the only one that did a step by step walk through. Thank you so much for this.
Amen to that... I too been watching videos for over an hour now and finally found this one,,, onsite setup in hotel with screenshots is REAL WORLD content.... thanks so much for not being a YT influencer bot... *sub'd*
Yes
I like that you have a travel family for maximum privacy and security.
I’m writing this comment from 38,000 ft over the Pacific Ocean. I spent $20 instead of $80 for in-flight WiFi for the entire family. The device is VPN’d home via WG to my UDM Pro. Kids are happy, wife is happy, I’m happy. WORTH IT!!
Could have just used your phone and saved more money.
@@AlgoSurfer yea, but he might have wanted the VPN because a phone can't transfer VPN using hotspot
@Its_Popcat You can get Android (not sure about IOS) application that will share the VPN connection as a hotspot. Without root also.
@@AlgoSurfer Is it fast?
@@ItsPopcat I've never had an issue, I'm career IT also, download heavy data. Never had a problem.
Thank you so much for this video! Purchased a Beryl AX, set it up with Nord, and brought it to Sint Maarten this week. Walked into our timeshare and low and behold there is a Ruckus H550 on the wall by the living room TV. Could not have gotten any luckier! Plugged in the AX and it connected immediately. We have over a dozen devices connected. Even brough a long enough Cat5 cable so the AX can be placed in from of the balcony door and we have access down on the beach. I can't believe how well this thing works!
Keep the videos coming!
Thanks a million! This saved me! I am currently traveling for work. I am currently using my GL-iNet AC 1300 in the hotel Wi-fi while I am using my work laptop, work mobile phone, personal mobile phone, and personal iPad. It works great. It also worked great when I was at work troubleshooting a new firewall installation. And lastly, I used it at the airport to safeguard my network traffic. Thanks again! Great video. Very well explained.
I did this for a road trip. Hooked up the travel router to a travel SIM card, connected the kids devices to the travel router. Kids and wife were happy and Plex, netflix etc all streamed without issue
Same but tethering to my phone for their internet.
Which travel SIM would you recommend?
Thanks for this video. I've been looking for a way to bring along the Chromecast while travelling without having to factory reset it each time for whatever wifi I was on. Bonus points for me because my non-technical wife can now bring this technical travel kit along even when I'm not there and still use the Chromecast. I just laminated some instructions and placed them into the travel case with the router, chromecast, cables etc. Perfect!
This is the exact video I was looking for! Every other video skips or is very brief on how this router connects to the internet. Thank you so much for giving us a demonstration!
I’m a total non techy and most of this went way over my head! But with the step by step process I’m hoping that once I get the router I’ll be able to follow along. Thanks so much.
I have a Slate AX (chosen over the Beryl AX because of the faster Wireguard throughput) - it's awesome. I absolutely love it. When I get to my hotel I get my stuff squared away, get the router out, and connect to the wifi on this, and bam - all my other stuff is already set up to use my router's Wifi so it's just online. I then leave the hotel, go do work at the office or wherever I am, and when I get back the router is still in my room, online, and wifi is waiting. I've never had any issues with cleaners turning it off or anything (though to be fair I do also reduce the number of times they visit during a stay).
It's such a great little companion, all my family's gear is configured to connect to it as well. This now means when we go traveling somewhere on holiday I only need to worry about getting one device onto the destination network, be it a hotel or a family's house - I'm not having to then be IT support to absolutely every wifi enabled bit of tech that came with us.
I have a somewhat ironic update to this. I have found the power requirements of the Slate AX to be annoying. It requires 5v 4A. While it does come with a power adapter capable of this, there are limited alternate power delivery methods.
I'm currently solving a problem involving internet access when off-grid, say on a remote road trip, or 4WDing somewhere to camp. I have chosen a Starlink dish, and I am in the process of converting it to run off 12V so it can use the same deep cycle battery system that powers the fridge, camp lights etc and is recharged by either the vehicle engine or solar.
The Starlink uses 48V, though thankfully there are already ways to use adapters to take 12V up to 48V for this. I even found an awesome little thing called a Boondocker Dishy Dualie that converts the power AND handles PoE injection in the one small board - most other solutions separate these two tasks over different devices. It also has a method of powering your router as well, either via PoE or a 48V outlet on the side.
Coming back to the Gl.inet router, its adapter won't run off 48V, and it is too power hungry to use PoE. And on top of all that, the circuit in the Dishy Dualie unit to power a router have a 3A fuse.
