Same! And the best thing is that you can install Tailscale, so you can connect to your tailnet, and exit all traffic through one of your nodes (e.g., your home/office network).
It's incredibly useful, with the added bonus that you don't need to install tailscale client in any of your travel devices (phone, tablet, work computer, etc).
I’m seeing a lot of this same comment here, so I went to check out this tailscale thing, which clearly I must need.
Can anybody explain what Tailscale is, does, or why everybody seems to have it?
Looking at their website, it’s just a huge wall of business jargon. Really! Read it. It’s nothing but a list of enterprise terminology. There’s a “how it works “ page full of more (different) jargon, acronyms and buzzwords, but no simple explanation of why everybody on this thread seems to be paying money for this thing?
Any help? Should I just pay them my $6/month and hope I figure it out at some point?
Basic version is it's a sort of developer focused zero trust network service.
Encrypted overlay network based on wireguard tunnels, with network ACLs based around identity, and with lots of nice quality-of-life features, like DNS that just works and a bunch of other stuff.
(Other stuff = internet egress from your tailscale network ('tailnet') through any chosen node, or feeding inbound traffic from a public IP to a chosen node, SSH tied into the network authentication.
There is also https://github.com/juanfont/headscale - which is a open source implementation of some of tailscale's server side stuff, compatible with the normal tailscale clients.
(And there are clients for a very wide range of stuff).
I can’t tell if you’re trying to help, or just getting into the spirit of the website’s “how it works (using ten pages of terminology and acronyms we just made up)” page.
I don't think you need to pay $6 a month to try it out.
Install it on all the machines you want. When you are running it on the machine, it is networked to the other machines that are running it. Now make an 'exit node' on one of those machines by selecting it in the UI, and all your gear can access the internet via that exit node. Your phone can run it. Your apple tv can run it. You can have multiple exit nodes. So you can have a worldwide network and not once did you have to open ports in firewalls etc.
So, somewhere on that website, there’s a free version that can be downloaded onto a desktop and run without signing up for their service?
I think I understand what it does now. So, basically you leave a computer running at home, and this thing lets you pretend to be running your internet stuff through it while you’re on the road?
You don't need to get too far down the page to see "VPN", which is what it is. But on top of that primitive, it's also a bunch of software and networking niceties.
These are neat in that you can jump on and extend existing wifi infra, but it'd be nice if they also included 5G. I want a product that does both.
It's cool to have your own network in a hotel. But it'd be nice to be able to do that on the road, away from public wifi, internationally, whenever - which hotspots do. But at the same time, it'd be nice to be able to do the WiFi thing too to cut back on data usage. I frequently blow through my hotspot data.
I'd rather this be in one device instead of two. Beggars can't be choosers, though, I suppose?
I’m using a GLinet GL-XE3000 for that and it’s great. Initial setup of the 5G eSIM on a physical SIM took a little searching but it’s been rock solid and having consistent access on the road and hotels has been great for family travel. It has a built-in battery, but I’ve never really tested the duration (I suspect it’s 3-6 hours) as I put it on its AC adapter in the hotel and the n a cigarette lighter adapter in the car, so the battery gets used 15-45 minutes at a time to bridge between those two places.
I like it enough that I might buy a second, more compact unit for when space is more a premium, but I’ve been really happy with this one.
Is this any better than just doing Hotspot with wifi bridge? I just have my hotspot on my pixel for my devices to connect to. Pixel itself is connected to whatever
"public wifi" is there.
Yes, it has actually worked starting with the Pixel 3.
It's called Dual-Band Simultaneous or "STA+AP" (Station + Access Point) concurrency that can bridge an existing wifi connection to an access point to other devices via a hotspot.
I'm not using it for travel, but I got a GL-BE3600 recently and it's surprisingly decent as a home router for my very specific needs.
I wired the desktop PCs in the house, so the only Wi-Fi users are mobiles, a smart TV, and a laptop. Everything else is already hanging off 2.5G wired switches. Pretty light duty, and I just wanted something that would provide robust routing and placeholder Wi-Fi. This does exactly that, and since it's OpenWRT based, it's probably marginally less terrible than whatever TP-Link was offering in the same price range.
It does run annoyingly hot, but I should just buy a little USB desk fan and point it at the router :P
I've had very impressive success running upstream OpenWRT on TP-Link hardware: I have Archer C7 access points running with literally years of uptime.
That being said, for any new application, I suggest using at least an 802.11ax AP, because cheap 2.4GHz devices that support 802.11ax are becoming common and using an 802.11ac router means that your 2.4GHz devices will be stuck with 802.11n, which is quite a bit less efficient. Even if you don't need any appreciable speed, it's preferable to use a more efficient protocol that uses less airtime.
This rarely works. The TV network is usually access controlled, so you either won't get an IP or you simply won't have internet access.
Some hotel rooms (particularly older business hotels) will have an ethernet port for the guest. These work maybe 50% of the time these days. Sometimes you can find a Ruckus AP in your room at outlet level, and these usually have several ethernet ports on the bottom. These also have a working port around 30% of the time.
So, TL;DR: various ethernet ports in hotel rooms work less than half the time these days.
How’s that access control handled? Very easy to spoof the MAC of the TV or setup some SNI spoofing proxy server, NGFWs with TLS Active Probing are probably harder to deal with but do hotels really have that?
Heartily seconded! A friend recommended I get one and now I push all my other technical friends to buy one, too.
My wife and I traveled a bit this year and it was great having all our gadgets connecting to a single AP under our control. It’s easily paid for itself by avoiding ludicrous per-device daily charges.
I think most travel APs can generally do this, but the feature that makes GL.iNet products popular is: extensibility. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand for manufacturers, but making products useful via extensibility is a sure fire way to open your target market directly up to prosumers. And those are the buyers that will find you.
I own two of their products, one of them I bought in 2019 and can still run what I need to on it.
Readers of HN will value flexibility and extensibility, but the other 99% of the folks there are fine with totally locked-down devices because it’s the only thing they know of. The lack of extensibility likely doesn’t affect sales/profit in any significant proportion.
My wife’s work WiFi is handled by a gl.inet 150 (https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar150/) which is tucked behind her desk since at least 2019. Vanilla openwrt on it, provides WiFi from an Ethernet slot in the wall.
Uptime is in years, it’s invisible and chugs along without visible power draw. All her devices connect to it, including her Cisco voip phone. It autossh to my ovh server with remote port forward for remote admin. Cost me 15€ in 2016.
>> I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand for manufacturers
> My wife’s work WiFi is handled by a gl.inet 150 (...) since at least 2019. All her devices connect to it (...) Cost me 15€ in 2016.
I think this answers GP's question as (yet another) solid reason why manufacturers "can't understand" prosumer needs - it's because targeting prosumers, or generally making products that "just works", is very bad for sales down the line.
You have roaming but sometimes it’s less data than at home. And you can’t use it for months on end. I have multiple sims from various EU countries. When I visit I top up.
I could never figure out which gl-inet to get, since some of the newer products seemed less powerful than older ones depending on the product family or something...
