Unifi Travel Router • Hacker News Board

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#31

Post by tonymet » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#32

Post by trelane » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

theoreticalmal wrote: post #19

wateralien wrote: post #2

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 is the benefit of this over, for example, an iPhone hotspot?

You can control it from the ground up, including installing alternate firmware. You can also use VPNs etc.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#33

Post by slig » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:00 AM UTC

nickt wrote: post #16

slig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

Not serious, and you got it.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#34

Post by windexh8er » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:01 AM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #18

wateralien wrote: post #2

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.

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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#35

Post by neither_color » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:01 AM UTC

theoreticalmal wrote: post #19

wateralien wrote: post #2

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 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.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#36

Post by walterbell » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:04 AM UTC

shermantanktop wrote: post #23

walterbell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Would both the stationary and mobile instances of that SSID be visible on public databases like https://wigle.net?

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#37

Post by cycomanic » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

cromka wrote: post #7

libeclipse wrote: post #4

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.

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)

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#38

Post by GlenTheMachine » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:07 AM UTC

I travel internationally all the time. Someone tell me why I need this.

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#39

Post by olalonde » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

nickt wrote: post #16

slig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Re: Unifi Travel Router

#40

Post by hnburnsy » Wed, Dec 24, 2025, 2:10 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #27

allovertheworld wrote: post #20

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.

Some third party WiFis limit the number of devices. This gets around that limit.