In the end it turns out the Beryl AX uses 5V 3A, and it's possible to buy adapter cables to take PoE out of an ethernet connection and split it off to USB-C. So... guess I'm going to buy a Beryl after all. :)
@@indyspudYou helped me decide between Slate vs Beryl. Beryl it is! Thanks😁
I have the slate and I've been using it for more than a year as my home router. It's perfect. I can't complain about it at all. I always have a VPN enabled with adguard home to protect my connection that much more. You can stop your tv from spying on you so that's a plus by adding a blocklist.
I purchased a Beryl AX a couple months ago in preparation for a family vacation.
While en route to the destination, it worked great as outlined in the video to provide connectivity to my family’s devices without reconfiguring the devices.
Once at the destination, I enabled the Beryl’s VPN (wireguard client back to a UniFi UDM Pro) to provide connectivity to a UniFi G4 Instant. As I used the same SSID as my home network, no reconfiguration of the G4 Instant was needed. I was very surprised how well it worked. Beryl was over 500 miles away from UDMP. Both routers were behind typical home ISP connections (UDMP>DOCSIS & Beryl>GPON). No stuttering. Maybe a second of delay. Definitely plan to do it again when needed.
This is a great idea. I have the same gear, and those instant cams are fantastic! Thanks for sharing, I need to look into this!
How do you set up wire guard on the udm pro side?
It's been on my list for awhile to get one of these. Just did it. Amazon has a $31 coupon right now for the Beryl AX bringing the price to $79 before tax.
I've got the AX1800, which I've already used for connecting to networks when I'm away. I'm using it for iPhone, iPads (Multiple), Telescopes, and laptops. Got it working great with my UDM Pro using Wireguard. It's great as I can setup in the middle of a field, and have a nice stable connection for everything.
Good video! I used to do this years ago and still have the mini travel router that I used back then. But now I simply take my 5G T-Mobile trashcan with me for anything more than an overnight stay. Same outcome, and completely bypasses all hotel networking and security considerations.
I thought the 5G Tmo home internet is ‘locked’ to the address it was setup for only? Interested in your setup idea
@@ErwinChung I believe (newly) it may be geo-fenced to a degree, and also possibly more-so with the newer equipment, so YMMV. I have heard of the geo-fence literally from a T-Mobile rep, and yet the exact opposite from another T-Mobile rep in another store (who helped bypass their sign-up address check when I acquired a 2nd one for a family member). Mine works across the entire United States (literally) without being throttled. At least, so far. I toss it in my backpack and off I go. Soon though, it will be displaced for travel by the Starlink Mini that I just acquired.
Many thanks for this and so many other videos in 2023 and all the best to you and yours for 2024!
Another great use for travel router: cruise ships. It’s similar to the RV situation. But cruise ships cost even more, usually around 20 bucks a day. I used one for my last cruise as a repeater. I had to spoof my phone’s MAC address on the router for the ship to think it was my phone.
So glad i found this video. Not only do I need this device, I also us PIA VPN.
Great video! If you need to connect more than a couple devices to the Internet every time you move around to a different hotel, a travel router is definitely needed. Just to remember the various situations I had to set up my family's devices to a particular network gives me the creep. Such a waste of time, and a travel router sounds like a very good solution for this!
How about connecting your phone to the hotel's WiFi and then starting a hotspot from it and connect everything to that? Seems like cheaper and one less thing to carry around ..
When on vacation time is of the essence, so the convenience of this router simplifies things...
Watching this in a hotel using my GL.iNet travel router right now, it’s awesome! Couldn’t live without it.
Why don't you enjoy the place you have traveled to instead of burying your head in a computer?
I've been thinking about getting a travel router for years...you convinced me to pull the trigger. Thanks for the great video.
May I suggest looking at getting a 4g Sim card router instead. Cheaper, full functionality of a router. More ports, and if you need it you can slap a Sim card in and have internet on the road in a camper/tent. (Power needed of course.)
@@plebius Mobile hotspots don't have the features of this router. GL.inet also sells mobile hotspots (routers) with their software on them though. But you can just tether your phone to the router he featured in this video. Same as a mobile hotspot, better actually.
Bought this one for myself for Christmas 🎄 Set it already up and testing works just perfect in my home environment (all Unifi gear). Looking now forward to my next travel abroad next year 😊
Love that gadget 😌🙏
I have this exact model and use it on Holland America cruise ships, this has been amazing on my last cruises as they have upgraded to starlink for the onboard wifi!