> some of the newer products seemed less powerful than older ones
Cynic in me thinks it's because they don't want you to buy one product and be set for a decade, like HN-er here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46373387. Older products might've been too good.
Usually you connect your laptop/phone to the portable router network, which then just pulls up the captive portal. Once you auth from one device, any device behind the router is authed with the portal. This is because the hotel network just sees your router's IP/MAC.
Connect on your phone or other device. Connect to travel router. Clone the mac address of your device. Connect router to wifi. Adjust device to not auto login. Good to go.
GL.iNet routers don't even need this. It has an option to pass through captive portals. So you connect to your GL.iNet AP, then you set it up for the hotel WiFi, tick the option for passing through (it essentially disables VPN, AdGuard Home and other things if enabled), it will then link you to the captive portal where you can log in as you would otherwise.
Once the internet is active, the GL.iNet router will then re-enable things like VPN and AdGuard Home.
Since these devices are OpenWrt underneath with a pretier ui, I presume this is all possible on any OpenWrt device.
Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection. No fraud blocks or extra verifications from your banking apps, no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts, use your home netflix account, etc. All without your individual devices running a VPN app.
> Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection.
You don't need a "travel router" for this. My phone is permanently connected to my server via Wireguard (so that I can access my files from anywhere). Adding another device just requires adding a peer in the server's config file and can be accomplished very quickly. It's not clear what problem the travel router solves, unless perhaps you travel with dozens of devices.
> no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts,
Why do you need to config wireguard on each device? Connect your phone to your vpn and share the wifi. Works on my android. Struggling to see the value proposition for this device.
Do you have a pixel? On Samsung you cannot share WiFi, Hotspot only works with mobile connections. I learners above that this is possible with pixel phones, makes me want to get one...
> Adding another device just requires adding a peer in the server's config file and can be accomplished very quickly
Do you need a client to be running on each device?
Even regardless "I just need to edit a config file real quick" is... Way more work than I want to do. Works for someone on hn but I'm imagining trying to show my dad how to do that.
They're suggesting just running off your data plan which works for domestic travel (at least to urban areas with good cell service) and can work for international if you go through getting a data eSim.
chromecast - godsend on long hotel stays. need to dial in through my home (wireguard) so no license issues with streamers and once I connect my GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 to hotel wifi instant bubble of safe wifi for all my devices! weighs nothing, been using for 8 years rock solid.
The UniFi router depends on you already having a UniFi environment. If you do, it's a good option, but the GL would work with any heterogeneous network
The Beryl AX is going for cheaper ($70) on Amazon right now vs the UniFi Travel Router ($80). Better bang for the buck on both hardware and software without needing specific Ubiquiti anything.
When you are some place with a captive network and want to use devices that don’t have a browser. You connect the router to the WiFi network that has internet access and you connect the other WiFi network to a device with a browser like your phone. Every device looks like one device to the captive network and you can use them all.
Second use case, I now live in a place with a shared internet access that is shared between all of the units. Anyone can broadcast to and control our Roku device and there is no way to block it from the Roku.
One is actually usable wifi at hotels with ethernet cables available. I don't use that device, but a DIY version that also acts as a portable media server while traveling. We can tunnel back to our home network, but often stay places with very bad reception and or internet access. Also helps keep the kids entertained on longer road trips. They can connect their devices to the router as we travel and have full access to the cached media.
So… hear me out. Could I connect this to an airline’s paid in-flight WiFi network, and then broadcast an open network to effectively open up access to all other passengers for free? If enough WiFi pirates do this on flights perhaps it would kill paid WiFi entirely (just need enough Good Samaritans)
(And yes I know there are other bypasses you can do like spoofing MAC addresses to get around some device count restrictions)
“Soon”? Why would they give up that money though? I feel like there’s so little competition they aren’t feeling the pressure. Otherwise everyone else would have been hurting 15+ years ago when JetBlue started their free Wi-Fi.
Maybe. And then get throttled or banned for using too much bandwidth. You don't need this product to do this though, you can do the same thing with a laptop and your phone
Why would this kill paid wifi? A bunch of airlines are already switching to free wifi anyways, but the ones that aren't seem unlikely to just kick back as an army of easily-identifiable tech bros attempt to defraud them. It's a bit like trying to steal money from the bank after you've handed them your ID and debit card.
To all the commenters who asked if it's worth it? IMO it's super worth it if you have more than one wifi access point and it gets more and more worth it as your network gets more complicated.
I upgraded to homogenous ubiquiti/unifi when I set up a point to multi-point on my farm because I thought it would make that part easier. Surprisingly, those links aren't really baked in to the rest of it, but the router and wifi antennas that I've installed around those links "just work" with a private, protected, and guest network.
I used to have to update two different routers with the same SSID, username and password to make "hopping" from one to the next "seamless" and, now that I've got 8 wifi antennas in a mesh with a single UI to configure them all, I can't even imagine how I'd do it with the hodge-podge of gear I used to work with.
And I'm probably going to buy a travel router, but I'm wondering, if I use it connect to the hotel wifi, will I be able to use the thing as a wifi hotspot as well or do I have to use an ethernet point because the wifi is "taken"?
This is brilliant, actually very innovative product by Unifi. It's interesting because it seems they do what Apple does: they can add new products and features only because all the devices work together in an ecosystem.
The way it automatically connects to your home and presents to your devices as part of your home WiFi. So you bring that device with you and everything else works like you're back home.
I use OPNSense and OpenWRT myself and there's no way you can make travel routers this convenient with them.
Although it does sound really nice from a user experience perspective I'm really hesitant with carrying a device with me that without any (additional) authentication would gain access to my home network wherever you plug it in. Would hate losing it or have it be taken from me.
Tailscale running in subnet router mode on a GL.iNet router comes close. You can setup Tailscale through the GL.iNet GUI but to have it also route traffic for everything over to your Tailnet you need to flip one setting via an ssh command.
Not as convenient as this travel router sounds though, but comes close-ish for techies. (wish it didn't require that tweak via SSH. Maybe it'll be added)
I wish Eero offered this feature. I bring three eeros to Airbnb’s to replace their crappy WiFi with my same SID, but it would be nice if it connected back through the home internet.
Why do you think this would be difficult to do using openwrt? Wouldn't you just set up the travel router to have the same ssid and password as your home network and configure a wireguard tunnel from the travel router to your home network (that is if you want to be in your home network)
Because manually configuring wireguard tunnels on random devices is a simple task for most people lol. Unifi’s whole stack is all about making powerful tools easier to use for people who don’t want to fuck around with networking.
Agreed. I use Tailscale (which the gl.inet devices support, because they're basically a pretty front end for OpenWRT, and it supports Tailscale) for my stuff, because I can do it and it's not a real pain to do, but you do have to know a bit at least about networking. This thing looks extremely promising for the "I know this should be possible and I want to do it but have no idea how" level of knowledge as well as the "I want to spend as little time as possible on configuring things" people.
But you don't need to configure wireguard on the individual devices just on the openwrt router. That's one device and you can keep that on permanently.
