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Unifi Travel Router

blog.ui.com

61–70 of 437 posts

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#61

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.

This Unifi device is primarily meant as an add-on to exising Unifi setups as it's all well integrated.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#63
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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)

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#64

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.

What’s the use case exactly?

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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#65

>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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#67

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.

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

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#68

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

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#69

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.

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.

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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#70

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.

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.
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