GL.iNet GL-SFT1200 (Opal) Secure Travel WiFi Router, AC1200 Dual Band Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Network, IPv6 USB 2.0, Repeater Bridge Access Point Mode, Router for Public Use, Easy Setup with Guide

The router performance is about the same as the Tenda AC1200 AC8 it replaced. It does that with MUCH smaller antenna and only two of them compared with 4 antennae of the AC8. Prepare for very small fonts in the start up instructions! I did have an issue and needed to go online to the site for clarification. Possibly due to language differences there was confusion as to which password to enter into the router once it rebooted. Either the new router password or the host password. That was resolved and the router has run smoothly since 12/11/24. It was setup in our house but it will be transferred to an office environment shortly where its host and password will again be changed before it settles into service at that location. Based on its performance we ordered three more.This router was approved for use by our national organization. We also bought the carry cases for them as Amazon offered a case designed for this router. We do need a case to protect the router when not in use. If you use "WISP" mode to connect to the host wirelessly this router does not have one. Its equivalent mode is "Repeater" and it works the same as WISP as it connects to the host and on to the Internet in our case. We have not used the router in any other mode, however we expect that it will meet our expectations. There are two LAN and one WAN port along with a 2.0 USB port. With its small size we may use a switch for allowing access to other devices. A four port switch device is very light and won't interfere with portability this router affords. The color blends in very well with our office surroundings. The AC8 was only offered in black or white colors and with 4 large antennae it did not blend in very well. Packing it for travel or storage was very annoying. This Opal router works well and has side benefits. The antennae design worked well in a TP-Link access point we used several years ago. The Internet speed test we ran did not differ very much from the AC8 design so we expect about the same performance from this smaller unit as compared to the larger Tenda AC8 design. I also bought one for our house. A nice touch was the power supply and cord. Both match the unit color and the plug has a unique design. The cord is a flat design that FOLDS very nice within itself. I am NOT going to purchase round cords any longer. When one coils (folds) this cord just follow the contours that you see when you first look at the unit in the box. You can then fold it back into the same size. I took a photo of it so I could refold it correctly and it DID! A nice small package without using an elastic. Its funny how the little things add up to a nice design. The Gli folks have a nice design throughout the product. Even the box design is very well done. BTW the route unit takes up about 1/2 the box and the cord and power supply take up the other half. The router is in a soft sleeve and one will realize it is only 1/2 of the box size. The plug of the power cord will need a 10 second assembly.It seems to be a universal plug that allows the unit to adapt to US, EU and other electrical systems. The contacts assembly are separate from the remainder of the cord assembly. The instructions indicate how to connect the contacts to assemble it to the cord unit by aligning the contact unit with the cord unit and then clicking the two into place with a slight twist of the wrist. Sounds complicated BUT it is like aligning an aspirin bottle top with the bottle edge and slightly twisting the top on. The U.S. model has a standard U.S. plug contacts. The units going to the EU probably have the EU type contact assembly. Slick!We do not need speed greater than the AC1200 standard right now. However, if we need more speed or more features the GLi company will be the first place we will look. GLi put a lot of thought into their design and it makes me confident that their electronics are designed with the same care and detail.

Specific usage:a. For people that work from homeb. The corporate computer only has Ethernet portc. The corporate computer does not allow installation of driver or apps for personal usage. This means no WiFi USB dongle can be installed. Only way to connect internet is via Ethernet cable.d. The corporate computer is shielded from external network’s IP Address.e. A back up to get to internet when the AT&T fiber is downf. One time set up only, aside from setting Admin password for the admin page of GL-SFT1200 and “trust this device” from Apple iPhone the very first time, no additional set up is needed.g. For each time to connect iPhone with GL-SFT1200, you will have to unplug/plug your corporate computer Ethernet cable to GL-SFT1200. This is the only needed step.What I love about this device is that it is a router, that shields your computer from external network IP (as shown here, it is 172.20.10.x) to your local network 192.168.8.x.The admin page is fixed at 192.168.8.1 whether you are connected to internet or not, this is the most critical difference from TP-Link client mode.The set up does not really require any specific settings as the USB Tethering mode is automatically detected by GL-SFT1200 as soon as the USB cable is connected to Apple iPhone.After initial set up and “Trust this device” with your iphone, there is no need to enter pass code anymore, just plug in the USB cable to iPhone and unplug/plug the Ethernet cable to your computer, the Ethernet connection will come up smoothly.

Not bad. I wish they posted the wifi repeater maximums with vpn. I bought it and tested with my home network with and without Wireguard. My home internet is Fios gigabit with ~900 mbps up and down. Speed test with my wireless router from my phone gives 324 Mbps down and 255 Mbps up (it's a google wifi mesh router).Using the Opal with repeater mode to my home network... Without wireguard, it reaches 130 Mbps down and 47 Mbps up. I'm not sure why upload is so much slower, but it's not a big deal. With wireguard, it reaches 30 Mbps down and 25 Mbps up. That's a LOT less than the advertised wired speed of 65 Mbps and it is completely CPU limited... guess repeater takes a good chunk of cpu. Latency is about 10 ms to the internet - not bad.For the price... I guess that's fine. I'm using it as a travel router and the reality is even most paid public internet won't really ever exceed 30 mbps. The next step up is over double the cost, so I'll probably keep this.

Nice tiny router. WAN connection via WiFi or Ethernet. Same on the LAN side. I bought it so I could connect from my garage PC's Ethernet port (PC does not have built-in WiFi) to this router's LAN side and then bridge to house WiFi. That worked fine for outbound, as expected, but I wanted the PC to be on same network, so I could ssh to it. I could have opened up a port in this router's firewall, but didn't want to bother with that. I ended up buying a TP-Link AC1200 WiFi Extender, which is more appropriate for what I needed -- it's basically invisible on the house network and TCP/IP traffic works fine in either direction, all hosts using the same IP subnet. It's possible this router could have done that, but I couldn't see how.I'm keeping the router because I can use if for trouble-shooting at some later date.