Except that sometimes you can’t. I don’t know if the Unifi router checks for this, but I’ve run into more than one network where the VPN conflicted with either the captive portal or the wireless network itself (and at least one in the DFW Admiral’s club that had draconian blocking)
In a 1 bit environment (==single SSID visible), sure. But most of the time multiple SSIDs are visible, and correlate to each, making detection of abnormalities easier. And the lat/long is also visible to help disambiguate.
It probably needs a panic/border mode to disable all home access in the event of an emergency. You don't want to be crossing borders and give customs officials full access to your home network.
I’m in the market for a solid travel router, and my home network is all Unifi gear. This is a no brainer, especially with the built-in Teleport support.
I run OpnSense, Wireguard, hooked up to third party WiFi access points, and I had to do a lot of configuration and work that I wouldn't have had to do if I had just bought Ubiquiti equipment.
I did save money, a really significant amount of money.
Obviously, yes, I am capable of going through the work that eliminates my need for this product. I have no trouble configuring Wireguard and setting it up on my client devices and running through all that.
But it was a lot of work to get to this point and I had to spend a lot of time learning how to do that, even as a person who is already technical. Wireguard in particular took me a solid half a day to build understanding and get it configured.
If I was a little bit richer and I went back in time I'd probably just buy all Unifi. Actually if I went back in time I think with my same levels of wealth I'd probably just buy Unifi and save some precious time.
This specific device does seem like a really nice extension of their product line.
Not to take away from this device, I think it’s pretty neat. But you can run tailscale on anything, even Apple TVs. If you have a Unifi network odds are that you have at least one spare computing device that can run tailscale.
Problem is that I think my Apple TV goes into some sort of deep idle mode where tailscale stops working. So it’s been effectively useless for me when I travel.
Wifi 5 for an $80 router in 2026 (I mean we're almost there) is pretty disappointing. I get that its mostly going to be used on crappy hotel networks and the crappy hotel network will often be the bottleneck but $80 looks to be roughly twice the price of the typical travel wifi 5 travel router, about equal to the price of a typical wifi 6 travel router, and only $30-40 cheaper than a typical wifi 7 travel router.
I don't mind a unifi premium for the integration but they should at least have a $50 wifi 5 version and a $100 wifi 6 "pro" version
I don't think they necessarily compete for the same market as some of these other routers. This seems way more compact than many of the other options on the market. I just briefly looked around on Amazon and even many other wifi 5 routers look to be about 2x or thicker than this one. Compared to the GL.inet Opal for example, it's about 20mm smaller in each dimension: 118 x 85 x 30mm (Opal) vs. 95.95 x 65 x 12.5 mm (Unifi). The Unifi is pretty close to a tiny 5000 mAh portable battery.
Now what I'd be really more interested in a Pro version, more so than wifi 6, would be a built-in modem with SIM/eSIM.
Wonder how this will work to connect into hotel networks - on my glinet I have to clone my iPhone MAC address so I basically have to connect to the WiFi, do the with authentication enter room number and last name, then disconnect and boot up the router.
Is there a better way to get these connected to a WiFi for relaying where the Ethernet isn't an option?
I have a gl.Inet and it's very rare that I have to do anything special to get on a captive portal. I just connect to the travel router AP, then connect the travel router to the hotel's WiFi, and browse neverssl.com to get the captive portal.
A $40 router with WiFi to WiFi bridge support like the TP-Link AC750. You connect the router to the captive network and you connect your phone to the router. Connect everything else to the router.
Have Ubiquiti/Unifi firmware/devices ever been subject to independent, third-party security testing? Surely a company charging such a premium for high-end devices has invested in such processes and is proud to showcase them ...
As much I love Unifi products I dislike their privacy policy:
> Usage Data. We may collect certain information about your devices, your network, your system and third party devices connected to your network or system when you use the Services ("Usage Data"), including but not limited to device data, performance data, sensor data, motion data, temperature data, power usage data, device signals, device parameters, device identifiers that may uniquely identify the devices, including mobile devices, web request, Internet Protocol address, location information (including latitude and longitude), browser type, browser language, referring/exit pages and URLs, platform type, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies, web beacons and JavaScript that may uniquely identify your devices or browser.
I wish one of these devices would have an internal battery again like the old HooToo Tripmates. Using it with a power bank doesn't feel quite the same.
I really like “bring your home everywhere aspect”. I can be a pain connecting my whole family devices to another SSID. If it can do WiFi repeating (as in login to a single hotel account and stream to rest of device), I would absolutely get one. If not, GL inet is still the way to go
Can confirm. It also has a mode to jump through the captive portal. I just set it up with the same SSID and PSK as my home wifi and everything we bring connects automatically. It also routes everything through Tailscale.
Yep, I have the same set up. Use GL router to connect to the hotel wifi, and all devices are automatically connected, without captive portal on each one.
Added bonus that I can use tailscale on the GL router to route remote traffic through my tailnet -- including devices where I can't install tailscale client (e.g. corp laptop).
Much less expensive (barring diy and print-a-case-yourself), and most importantly to certain people, easily available in the US from Amazon. (Jetkvm also suffers from unclear import costs and delays)
"To connect the UniFi Travel Router to a guest network, open the UniFi Mobile App and select a nearby wireless network. If the network has a captive portal, it will automatically forward to your mobile device for login."
It likely relies on the travel router cloning the MAC address of your phone or whatever you use to authenticate. That way the hotel just thinks the travel router is your phone.
Took my PS5 Pro on a work trip. Was livid to find out the horrific 'browser' on the PS5 wasn't able to handle the captive portal login page. $700 gaming rig and it can't load a simple HTML page so I can enter my name and room number?! Ridiculous.
Thought about it for a few minutes and realized that the portal was likely just doing mac filtering. So I adjusted my MacBook Pro's MAC address to be the same as the PS5, went through the portal login and then powered down the MBP. Booted up the PS5 and I was online.
Details are scarce right now, but they say that via the UniFi mobile you'll authenticate yourself onto the captive portal and the travel router will use that. Guessing it'll clone your phone's MAC?
Im their target audience for sure but I’m not sure I need all of the same features my home network has. Really my travel router is just used to share a paid connection and run AdGuard network wide.
In my opinion, you only need this if you don't like connecting to unknown (insecure or suspect) network to get access to the internet. Ideally, you would configure this kind of router to connect to a VPN so that as soon as it connects to the internet, it immediately logins to the VPN and reroutes all your network traffic through it. This makes it more difficult for someone to hijack your connection or crack it. From the comments it also appears that some people use it to connect to their home network, either to access their home server or to use as VPN (this can help you get around geo-fence and unnecessary additional authentications that some services require for fraud prevention). Some travel routers can also combine 2 or more internet connections (public WiFi + mobile data) to provide you a more stable internet connection, which is often desirable.
You don't need this. Strictly speaking, we don't need much.
But a travel router can be nice to have.
I bring some tech with me when I travel.