Perfect timing as the fam is set for our first euro trip soon enough and it has been oh over 15 years since I gave up on our one portable router, was an apple airport express I think. This Beryl AX seems solid. Bought one, SSIDs all set up, can't wait to give this a go. I went with our current SSIDs, hopefully will work. Thanks so much for the video 👍👍
How did the ssids work? You used the same as well as password as your home network and everything automatically connected on the road?
Absolutely amazing video! I was just about ready to toss my unit out the window, but thanks to your incredible step by step, it’s still in one piece-and now I'll actually be able to use it! Your tips are a lifesaver. Huge thanks for sharing this amazing information!
Good video. Thanks! I own one of these and travel a lot. I mostly use it as a repeater with the bonus of having Adguard for blocking ads on all my devices.
Just got off of a cruise and I saw this after my cruise but I knew about the router and took mines with me. With Carnival you have to pay for each service and I didn't want to pay for my daughter tablet. I configured my router and put it on a battery pack and kept it with me and worked flawlessly. Pared with Nord everything was protected for me, although it through the app off it was perfect. This is a great in-dept video I saw before use and I figured it out on my own.
They check your luggage for a router ?
I've purchased that same model last september. I've already made two holiday travels with it and it is phenomenal. Best geek purchase I've made this year by far. I also recommend to purchase the travel pouch of the same brand.
Are you saying that you have not purchased anything better than a travel router?!?! in the 362 days prior to your comment??? You don't have very much of a geek life if that's the case...... Really weird thing to say. You sound like a shill
@@gutralithese are the best travel routers. Nothing even comes close
The only reason I don't care for this setup in a hotel space is a possible shared throttle limit since the hotels network treats it as one device and the throttle limits are usually set per MAC, unless someone knows if any hotels would be dynamic enough to somehow make the limit be per room number, like a dedicated VLAN per room.
This is called a Personal Area Network (PAN).
Easily the best video on this topic, out of the 15 or so I’ve watched.
Wow, this IS the best instructional video that I have ever seen in TH-cam. TYVM.
I just bought one of these and was recommended this video out of the blue. Gd google knows too gd much
This is awesome video, back in the day I used to travel with a spare router, but as more and more hotels took away the ethernet cable. I pretty much stopped using it. I didn’t realize we could utilize routers like this to act as a repeater. Very very cool. I’m definitely going to check one of these out. Thanks for making a great video as usual.
Thanks for the video, comprehensive and straight to the point, no waffle, which seems so common on TH-cam these days. It made setup easy, which was all I wanted, great job.
I just purchased the GL.iNet Beryl AX to bypass device limits in campgrounds and Hotels, and for the added security. We have, and will be camping at a campground in the western Sierra's that has ZERO cell signal but does offer paid WiFi that allows 2 devices. Last year we used our Starlink with minor success due to the 100 foot trees. We ended up using the campsite's paid WiFi, but w/o a travel router could only use 2 devices. VoIP with Starlink was no-go due to the many drop outs but streaming was tolerable with some buffering. VoIP did work with the paid WiFi but everyone found that Facetime worked better, to our surprise, but it saved our lives since my wife owns her own business and NEEDs to stay in contact via text and voice. You mention the adverse effect that double NAT has on VoIP and since using the travel router in repeat mode with a captive portal will create a double NAT I have a question.
My question is this: Is there any way to fix the double NAT problem so we can use a cell phone via WiFi calling?
Mark
I have a travel Roku and travel IP Phone. What better was to connect it and other devices than with a travel router.
Great video! Thanks for the affiliate link. It's been ordered.
I also have similar travel router from GLinet, and I LOVE it. Using it for Wifi5/6 especially with adguardhome and USB tethering with my iphone.
I have a Slate and they are handy and it still works great. The Unifi Express excites me…but I think Ubiquiti missed the boat as it could have been a great travel router also.
Totally missed the boat. Anyway, where can I get unifi express? nowhere, all are of out stock now.
@@derrysannot only that i think the price went up too... been needing a second one but it's only ever been in stock twice and once was at 4am pst for 15 min
@@AChilds52 I had a hard time getting my UDM Pro SE not long after they came out of EA. Best place I have found to get Ubiquiti gear is from the UI store. Stock can be an issue but the prices stay where they are supposed to. Probably get bought out and marked up higher on other platforms because of demand.
