Here’s a tiny, useful and inexpensive device that we added to our kit earlier this year. At around £15 the TP-Link TL-WR702N 150Mbps Wireless N Nano Router is a mini marvel.
Powering the unit up from the supplied mains adaptor or indeed any USB port (micro USB lead included) you’ll find DHCP is switched OFF out of the box. We connect it to our MacBook with the handy flat Ethernet cable that’s supplied and manually set our IP address to 192.168.0.x.
Now just browse to 192.168.0.254 and log into the web interface (default username : admin – default password : admin) and then make sure to update the firmware to the latest version.
The router can perform a variety of useful functions and depending on how you choose to set it up it the TL-WR702N can act as an Access Point, Router, Client, Repeater or Bridge. Our primary requirement was for an ultra-portable Wi-Fi access point that we could take on holiday so the whole family could stream videos from my laptop performing the role of a Plex Media Server. It’s also ideal for business travel, easily converting the Ethernet in many hotel rooms to your own private Wi-Fi hotspot to provide all your devices with Internet access. It would be ideal for university students too.
There are other roles for the TL-WR702N too, including turning the Ethernet port on your Sky+, YouView box, printer etc into a wireless connection instead. If you have reliable Wi-Fi then it’s certainly going to be less expensive than adding Powerline adapters.
- Compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g/n
Nano Router : Plex Server
- Wireless speed up to 150Mbps
- Compact and portable, small enough to take on the road
- Powered through a micro USB port by an external power adapter or USB connection to a computer
- Compatible with almost all 2.4GHz Wi-Fi devices
- Supports AP, Router, Client, Bridge and Repeater operation modes
- Supports WEP, WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK encryptions
For our Plex Server roll you could of course use your laptops built in Wi-Fi to create a network, but that stops the computer accessing the hotels wireless Internet at the same time. You could also use a 2nd Wi-Fi radio with a mini USB dongle like these, and we’ve tried that too but had mixed results serving Plex clients. This little unit is so inexpensive and flexible that it’s a total no brainer and will be coming on holidays with us from now on.
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Bought one myself a couple of weeks ago for the exact same reasons. Though the price was £20, so it’s just dropped.
I should have got it a couple of weeks earlier as we were on holiday in Tenerife and the hotel charged for wireless internet per device.
Cheaper than making your TV wireless with a proprietary USB stick.
I’ve also got a HP Touchpad with XBMC player on for my son when we’re in the car. We can have the router on then either of our phones can remotely control the tablet.
How would it work if the hotel first prompts for a web page login like a lot of hotels do?
Dave – in our experience hotels have a login page for their Wi-Fi Internet access, but not for Ethernet presentation.
I want to use it in a hotel via the hotel’s wifi. The login provided restricts you to one device. If that device was the router could I I have several devices hanging of the router OK?