Obviously a phone, but also a decent-sounding smart speaker with long battery life so I can hear some music of my choosing in decent fidelity without using Bluetooth [bonus: battery-backed alarm clock!], a laptop for computing, a streaming box for plugging into the TV, maybe some manner of SBC to futz with if I'm bored and can't sleep during downtime.
All of this stuff really wants to have a [wifi] connection to a local area network, like it has when I'm at home.
A travel router (this one, or something from any other vendor mentioned in these threads, or just about anything that can run openwrt well) solves that problem.
All I have to do is get the router connected to the Internet however I do that (maybe there's ethernet, decent wifi, or maybe my phone hotspot or USB tethering is the order of the day), and then everything else Just Works as soon as it is unpacked and switched on.
And it all works togetherly, on my own wireless LAN -- just as those things also work at home.
Bonus nachos: With some manner of VPN like Tailscale configured in the router, or the automagic stuff this UBNT device is claimed to be able to do, a person can bring their home LAN with them, too -- without individual devices being configured to do that.
I think travel routers are pretty great, myself.
(But using Ubiquiti gear makes me feel filthy for reasons that I can't properly articulate, so I stick with things like Latvian-built Mikrotik hardware or something running OpenWRT for my own travel router uses.)
You have a workplace that insists you are working from your home while you travel.
It has limits, like the amazon hardware keypress thingy with north korea showed recently, but unless your working at superbigtech or defense contractor it would probably work.
connect screenless devices, e.g., Echo Dot
extend weak wireless range in hotel
screen share or network between multiple devices eg travel with two laptops and can virtual KVM
only have to do the captive device on one - many hotels limit number of devices
extra security buffer
phone can't bridge wifi for headless like this
etc etc
UniFi website and marketing is just really really bad. They have amazing products but for some reason they don't really care about consumers and don't really know how to market to consumers. Just look at their website, it's impossible to find anything other than some super super specific networking stuff that you probably need a CCNP to even begin to understand
I need something like this to share a single wifi connection among devices on a cruise. I don't care about the home network access though. Any recommendations?
I clone my home WiFi SSID with my travel router so when we arrive at the hotel all of our devices auto connect without having to configure the consent / captive WiFi screen.
It’s also nice to control VPN and DNS from one place , in case the hotel is doing DNS or IP filtering.
And quite a few hotels still offer wired Ethernet , which helps performance.
I never travel without my GL-AXT1800. Saved me so many times: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/ I’m actually on it right now.
Same! And the best thing is that you can install Tailscale, so you can connect to your tailnet, and exit all traffic through one of your nodes (e.g., your home/office network).
It's incredibly useful, with the added bonus that you don't need to install tailscale client in any of your travel devices (phone, tablet, work computer, etc).
I’m seeing a lot of this same comment here, so I went to check out this tailscale thing, which clearly I must need.
Can anybody explain what Tailscale is, does, or why everybody seems to have it?
Looking at their website, it’s just a huge wall of business jargon. Really! Read it. It’s nothing but a list of enterprise terminology. There’s a “how it works “ page full of more (different) jargon, acronyms and buzzwords, but no simple explanation of why everybody on this thread seems to be paying money for this thing?
Any help? Should I just pay them my $6/month and hope I figure it out at some point?
Basic version is it's a sort of developer focused zero trust network service.
Encrypted overlay network based on wireguard tunnels, with network ACLs based around identity, and with lots of nice quality-of-life features, like DNS that just works and a bunch of other stuff.
(Other stuff = internet egress from your tailscale network ('tailnet') through any chosen node, or feeding inbound traffic from a public IP to a chosen node, SSH tied into the network authentication.
There is also https://github.com/juanfont/headscale - which is a open source implementation of some of tailscale's server side stuff, compatible with the normal tailscale clients.
(And there are clients for a very wide range of stuff).
I can’t tell if you’re trying to help, or just getting into the spirit of the website’s “how it works (using ten pages of terminology and acronyms we just made up)” page.
I don't think you need to pay $6 a month to try it out.
Install it on all the machines you want. When you are running it on the machine, it is networked to the other machines that are running it. Now make an 'exit node' on one of those machines by selecting it in the UI, and all your gear can access the internet via that exit node. Your phone can run it. Your apple tv can run it. You can have multiple exit nodes. So you can have a worldwide network and not once did you have to open ports in firewalls etc.
So, somewhere on that website, there’s a free version that can be downloaded onto a desktop and run without signing up for their service?
I think I understand what it does now. So, basically you leave a computer running at home, and this thing lets you pretend to be running your internet stuff through it while you’re on the road?
Basically it is managed Wireguard. Tailscale does say it, but it is buried under marketing speak.
You don't need to get too far down the page to see "VPN", which is what it is. But on top of that primitive, it's also a bunch of software and networking niceties.
These are neat in that you can jump on and extend existing wifi infra, but it'd be nice if they also included 5G. I want a product that does both.
It's cool to have your own network in a hotel. But it'd be nice to be able to do that on the road, away from public wifi, internationally, whenever - which hotspots do. But at the same time, it'd be nice to be able to do the WiFi thing too to cut back on data usage. I frequently blow through my hotspot data.
I'd rather this be in one device instead of two. Beggars can't be choosers, though, I suppose?
I’m using a GLinet GL-XE3000 for that and it’s great. Initial setup of the 5G eSIM on a physical SIM took a little searching but it’s been rock solid and having consistent access on the road and hotels has been great for family travel. It has a built-in battery, but I’ve never really tested the duration (I suspect it’s 3-6 hours) as I put it on its AC adapter in the hotel and the n a cigarette lighter adapter in the car, so the battery gets used 15-45 minutes at a time to bridge between those two places.
I like it enough that I might buy a second, more compact unit for when space is more a premium, but I’ve been really happy with this one.
Do you mind expounding on how it has saved you? I'd love to know the practical use cases.
Is this any better than just doing Hotspot with wifi bridge? I just have my hotspot on my pixel for my devices to connect to. Pixel itself is connected to whatever "public wifi" is there.
Does that actually work? I don't think you can both have hotspot on and be connected to another network.
Most newer (or at least new + expensive) phones can share their wifi connection via hotspot. 2.4gh only though I think.
Not only new and expensive, my 5 year old budget phone could do it (a vivo).
Do you know what’s the technical term to search if a phone has that capability? Asking for an iPhone
Like WiFi tethering?
Yes, it has actually worked starting with the Pixel 3.
It's called Dual-Band Simultaneous or "STA+AP" (Station + Access Point) concurrency that can bridge an existing wifi connection to an access point to other devices via a hotspot.
Yes it works. Now you can also tether via USB. Both of them have worked flawlessly for me recently.
It seems to be only on certain devices feature(?): on my Pixel it worked, Samsung phone just says "sorry, can't do that".
Works fine, yup.
Huge plus one. Useful to bridge hotel wifi so all my devices connect automatically, also useful as an ad-hoc router that fits into my travel pack.
I'm not using it for travel, but I got a GL-BE3600 recently and it's surprisingly decent as a home router for my very specific needs.