I have a few GL.iNet routers, from 2 of the AR750S to the GL-AXT1800 that I carry every day in my bag. One of the most important features is ensuring your devices only ever connect to your travel router and no other SSIDs, repeating any upstream networks you may connect to. I also travel quite frequently in the air, and I will purchase the in-flight WiFi from the flight and then connect my travel router to the airplane network, and then rebroadcast that WiFi out to the rest of the passengers on the plane for free. I QoS that network of course so one passenger doesn't hog the whole connection by streaming their Netflix or Plex channels. I've been doing this for many years with my AR750S, and now my AXT1800. It works great and nobody on the plane is the wiser. One of the biggest downsides with repeating hotel WiFi is the captive portal will reset every 6-12 hours so you'll need to re-login into the captive portal landing page to continue to use the WiFi. There's no way to keep the connection active across multiple days, even with MAC cloning.
Im having trouble bringing up the captive portal in order to connect the travel router on my ios devices. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!
@@sigsauer9246 Just look at the router that gave your GL its IP, and visit that in a browser, it should bring up the captive portal page. Sometimes going to the hotel's main website from a connected device inside their LAN also helps. Lastly, connect directly with your laptop or tablet to their network, the use the GL.iNet to clone that device's MAC address, and you shouldn't get the captive portal prompt any longer, since your device should now be authenticated.
Thanks for explaining the Wi-Fi repeater option and showing the steps to set it up.
That's exactly what I needed that was missing from other videos I saw on this device.
Great video. Just set mine up. Used the GL.inet app which made configuring PIA simple. Using wireguard for faster speeds.
I watched your video and it convinced me to purchase one of these routers and I love it! In your video you configured everything using the browser from your laptop however i found it easier to configure it from the android app. When I used it at the hotel I was able to connect the router to the hotels wifi from the app without having the spoof the mac from my phone.
These things work great. Thanks for sharing, Chris. Got a couple of them for a couple of unique use cases. The GL.iNet iPhone app is good for a quick config change too. I was thinking about a UniFi Express for this, but for about half the cost and the side switch for added convenience is really great.
"We've got a lot to cover, so lets get to it!" Nice....
Very thorough video. You did a great job using verbiage and analogies that a layman (me) can understand. I picked up the Slate AX last week and set it up last nite. Hope to use it this weekend at a hotel.
Hi, Chris. I am a cargo pilot who spends, literally, half the year in a hotel while at work. Based on your recommendation I purchased the AX-3000 through your affiliate link. I'm LOVING it! I was successful in setting it up with Wireguard connected to my home's OPNsense Wireguard server. Prior to getting Wireguard setup I attempted to get Adguard Home setup on the Beryl but I failed. I wasn't getting The Internet - no doubt a DNS issue - you would think I could set it up correctly since I have Adguard Home running within OPNsense on my home network, but alas, no. That's when I gave up and setup the Wireguard connection. Request: Would you put together a tutorial for setting up Adguard Home on the Beryl, please? This would then allow me to not have to pass through my traffic back home - the advantage is that some hotels actually have fast Internet (8Mbps at the one I'm currently at) which is faster than my home's 2Mbps UP (and I save data usage on my home's 1TB/mo. subscription.). Thanks!
Been doing the Roku stick trick (I actually use a chromecast) for years now and it's been amazing. Never heard/thought of doing a travel router. Definitely getting on board with this!
I am using a similar setup to also control some of the devices with smart plugs. For house rentals is really nice because rarely they have switches near the bed
Just got the Flint 2 and I love this thing so much that I purchased a Beryl AX too, to use it as my router/WireGuard client when I'm on the go. I will get it in a few days and I can't wait
Thanks for this, was wanting to make sure it worked with hotel captive portals before pulling the trigger.
I have a MUDI that I have traveled with for several years now. I love the versatility of it, but do I occasionally get frustrated as well. I like the MUDI because of its integrated battery and cellular radio. This was amazing when I had Google Fi, where a data only sim was super cheap. My biggest frustration is that it seems like the wireless radios become unstable after several hours of use.
I have a ONT/router/AP combo thing that my ISP provides which I use to cover one corner of my home and another quite good TP-link router that I use in AP mode that I use to cover the majority of my home. Never ran into problems with wifi on the tp-link one but that ISP-provided once needs to be restarted daily for optimal performance. I guess it's just with cheap routers their firmware and memory isn't that stable.
Thanks for the guide, you've answered a few questions I had about how to setup the VPN using a third party service. I have GL-SFT1200 version / AC1200, I believe its the regular Beryl version. Its a very simple version of the Beryl AX . There almost no extra memory on board, so I tried and installed AdGuard, but it seem to bring the AC1200 to its knees. I ended up uninstalled AdGuard. I'll have to consider upgrading before my next trip.
This is a really cool idea. As a network engineer whom travels a lot I had no idea this was a thing with captive portal and a repeater in the mix. however I can see once these catch on and more and more people start using them and circumventing the billing process with multiple devices they will start putting measures in place to block them. One way to do this is to a black listed enable rouge detection list and have the hotel AP's spam your SSID with deauth packets effectively making it useless. This is a grey area with the FCC however there is nothing stopping a lawyer from writing up a ToA that is part of your agreement when you stay at the hotel. Good practice here to not add more fuel to the fire is to turn down the antenna gain (transmit power set to "low") so you are not causing more interference and further giving them a reason to "deauth" you.. I still want to try it and use it as long as I can. Hopfully hotels and paid public wifi wont catch on, but when it comes to making a profit (even a small one) companies will do anything and everything they can.
Very good video. I purchased this router because we travel in our trailer to various campgrounds etc. I find it odd that you don't like Nord VPN, they don't keep logs nor are they part of the 5, 9 or 14 eyes countries.
This is a great device for sure! The fact that it's OpenWRT is fantastic!
Chris, two questions as follow-up:
1) First, I'd love to get more details on finding and using Ethernet ports in hotel rooms. I used to see and use them regularly, but they seem to have disappeared from common availability. The last few hotels I've stayed at, including Hilton and Hyatt properties, have not had an obvious port. So, tips and tricks on where to _find_ them, and how to _test_ or verify that they work would be useful. (This might be a separate video; Maybe you could record port searches across a few of your upcoming trips, and then knit it all together?)
2) The number one problem I've had with all four of my various travel routers (DLink years ago, GL.iNet these days) has been getting the captive portal to appear, so I can get through it. It looked like you used a Windows-based feature to notice the Wi-Fi issue and then access the captive portal; is that correct? Is there a similar way to force a captive portal recognition on macOS? Or a general mechanism to force it to appear? It's absolutely _maddening_ to know exactly what needs to happen, but not be able to trigger it...
I don't think he really cares if you could find an ethernet port or not my friend, everything he said in this video is to help him make money off of purchases as an affiliate. He's not actually going to hotels and using these.... As you pointed out, It's not even possible in most hotels
He shows how to use the repeater to connect to a wireless network if you don't have Ethernet access.
1) Many hotels don't have LAN ports anymore. Use the repeater function of router.
2) Sign in to captcha portal with your phone. Then with your phone, log in to your GLINET app, and clone your phones MAC address. Now all decides connected to router no longer have to sign into portal.
Most Hotels have an ethernet port for the smart TV.
If you're taking your own streaming device like suggested in the video, just unplug the TV, and use that ethernet as your WAN for the travel router.
You can always ask at the lobby, 😂
Nice video Chris, I have this router myself and it's much better to travel with instead of in the past havin to connect each device and now bringing my own streaming device. One thing I have started doing and is not for everyone, I disable broadcasting 2.4G, all of the devices we bring can connect over 5G and the rooms are small enough that it will connect from anywhere.
I connect an old smartphone without sim card to the hotel wifi and then I create a usb cable (the charging cable) connection to my pc and share the connection with the pc (inside the smartphone network settings) .
Since the WiFi of my laptop is not in use now, I create a wifi Hotspot with it and now we have our own private network.
I use the Gnome desktop on a Linux machine, it has the WiFi Hotspot option preinstalled in the networking settings.
Years ago I did the same with a Windows machine, but I installed a program for that (no idea anymore what it was).
A dedicated router is a far more elegant solution, but if your video streaming box is not accepted by the hotel login (happens nearly all the time to me), this is a pretty simple solution.
Just bought one. One feature I wish it had: Power over Ethernet.
That way I can just leave a switch setup in my camper. No need to even think about power.
Thank you , You helped me out a lot. I m all good now ready to travel
I have that same travel router and it's great.
The way I see it, most of the time when you travel you aren't getting high speed internet. So you won't often take advantage of higher speeds. So I imagine an ideal travel router as something cheap, small, and maybe power efficient. So I got the AR300M used for $10. It still supports Adblocking, OpenVPN, USB file sharing, etc. Plus its small and runs on USB. I do wish though it was USB C instead of microUSB.