I wired the desktop PCs in the house, so the only Wi-Fi users are mobiles, a smart TV, and a laptop. Everything else is already hanging off 2.5G wired switches. Pretty light duty, and I just wanted something that would provide robust routing and placeholder Wi-Fi. This does exactly that, and since it's OpenWRT based, it's probably marginally less terrible than whatever TP-Link was offering in the same price range.
It does run annoyingly hot, but I should just buy a little USB desk fan and point it at the router :P
I've had very impressive success running upstream OpenWRT on TP-Link hardware: I have Archer C7 access points running with literally years of uptime.
That being said, for any new application, I suggest using at least an 802.11ax AP, because cheap 2.4GHz devices that support 802.11ax are becoming common and using an 802.11ac router means that your 2.4GHz devices will be stuck with 802.11n, which is quite a bit less efficient. Even if you don't need any appreciable speed, it's preferable to use a more efficient protocol that uses less airtime.
I have the same router as the OP article - it ran at 72C until I did [this](https://phasefactor.dev/2024/01/15/glinet-fan.html#choosing-...). Currently running at 60C!
Have you tried hooking it up to an Ethernet port in a hotel room like the one that the TV uses?
This rarely works. The TV network is usually access controlled, so you either won't get an IP or you simply won't have internet access.
Some hotel rooms (particularly older business hotels) will have an ethernet port for the guest. These work maybe 50% of the time these days. Sometimes you can find a Ruckus AP in your room at outlet level, and these usually have several ethernet ports on the bottom. These also have a working port around 30% of the time.
So, TL;DR: various ethernet ports in hotel rooms work less than half the time these days.
How’s that access control handled? Very easy to spoof the MAC of the TV or setup some SNI spoofing proxy server, NGFWs with TLS Active Probing are probably harder to deal with but do hotels really have that?
> Very easy to spoof the MAC of the TV or setup some SNI spoofing proxy server
At that point you're in the 0.1% that the hotel does not really need to worry about. The other >99% will still need to pay for wifi.
it’s probably >0.1% here …
Heartily seconded! A friend recommended I get one and now I push all my other technical friends to buy one, too.
My wife and I traveled a bit this year and it was great having all our gadgets connecting to a single AP under our control. It’s easily paid for itself by avoiding ludicrous per-device daily charges.
I think most travel APs can generally do this, but the feature that makes GL.iNet products popular is: extensibility. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand for manufacturers, but making products useful via extensibility is a sure fire way to open your target market directly up to prosumers. And those are the buyers that will find you.
I own two of their products, one of them I bought in 2019 and can still run what I need to on it.
Readers of HN will value flexibility and extensibility, but the other 99% of the folks there are fine with totally locked-down devices because it’s the only thing they know of. The lack of extensibility likely doesn’t affect sales/profit in any significant proportion.
My wife’s work WiFi is handled by a gl.inet 150 (https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar150/) which is tucked behind her desk since at least 2019. Vanilla openwrt on it, provides WiFi from an Ethernet slot in the wall.
Uptime is in years, it’s invisible and chugs along without visible power draw. All her devices connect to it, including her Cisco voip phone. It autossh to my ovh server with remote port forward for remote admin. Cost me 15€ in 2016.
>> I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand for manufacturers
> My wife’s work WiFi is handled by a gl.inet 150 (...) since at least 2019. All her devices connect to it (...) Cost me 15€ in 2016.
I think this answers GP's question as (yet another) solid reason why manufacturers "can't understand" prosumer needs - it's because targeting prosumers, or generally making products that "just works", is very bad for sales down the line.
Where do you travel that you need wifi?
I’ve been getting SIM cards for over a decade, now even eSIMs are cheap enough for casual use.
I can’t put a SIM in my ereader or Switch or iPad.
Convenient to connect all devices to one WiFi. E.g. baby camera is on same WiFi as laptop etc.
Changing countries a lot reduces this option a bit.
I’m sure I could find a good all Europe card, but I need my number for work calls.
In Europe you have free roaming so it (almost?) never makes sense to get a new sim per country.
You have roaming but sometimes it’s less data than at home. And you can’t use it for months on end. I have multiple sims from various EU countries. When I visit I top up.
To be clear. Within the EU. Not Europe.
EEA, not EU. I had to check as I thought UK was also included. Seems like they left?
I could never figure out which gl-inet to get, since some of the newer products seemed less powerful than older ones depending on the product family or something...
> some of the newer products seemed less powerful than older ones
Cynic in me thinks it's because they don't want you to buy one product and be set for a decade, like HN-er here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46373387. Older products might've been too good.
Not sure if you're talking in the context of travel routers, but if you're not, the Flint 2 is always a solid pick.
How do you handle captive portals in hotels ?
Usually you connect your laptop/phone to the portable router network, which then just pulls up the captive portal. Once you auth from one device, any device behind the router is authed with the portal. This is because the hotel network just sees your router's IP/MAC.
Connect on your phone or other device. Connect to travel router. Clone the mac address of your device. Connect router to wifi. Adjust device to not auto login. Good to go.
GL.iNet routers don't even need this. It has an option to pass through captive portals. So you connect to your GL.iNet AP, then you set it up for the hotel WiFi, tick the option for passing through (it essentially disables VPN, AdGuard Home and other things if enabled), it will then link you to the captive portal where you can log in as you would otherwise.
Once the internet is active, the GL.iNet router will then re-enable things like VPN and AdGuard Home.
Since these devices are OpenWrt underneath with a pretier ui, I presume this is all possible on any OpenWrt device.
Is this an annoying amount of steps? And do you have to do this on every expiry of your session on the portal?
What is the benefit of this over, for example, an iPhone hotspot?
Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection. No fraud blocks or extra verifications from your banking apps, no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts, use your home netflix account, etc. All without your individual devices running a VPN app.
> Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection.
You don't need a "travel router" for this. My phone is permanently connected to my server via Wireguard (so that I can access my files from anywhere). Adding another device just requires adding a peer in the server's config file and can be accomplished very quickly. It's not clear what problem the travel router solves, unless perhaps you travel with dozens of devices.
> no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts,
I can personally do without those.
I can accomplish this via one access point instead of configuring wireguard on N*5 family devices.
Why do you need to config wireguard on each device? Connect your phone to your vpn and share the wifi. Works on my android. Struggling to see the value proposition for this device.
Does it require specific VPN apps or root? I tried connecting laptop to phone hotspot and even though phone was connected to VPN, laptop wasn't.
Do you have a pixel? On Samsung you cannot share WiFi, Hotspot only works with mobile connections. I learners above that this is possible with pixel phones, makes me want to get one...
> Adding another device just requires adding a peer in the server's config file and can be accomplished very quickly
Do you need a client to be running on each device?
Even regardless "I just need to edit a config file real quick" is... Way more work than I want to do. Works for someone on hn but I'm imagining trying to show my dad how to do that.
That's the benefit of a travel router.
An iPhone can't bridge a wifi network. So you need something like a travel router to share a wifi connection.
They're suggesting just running off your data plan which works for domestic travel (at least to urban areas with good cell service) and can work for international if you go through getting a data eSim.