Thanks, this is helpful. I'm finding the bigger problem is hotels/casinos locking down their televisions. You can't change the input at times. I bought a universal remote which helps sometimes. Looks like they are using the phone jack in the TV to lock down certain features. Removing that connection can cause problems. I haven't gotten around this yet.
I've been trying to figure out how to set this up when connecting with a captive portal. Thank you!
Great review. I just set mine up with your fantastic video help! Ready to rumble!
Would love a video of what you would pack when traveling after watching this I added the Beryl AX and a HD Chromecast with Google TV to my cables/adapters, usb power suppy, and backup battery.
How can I use my home IP address? I was told that you buy 2 of these and leave one home and use the other for travel. Can you do a video with this demonstrating?
Thanks for this! This was the video I was looking for! Just bought my Beryl AX and am getting configured! Also, just subbed.
One negative of these GL.inet routers is that the SMB and DLNA servers are very old versions and very finicky. If you plan to use it as a media or file server off a portable storage drive, it’s probably not a good idea. You have to disable some security settings in Samba to get file sharing to work. I’m not sure how to get DLNA working, as best I can tell sometimes it just decides to work, most of the time it does not.
On my last business trip, I took a Unifi Express with me. I had to cut the zip tie holding the network cable in the room from being useful and did mostly the same thing as Chris. The problem I ran into was the useless low speed they give per login to the network. 5Mbps is unacceptable with the cost of a 1Gbps connection these days. I don't want to pay the $5+ a day for a few more Mbps. I also had problems getting PIA to work as a client with Unifi, and I do like the fact the one in this video did repeater WAN and had Ad Guard built-in. May just pick one of these up. I also have a mAP from Mikrotik, but it's only WiFi4 and is not very powerful.
In a scenario where I lose my luggage - what do you advise would be a good method to protect yourself? Let's say I have the Beryl AX configured, and it's set to VPN into my home network on boot - or with the toggle as you showed. What's to prevent someone from just plugging it in, and getting immediate access to VPN'd network? A few ideas come to mind, like revoking access to the VPN (changing the key, or password), as well as setting up a VLAN, and sufficient firewall rules to prevent access to certain things from the mobile connection.
But, are you aware of any other kill switch? Or perhaps, a method that would require me to authenticate somehow on boot? As the cost of some convenience?
Would love to hear more about what's wrong with NordVPN?
Thanks for doing this. The only problem is that it "kind of works". Not sure if this is a Mac issue, or a European issues (I have been in Europe for 2 weeks), but getting the captive portal to open in hotels or airports is quite a voodoo experience. What I do NOT understand is why they cannot open an embedded browser when creating the conection to the WiFi, letting you get to the captive portal to resolve the registration and then return to the console when everything work. The captive portal is the biggest pain in the butt. This is why I will likely default back to my previous solution: an old 11 inch Macbook Air, with nothing on it except the browser and an ethernet port, plus a an access point connected to the ehternet port. I fire the Macbook, connect to the Wifi, pass the captive protal and I am done. This works _ALL_ the time. I do not have to open 50 browsers, pray, wait, change the Mac address, etc to get the captive portal to popup. So, good try, but NOT reliable.
I have run triple NAT in some cases, although I don't do that much with VoIP it's usually not an issue because the things you need to get around NAT you can't anyway because you can't punch through the main NAT connection. Occasionally it is nice to be able to connect into your own router from the WAN side occasionally from across the hotel Wi-Fi if they allow that type of thing.
and Now I'm not saying I have a high sample size but most of the hotels I have used ethernet at do still have a captive portal! I was at one where I connected and I had to re-open Firefox and had about 100 tabs redirected to the captive portal that was fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's when I decided Dailey Firefox profile back ups are the way to go.
And some don't even have ethernet in any room as you know Wi-Fi will just solve everything. Yeah that'll work when I'm trying to stream outbound 1080 P video for a live broadcast of an event with 100 people in the room.
Set up a VPS on free tier cloud. Configure a vpn. Travel router will auto connect and you can punch holes through the nat straight to your hosts.
It's how I used to get around CG-NAT.
Again an excellent video. It covers just about every question I had for selecting between the Slate AX and the Beryl AX. The only answer which remains is regarding the support for EAP. Not being an expert in networks - Will I be missing out on this feature? The router will be used mainly to connect to ethernets when travelling but I can not figure out how common it is for hotels to use this kind of authentication.