If you’re using a VPN: iPhone won’t route hotspot clients over the VPN, so you need to set up VPN on all clients.
chromecast - godsend on long hotel stays. need to dial in through my home (wireguard) so no license issues with streamers and once I connect my GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 to hotel wifi instant bubble of safe wifi for all my devices! weighs nothing, been using for 8 years rock solid.
Husband can go pick up food order and baby cam still accessible from wife’s phone.
You can control it from the ground up, including installing alternate firmware. You can also use VPNs etc.
What advantage does this have over the cheaper UniFi router in the OP?
The UniFi router depends on you already having a UniFi environment. If you do, it's a good option, but the GL would work with any heterogeneous network
Thanks! Thats helpful.
The Beryl AX is going for cheaper ($70) on Amazon right now vs the UniFi Travel Router ($80). Better bang for the buck on both hardware and software without needing specific Ubiquiti anything.
It's available right now, for one.
Yes these are the way. Use them to get cheap anker security cams to work as baby monitors while we’re in hotel rooms
these are awesome, i just take my old wifi router tp-link, its big though. I might have to get one of these little guys.
What’s the use case exactly?
I have this.
TP-Link AC750
https://a.co/d/esxrRA4
When you are some place with a captive network and want to use devices that don’t have a browser. You connect the router to the WiFi network that has internet access and you connect the other WiFi network to a device with a browser like your phone. Every device looks like one device to the captive network and you can use them all.
Second use case, I now live in a place with a shared internet access that is shared between all of the units. Anyone can broadcast to and control our Roku device and there is no way to block it from the Roku.
We create a private network with the router
One is actually usable wifi at hotels with ethernet cables available. I don't use that device, but a DIY version that also acts as a portable media server while traveling. We can tunnel back to our home network, but often stay places with very bad reception and or internet access. Also helps keep the kids entertained on longer road trips. They can connect their devices to the router as we travel and have full access to the cached media.
So… hear me out. Could I connect this to an airline’s paid in-flight WiFi network, and then broadcast an open network to effectively open up access to all other passengers for free? If enough WiFi pirates do this on flights perhaps it would kill paid WiFi entirely (just need enough Good Samaritans)
(And yes I know there are other bypasses you can do like spoofing MAC addresses to get around some device count restrictions)
Really what you should be doing is setting the SSID to "$2 in flight WiFi!" and selling access.
You'll make tens of ... dollars every flight.
And get arrested to boot!
https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/man-arrested-for-sett...
Airlines throttle per device, unfortunately.
That’s not going to be an issue at all domestically soon unless you fly one of the cheapest airlines.
Delta has had free WiFi for awhile now as does JetBlue and I believe Southwest. It’s coming soon to AA and United.
I fly Delta 99% of the time.
“Soon”? Why would they give up that money though? I feel like there’s so little competition they aren’t feeling the pressure. Otherwise everyone else would have been hurting 15+ years ago when JetBlue started their free Wi-Fi.
Delta and America already are offering free wi-fi on most domestic routes.
Just got back from several flights with Hawaiian, free Starlink on every one.
Android phones can share their wifi connection like this.
(some android phones: my Pixel can, Samsung can't, although it seems that other Samsungs do have it.)
I carry a burner Android just for this feature. Great for sharing with my iPhone and iPad on a flight.
Insane to me that Apple still does not support this.
Not that surprising. Unless you’re going to sell access to that hotspot and give Apple a 30% cut, it really wouldn’t interest Tim Cook.
I’ve done this. Works fine. Issue in general is the airlines throttle the heck out of devices.
Playing with fire. It could be potentially construed as an attempt to steal personal info.
Maybe. And then get throttled or banned for using too much bandwidth. You don't need this product to do this though, you can do the same thing with a laptop and your phone
They throttle.
Probably. I do this with a GLinet and it works great.
Flight internet usually comes with a data quota.
Why would this kill paid wifi? A bunch of airlines are already switching to free wifi anyways, but the ones that aren't seem unlikely to just kick back as an army of easily-identifiable tech bros attempt to defraud them. It's a bit like trying to steal money from the bank after you've handed them your ID and debit card.
To all the commenters who asked if it's worth it? IMO it's super worth it if you have more than one wifi access point and it gets more and more worth it as your network gets more complicated.
I upgraded to homogenous ubiquiti/unifi when I set up a point to multi-point on my farm because I thought it would make that part easier. Surprisingly, those links aren't really baked in to the rest of it, but the router and wifi antennas that I've installed around those links "just work" with a private, protected, and guest network.
I used to have to update two different routers with the same SSID, username and password to make "hopping" from one to the next "seamless" and, now that I've got 8 wifi antennas in a mesh with a single UI to configure them all, I can't even imagine how I'd do it with the hodge-podge of gear I used to work with.
And I'm probably going to buy a travel router, but I'm wondering, if I use it connect to the hotel wifi, will I be able to use the thing as a wifi hotspot as well or do I have to use an ethernet point because the wifi is "taken"?
You can connect a UTR to the hotel network, and also connect your devices via WiFi to it; works just like GL.iNet's Slate 7 in this regard.
This is brilliant, actually very innovative product by Unifi. It's interesting because it seems they do what Apple does: they can add new products and features only because all the devices work together in an ecosystem.
They were founded by ex Apple employees, so there's that.
Innovative how? Many travel routers already exist and support similar features
The way it automatically connects to your home and presents to your devices as part of your home WiFi. So you bring that device with you and everything else works like you're back home.
I use OPNSense and OpenWRT myself and there's no way you can make travel routers this convenient with them.
Although it does sound really nice from a user experience perspective I'm really hesitant with carrying a device with me that without any (additional) authentication would gain access to my home network wherever you plug it in. Would hate losing it or have it be taken from me.
Tailscale running in subnet router mode on a GL.iNet router comes close. You can setup Tailscale through the GL.iNet GUI but to have it also route traffic for everything over to your Tailnet you need to flip one setting via an ssh command.
Not as convenient as this travel router sounds though, but comes close-ish for techies. (wish it didn't require that tweak via SSH. Maybe it'll be added)
Something something dropbox is simple :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
I wish Eero offered this feature. I bring three eeros to Airbnb’s to replace their crappy WiFi with my same SID, but it would be nice if it connected back through the home internet.
Why do you think this would be difficult to do using openwrt? Wouldn't you just set up the travel router to have the same ssid and password as your home network and configure a wireguard tunnel from the travel router to your home network (that is if you want to be in your home network)
Because manually configuring wireguard tunnels on random devices is a simple task for most people lol. Unifi’s whole stack is all about making powerful tools easier to use for people who don’t want to fuck around with networking.
Agreed. I use Tailscale (which the gl.inet devices support, because they're basically a pretty front end for OpenWRT, and it supports Tailscale) for my stuff, because I can do it and it's not a real pain to do, but you do have to know a bit at least about networking. This thing looks extremely promising for the "I know this should be possible and I want to do it but have no idea how" level of knowledge as well as the "I want to spend as little time as possible on configuring things" people.