I have tried Adguard home and it was a bit challenging to get setup on my devices but I still had NextDNS I've had for a couple years and absolutely love it! I was wondering if you could do a video for me of Adguard Home and NextDNS? Would love to hear your opinion on both the pros and cons and what you prefer to use. My preference would be NextDNS, totally worth the $20/yr for my home network!
Thanks for the detailed video Chris. I just purchased one via your link. I honestly hadn't thought about using these travel routers like the way you mentioned. We recently had a baby and travel with baby cameras/monitors + IoT 'sound machines' and it's a pain to have to reconfigure them each time.
a number of years ago i had a travel router. i couldn't use it at most hotels due to the captive portal. the travel routers at the time didn't really have a way to login through them.
I've always gone back and forth between the GL.iNet devices, and a Firewalla Purple. Both are fantastic travel routers. Curious if you've tried the Firewalla Purple at all, and if so, which do you prefer and why? Ideally I'd love if UniFi would come out with their own Travel Router that is similar with the WiFi repeater functions.
I've a Firewalla Purple as my main home router/firewall, and I think it is overkill for the price as a travel router. It has great functionality, but when you're traveling, I assume the last thing you'd want or need is to utilize the feature set it offers. Something you can do if you have great internet at home and a suitable FW, just configure the GL.iNet to connect to Wireguard which will funnel it back through your home network and then utilize your security policies/features from your home network.
I have a GL Inet travel router and bought a used Firewalla blue for pretty cheap. I comnect the FW Blue to my travel router and boom extra security and i can monitor devices on the travel router just like my home network. If people realized how easy it is to get hacked on public wifi extra security isn’t a bad idea.
Great little router and having WireGuardVPN is great. Lets say that Amazon delivered my router the day we were expected to travel so I did a quick WireGuard Peer VPN generation on pfSense but other than confirming it can connect didn't do any further testing. (Hey folks MTU is important). Once we got to the room there was no ethernet connection so WiFi it was and for some reason when the router connected via WiFi there was no logon page needed. Once connected I connected to the local WiFi of the router and made final configuration settings for device access setting the SSID and Keys. Reconnected and working well. Then flipped on the VPN, it connected but what, no access. Turned out on the pfSense box I have security by remote IP and had to add the new router to the alias for access and wow it worked but very slow. Then realized that I had to change the MTU of the WireGuard config to 1420 and things ran fast. Now everyone in the room connects their devices we use my piHole at my home network and trombone out to the internet as if we were at home.
I am surprised no one mentioned that it is connected to PRC. I actually find it interesting that all these kind of cheap devices are having some security history and related to the PRC
U can flash it with vanilla openwrt if you have security concerns
At that point you lose many functions (at least my understanding)
@@jc-kq7rs Maybe the use of their GLINET cloud, phone app, and their customized GUI interface. I don't think there's really any other shortcomings.
Most Internet traffic is encrypted (TLS) between the endpoints now-a-days. Even TH-cam provides end-to-end encryption. While it is possible that a third-party (man-in-the-middle) may determine what site you visited, they would be unable to determine the content that was accessed due to encryption. For example, while it is possible that a third party could determine that you visited TH-cam, they would not know what video(s) you watched.
In addition, as an American residing in the United States, I have much greater concern with the American government than the Chinese government. After all, the American government can fine me, imprison me, and even kill me; the Chinese government, not so much.
Thanks for the great video. I have the Beryl AX on order. It will replace my TP-Link AC750 which works fine, but the added speed and features of the Beryl AX convinced me to make the move. Captive Portals can be an issue sometimes. Any insights on getting past them when using the Beryl AX?
this video convinced me to get one. thank you
thank you for showing how to set this router up.
if we set the router using wifi connection via phone browser, how do we set that portal login
you've shown us in windows, there's like "open browser and connect"
will it do the same if we're using our phone browser?
*lets say you travel to locations around the world with open Wi-Fi and you visit these same locations*
*Is there a way that it can automatically connect without having to put the credentials in?*
Do you think this would work on a cruise ship? Just while in the room, obviously… would be handy to be able to share the WiFi package with family.
Thanks for the video.....just purchased this unit for a cruise tomorrow. Question: Once the router is connected, can you shut off your computer or does the computer need to be connected while using the router? We will be using tethering mode. Hope you can reply before we leave! Thanks!
Excellent video. Very good explanation and professional content. Congratulation
Thanks for the video,
Can you tell me something about the range for receiving a Hotspot, such as at a campsite. thank you in advance
Outdoors, Wi-Fi generally reaches about 300 feet from the access point, although Wi-Fi 6 is supposed to reach 820 feet. However, it is unlikely that a reliable and consistent signal will reach near 800 feet away. The 2.4 GHz band generally reaches farther than the 5 GHz band, although there is usually less bandwidth in the 2.4 GHz band.