But you don't need to configure wireguard on the individual devices just on the openwrt router. That's one device and you can keep that on permanently.
Except that sometimes you can’t. I don’t know if the Unifi router checks for this, but I’ve run into more than one network where the VPN conflicted with either the captive portal or the wireless network itself (and at least one in the DFW Admiral’s club that had draconian blocking)
> presents to your devices as part of your home WiFi
That will be fun for browser geolocation based on WiFi name.
In a 1 bit environment (==single SSID visible), sure. But most of the time multiple SSIDs are visible, and correlate to each, making detection of abnormalities easier. And the lat/long is also visible to help disambiguate.
I think OP meant the opposite issue of broadcasting "I live at 123 evergreen terrace" everywhere you go, because SSIDs are vaguely unique.
Would both the stationary and mobile instances of that SSID be visible on public databases like https://wigle.net?
You’ve reminded me of a project I started and never got it working. A home network on a vpn to another location.
So the usually ssid is in my home country, and another ssid is based somewhere else geographically.
It probably needs a panic/border mode to disable all home access in the event of an emergency. You don't want to be crossing borders and give customs officials full access to your home network.
If you disable your password saving, I think it would prevent them somehow.
It seems like the main feature is being able to access your home network to watch netflix, access LAN devices, etc.
How is this different compared to running a tailscale exit node in your home network?
Is the benefit of this that you have a hardware device that you can connect to instead of needing software like tailscale?
I think so: it looks like "UniFi Teleport" is also based on Wireguard.
You can also do this with a travel router like one of GL.iNet's and Tailscale subnet routers.
UniFi teleport is also very buggy with frequent disconnects. Tailscale and WireGuard proper don’t have those issues for me.
I have a hard time believing anyone would actually use this versus self-hosting headscale in a discarded ThinkCentre and running it from a closet.
Not sure if you’re serious but reeks of “you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially”
Obligatory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
Not serious, and you got it.
I’m in the market for a solid travel router, and my home network is all Unifi gear. This is a no brainer, especially with the built-in Teleport support.
I run OpnSense, Wireguard, hooked up to third party WiFi access points, and I had to do a lot of configuration and work that I wouldn't have had to do if I had just bought Ubiquiti equipment.
I did save money, a really significant amount of money.
Obviously, yes, I am capable of going through the work that eliminates my need for this product. I have no trouble configuring Wireguard and setting it up on my client devices and running through all that.
But it was a lot of work to get to this point and I had to spend a lot of time learning how to do that, even as a person who is already technical. Wireguard in particular took me a solid half a day to build understanding and get it configured.
If I was a little bit richer and I went back in time I'd probably just buy all Unifi. Actually if I went back in time I think with my same levels of wealth I'd probably just buy Unifi and save some precious time.
This specific device does seem like a really nice extension of their product line.
How would Tailscale run in your home network without a hardware device to connect to?
You can create a subnet router on tailscale and access any device on your local network, regardless of them having tailscale installed
Not to take away from this device, I think it’s pretty neat. But you can run tailscale on anything, even Apple TVs. If you have a Unifi network odds are that you have at least one spare computing device that can run tailscale.
Problem is that I think my Apple TV goes into some sort of deep idle mode where tailscale stops working. So it’s been effectively useless for me when I travel.
Available December 29th: https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/utr
Wifi 5 for an $80 router in 2026 (I mean we're almost there) is pretty disappointing. I get that its mostly going to be used on crappy hotel networks and the crappy hotel network will often be the bottleneck but $80 looks to be roughly twice the price of the typical travel wifi 5 travel router, about equal to the price of a typical wifi 6 travel router, and only $30-40 cheaper than a typical wifi 7 travel router.
I don't mind a unifi premium for the integration but they should at least have a $50 wifi 5 version and a $100 wifi 6 "pro" version
I don't think they necessarily compete for the same market as some of these other routers. This seems way more compact than many of the other options on the market. I just briefly looked around on Amazon and even many other wifi 5 routers look to be about 2x or thicker than this one. Compared to the GL.inet Opal for example, it's about 20mm smaller in each dimension: 118 x 85 x 30mm (Opal) vs. 95.95 x 65 x 12.5 mm (Unifi). The Unifi is pretty close to a tiny 5000 mAh portable battery.
Now what I'd be really more interested in a Pro version, more so than wifi 6, would be a built-in modem with SIM/eSIM.
I'd pay $30 for the software alone that actually works.
I didn’t think there was much point in WiFi 6 unless you go 6e and get the 6Ghz frequency?
It’s wifi 5 but the most interesting part is it uses 5w of power max, I thought it’d be more.
Based on unifis release schedule that means may 2026
Wonder how this will work to connect into hotel networks - on my glinet I have to clone my iPhone MAC address so I basically have to connect to the WiFi, do the with authentication enter room number and last name, then disconnect and boot up the router.
Is there a better way to get these connected to a WiFi for relaying where the Ethernet isn't an option?
This new Unifi device supports captive portal authentication flows, so you don't need to do that whole shuffle.
Source https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruv550at3k8
I have a gl.Inet and it's very rare that I have to do anything special to get on a captive portal. I just connect to the travel router AP, then connect the travel router to the hotel's WiFi, and browse neverssl.com to get the captive portal.
A $40 router with WiFi to WiFi bridge support like the TP-Link AC750. You connect the router to the captive network and you connect your phone to the router. Connect everything else to the router.
Have Ubiquiti/Unifi firmware/devices ever been subject to independent, third-party security testing? Surely a company charging such a premium for high-end devices has invested in such processes and is proud to showcase them ...
As much I love Unifi products I dislike their privacy policy:
> Usage Data. We may collect certain information about your devices, your network, your system and third party devices connected to your network or system when you use the Services ("Usage Data"), including but not limited to device data, performance data, sensor data, motion data, temperature data, power usage data, device signals, device parameters, device identifiers that may uniquely identify the devices, including mobile devices, web request, Internet Protocol address, location information (including latitude and longitude), browser type, browser language, referring/exit pages and URLs, platform type, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies, web beacons and JavaScript that may uniquely identify your devices or browser.
https://www.ui.com/legal/privacypolicy/#c1
You should overlay something else rather than rely on WiFi securiry. Tailscale or a vpn, private cloud or just tls, depending on your threat model.
I wish one of these devices would have an internal battery again like the old HooToo Tripmates. Using it with a power bank doesn't feel quite the same.
GL-iNet’s Mudi product line has an internal battery and eSIM and physical SIM card support.
Mudi V2: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-e750/
They have an upcoming 5G NR WiFi 7 version:
Mudi 7: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-e5800/
Effectively nobody sells Wi-Fi 7 capable gear yet:
https://www.rtings.com/router/learn/research/wifi-7-mlo
I really like “bring your home everywhere aspect”. I can be a pain connecting my whole family devices to another SSID. If it can do WiFi repeating (as in login to a single hotel account and stream to rest of device), I would absolutely get one. If not, GL inet is still the way to go
Can GL inet not do that? Genuinely asking.