Thanks to your recommendation and review, I have purchased my first travel router :-) Beryl AX GL-MT3000. Setting it up now. I was wondering all you are doing via pc, can be implemented via Mac? For example how do you check the pig? On PC I would use "run" and ifconfig, but I am new to Mac as well. Thank you for your time and great channel.
With macOS, to use the GUI to ping and obtain other network information, you can access the Network Utility. To access the Network Utility, you can visit System > Library > Core Service. Alternatively you will find it by clicking on the Apple Menu > About this Mac > System Report > Window > Network Utility.
Or, just type Network Utility into Spotlight and open it that way.
If you would rather use the command line to ping, access Applications > Utilities > Terminal (or just use Spotlight and type Terminal).
I ordered the Slate AX. Its performance stats are much better and I don’t need 2.5 Gbps in a hotel. I’m curious to know if the Beryl’s 2.5 Gbps makes up for the quad core specs of the Slate.
Personally, the reason I chose the Beryl AX over the Slate AX was _size,_ not CPU or Ethernet performance. (Neither of which seems critical in a hotel room.) The original Slate is quite small, and the current Slate AX is significantly larger. The Beryl AX was just enough smaller (in the middle of the two) that it fit into the small case I use for it and associated cables.
Yes the Slate AX is the faster more powerful device. 2.5 gig wan is not necessary as the device cannot do either VPN at those line speeds; yet the Slate AX has twice the WireGuard performance of the Beryl here. So yes it’s a much more powerful device.
I have 4 GLiNet devices, one I keep in my laptop bag at all time, one I use to provide a hotspot off of an old LTE tablet, I keep one in my camper and I have one for a non-profit group I work with for when we set up a control point. All of them connect back to my UDM Pro at my house for VPN and accessing my file server.
May i ask what vpn you use with your UDM pro? I also have UDM Pro and would like to do this.
@@miketeskey3374 I use Wireguard from my Unifi Dream Machine
I can do exactly the same thing with my pixel phone.
I can use my hotels Wi-Fi and use my phone as a hotspot to connect at their devices through it.
This also works on a plane. No need for an extra device this way and would suffice for most users
Based on OpenWRT. But I wish OpenWRT itself had such a friendly dashboard for some of these features! I always install adblock, parental control (time- and MAC- based WAN access blocking) is kind of a nightmare. And OpenWRT also needs an "easy" way to designate IOT devices and put them on a vlan. Off topic I know, but I'm impressed with GL.inet's usability improvements.
If you work remote, this is the start of working anywhere in the world but being perceived as working in the u.s.
Great video.
Although, why not just configure the router to mimic your home wifi? Then all of your devices will automatically connect.
Two questions:
1.) is it generally safe to use the same ssid and password as my home network, so all devices connect automatically?
2.) can you set up multiple 5ghz ssids? Like multiple networks? I want to have my home network ssid for vacation but also want a separate one for when I use this device to stream travel baseball games.
This video is thorough and awesome! Thank you.
In the event where it's required to configure the router, do you think it's possible to get away with not bringing a laptop travelling, and just bringing an iPad for configuring?
I see there's a 5 GHz signal to connect to the routers wifi, but is that reliable signal that will always broadcast and be able to connect to?
And once connected to the router, what would be the equivalent of running ipconfig on the iPad to find the default gateway?
Just connect your iPad to the hotel's network and then run a hotspot. Use the iPad as the router and connect everything to it. Much simpler
This also works for cruise ship wifi which limits 1 device per purchase
Thank you so much your so detailed at explaining clearly. Please can you answer this question - I work remotely in the UK and I'm moving to Bangkok Thailand my Work place uses AWS (Amazon workspace) if I use this and follow your steps will I be able to work remotely but still have access to AWS and look like im working within the UK? This is my current challenge as when I move I only have WiFi options for now.
Look forward to your reply!
I am not an expert on this, but if you use a VPN with an endpoint in the UK, then it should appear to your employer that you are connecting from the UK. However, one possible problem is that AWS may detect that you are using a VPN, by having a list of IP addresses that VPNs use, so they may block the VPN connection. You can always test this using a VPN while in the UK.
Beyond the technical issues, would you be able to just inform your employer that you are working remotely from Thailand?