Can confirm. It also has a mode to jump through the captive portal. I just set it up with the same SSID and PSK as my home wifi and everything we bring connects automatically. It also routes everything through Tailscale.
Yep, I have the same set up. Use GL router to connect to the hotel wifi, and all devices are automatically connected, without captive portal on each one.
Added bonus that I can use tailscale on the GL router to route remote traffic through my tailnet -- including devices where I can't install tailscale client (e.g. corp laptop).
This Unifi device is primarily meant as an add-on to exising Unifi setups as it's all well integrated.
can do it
? You just need to set it up once and devices will auto reconnect by default
GL can absolutely do this already.
Related, the GLiNet Comet (remote KVM) are also excellent. Have bought one for every elderly family member so I can support them more easily.
This would’ve been great 15y ago, but today they all want help on their phone and there’s no good way of doing that.
Oh, that's tempting. Is there vanilla openwrt or any other all-FOSS firmware for it? I'm rather paranoid about this kind of appliance.
How does it compare to the PiKVM?
Much less expensive (barring diy and print-a-case-yourself), and most importantly to certain people, easily available in the US from Amazon. (Jetkvm also suffers from unclear import costs and delays)
Does this also bridge L2 stuff so I am actually on my LAN?
Otherwise I don't really see the point to carry a specific hotspot device when my phone has one built in.
>while captive portal logins on hotel networks are handled quietly in the background.
Anyone know how it automagically sorts out connecting to the hotel WiFi?
Hotels often want some combination of my room number and surname I've found, or some combination of hotel name and floor password.
"To connect the UniFi Travel Router to a guest network, open the UniFi Mobile App and select a nearby wireless network. If the network has a captive portal, it will automatically forward to your mobile device for login."
from the FAQ https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/utr
It likely relies on the travel router cloning the MAC address of your phone or whatever you use to authenticate. That way the hotel just thinks the travel router is your phone.
It’s also (I’d hope) modifying the ttl as that’s used to detect travel routers.
Took my PS5 Pro on a work trip. Was livid to find out the horrific 'browser' on the PS5 wasn't able to handle the captive portal login page. $700 gaming rig and it can't load a simple HTML page so I can enter my name and room number?! Ridiculous.
Thought about it for a few minutes and realized that the portal was likely just doing mac filtering. So I adjusted my MacBook Pro's MAC address to be the same as the PS5, went through the portal login and then powered down the MBP. Booted up the PS5 and I was online.
Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
Sometimes it's also possible to simply disconnect the hotel's SIP phone from the Ethernet jack and use that :)
> Automatic handling of captive portal authentication
Very curious about how they're pulling this off
Details are scarce right now, but they say that via the UniFi mobile you'll authenticate yourself onto the captive portal and the travel router will use that. Guessing it'll clone your phone's MAC?
Really wish their press Release / marketing want obviously llm generated.
Im their target audience for sure but I’m not sure I need all of the same features my home network has. Really my travel router is just used to share a paid connection and run AdGuard network wide.
I travel internationally all the time. Someone tell me why I need this.
In my opinion, you only need this if you don't like connecting to unknown (insecure or suspect) network to get access to the internet. Ideally, you would configure this kind of router to connect to a VPN so that as soon as it connects to the internet, it immediately logins to the VPN and reroutes all your network traffic through it. This makes it more difficult for someone to hijack your connection or crack it. From the comments it also appears that some people use it to connect to their home network, either to access their home server or to use as VPN (this can help you get around geo-fence and unnecessary additional authentications that some services require for fraud prevention). Some travel routers can also combine 2 or more internet connections (public WiFi + mobile data) to provide you a more stable internet connection, which is often desirable.
You don't need this. Strictly speaking, we don't need much.
But a travel router can be nice to have.
I bring some tech with me when I travel.
Obviously a phone, but also a decent-sounding smart speaker with long battery life so I can hear some music of my choosing in decent fidelity without using Bluetooth [bonus: battery-backed alarm clock!], a laptop for computing, a streaming box for plugging into the TV, maybe some manner of SBC to futz with if I'm bored and can't sleep during downtime.
All of this stuff really wants to have a [wifi] connection to a local area network, like it has when I'm at home.
A travel router (this one, or something from any other vendor mentioned in these threads, or just about anything that can run openwrt well) solves that problem.
All I have to do is get the router connected to the Internet however I do that (maybe there's ethernet, decent wifi, or maybe my phone hotspot or USB tethering is the order of the day), and then everything else Just Works as soon as it is unpacked and switched on.
And it all works togetherly, on my own wireless LAN -- just as those things also work at home.
Bonus nachos: With some manner of VPN like Tailscale configured in the router, or the automagic stuff this UBNT device is claimed to be able to do, a person can bring their home LAN with them, too -- without individual devices being configured to do that.
I think travel routers are pretty great, myself.
(But using Ubiquiti gear makes me feel filthy for reasons that I can't properly articulate, so I stick with things like Latvian-built Mikrotik hardware or something running OpenWRT for my own travel router uses.)
You have a workplace that insists you are working from your home while you travel.
It has limits, like the amazon hardware keypress thingy with north korea showed recently, but unless your working at superbigtech or defense contractor it would probably work.
connect screenless devices, e.g., Echo Dot extend weak wireless range in hotel screen share or network between multiple devices eg travel with two laptops and can virtual KVM only have to do the captive device on one - many hotels limit number of devices extra security buffer phone can't bridge wifi for headless like this etc etc
Oh I thought one with 5g cellular connectivity
The page doesn't even have a buy button. Why?
UniFi website and marketing is just really really bad. They have amazing products but for some reason they don't really care about consumers and don't really know how to market to consumers. Just look at their website, it's impossible to find anything other than some super super specific networking stuff that you probably need a CCNP to even begin to understand
it says travel but not supporting LTE/5G
Travel to a hotel.
I don't understand this post. Is it an ad?
I have wireguard running on my home router. Why do I need a piece of hardware when my laptop already can connect to it from anywhere?
I've been to many hotels/apartments where you have to place the router on a very specific location because the Wifi/4G/5G coverage is super bad.
With Teltonica/GL.Inet you also can use small external antennas. Getting behind windows is often enough.
I need something like this to share a single wifi connection among devices on a cruise. I don't care about the home network access though. Any recommendations?
I clone my home WiFi SSID with my travel router so when we arrive at the hotel all of our devices auto connect without having to configure the consent / captive WiFi screen.
It’s also nice to control VPN and DNS from one place , in case the hotel is doing DNS or IP filtering.
And quite a few hotels still offer wired Ethernet , which helps performance.
whats the point of this? I got wireguard on my phone connected to my home network (also unifi).
If this device had a 5g sim slot, then I could see the point but it’s not that.
The main benefit of a travel router is creating a private network, and sharing a wifi connection. An iPhone can't do that, though Android phones can.
> though Android phones can
Interesting, as someone who has always used iPhones, wouldn't mind getting an Android phone for this.
Is there some app?
Some third party WiFis limit the number of devices. This gets around that limit.