GL-SFT1200 (Opal) Portable WiFi Travel Router, Mini VPN Wireless Router for Fiber Optic Modem, Mobile Internet WiFi Repeater, Dual Band Openwrt Computer Routers, Home/Business/RV/Cruise

I wish I could give this SIX stars. Not only is this a VERY CAPABLE portable router, it is a super-powerful, user friendly, intuitive, whole-home router. When I bought this, I was merely looking for something that would allow me to port forward through a VPN and over-come my mobile provider's unforgiving home internet hardware and configuration. Boy did I get my 40 bucks worth! Not only does it support OpenVPN from a gigantic line of VPN providers, you can manipulate virtually every single setting in the thing and it makes my cellular home internet viable for my home lab. The router interface itself is based on OpenWrt (a lightweight Linux distro for routers and things) and has been cultivated with both the novice, security conscious user AND the advanced, home-brew, hobbiest network engineer in mind. You can setup multiple VPN profile types to support all kinds of needs and quickly switch between them. Advanced ad blocking, interfaces with dynamic DNS services, advanced firwalling, distributed networks and VLANs, and basically anything else you can think of that you might need. I'll try using my phone to tether with it soon. Right now, I'm having too much fun with the available items that are just standard. Because its software is a lightweight Linux system, there are hundreds of installable packages for this. If you have experience working inside Debian, you can run this thing and make it as powerful or as ubiquitous as you want or need. I'm anxious to find out if I can connect external storage to it because it's only got 128 MBs of storage on board. Don't let the size and price point fool you. In experienced hands, this thing is a NetGear & TP-Link exterminator that will NOT bog down your network.

Sometimes things just delight you. This is one of the products. On a recent trip to Europe, I stayed at many hotels. It was nice to connect one device and share the connection instantly with all devices. Easy to connect to, easy UI, fast, reliable, takes little power from USB-C so you can even power it with a small power bank. USB drive to stream own media. Built in VPN. …. Wow wow wow. It even saved me one time. I was at a nice small cozy hotel but their WiFi only worked outside my door (in the hall). No problem. I simply connected the router to a small battery bank and left it outside of my door. My devices connected to it and the router was closer to the hotel WiFi transmitter so I could use internet in the room. I know it’s not a topical example but it was so awesome to be saved this way. I use it each time I work from a coffee shop too. Why not. One WiFi connection, VPN, all my devices go online and are safe (VPN).

The GL.iNet Opal is a gem like it's namesake says. Bang for your buck, this is one of the best value in routers that exists. That said, it is an older router with limitations. Know before you buy: Look, this is NOT a power router with huge throughput for OpenVPN, WireGuard, or your favorite commercial VPN. It will work just great if you need to do normal day-to-day work, but if you're trying to move large files or backhaul multiple video streams via VPN, there are limits to its throughput. The reason is simple: VPNs use a lot of CPU and memory for the overhead of encryption. At this price-point you're not getting a huge processor or a lot of memory. If you need a lot of VPN throughput, then look at GL.iNet's higher-end travel routers for the same form factor and the throughput performance you are looking for. For everyone else, this is the travel router you want. It is an OpenWRT router (though not capable of the newest builds) and will support all of the features you would expect on a router 2-4x the price. Very easy to setup and administer to share an internet connection through tethering to your cell phone or sharing a public WiFi. This device is also easily setup as a VPN server behind your typical NAT primary router by port forwarding. Range is good for the travel form-factor and power consumption. It doesn't hold a candle to the range of my primary router at home, but it still covers the entirety of our 6,000sf home, just at lower signal & throughput a the furthest distances.

Good cheap travel router. I have used this router at multiple locations while on vacation and it has worked flawlessly everywhere, there is some setting up initially depending on the location, but after that it makes life way easier since I do not have to connect all my devices individually to whatever location wifi I am using. I have used the repeater function in hotels with no ethernet port and when there was issues withe the closest wifi at the hotel, I just switched to a different signal and it alleviated the spotty connection problem without having to wait on the hotel service to fix it. I have used it through ethernet mode and it worked as normal, all my devices automatically connecting without having to struggle to log in each device individually. As a dumb simple wifi travel router, you cannot go wrong with it, especially if you have a family you are lugging around with you. It does have other functionalities, but this is an older model and does run slower when trying to balance a VPN or network sharing function, if it is necessary I would suggest going for a newer model, but for what this device does and a price point under 40$, I would say it is more than enough for most, who just care about connecting multiple devices faster.

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.

Excellent product overall. For a portable travel router, I was very impressed with the ease of setup, connection reliability and user-friendly interface. The administration console is light years ahead of other more expensive routers I've used in the past. The flexibility, security options and elegantly designed interface outshine the modest cost. Put simply: it just works. Some of the more prominent names in home networking products can take a lesson from these folks on intelligent design. Considering all the available features and functionality for the price, a clear winner in my opinion.

Excellent product. Works exactly as described to connect to our local wifi provider and spread service through our whole house. It can connect to free hotspots and create your own wifi network. Highly recommend

First off, I think that this is a good product. It works well at 5GHz and 2.4GHz, and is easy to get up and running, at least for someone who knows at least a little about networked devices. The device itself is small and unobtrusive and will probably be an inoffensive addition to the average home or office. Now I'll mention a few issues: I'll have to ding the product for its documentation. Basically you have to get the device up and running and then do all configuration from a browser interface. There's a tiny getting-started guide on paper. I do this sort of thing for a living, so I had no problem with this, but it really feels as if a newbie could easily be utterly at sea over this. It gets worse in that many people will probably get the device up and running, and then fail to go to the extra step of changing the WiFi password. You'd think that there would be a huge, red warning in the getting-started guide telling people to change this, but there isn't. It's actually even worse than this because even when you're using their web-based admin UI, it's easy to get the WiFi configuration wrong. It turns out that the configuration for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz sides of the WiFi configuration are independent in the UI, with the 2.4GHz part lower down on the web page. When I set mine up, I was using a small screen, and the config for the 2.4GHz was scrolled off the bottom of the screen, and I didn't notice that it even existed. (Why would you expect two different WiFi password setting steps? I've never seen one like this). Anyway, I initially set things up, changing the name of the device only to discover that the default name of the device still showed up on my list of available network devices along with the name I had given to the 5GHz side. I found that I was still able to log into the device using the default password on the 2.4GHz side. This sort of thing is shameful. The world is full of IoT devices which provide possible hazards to our home environments. We should all complain vociferously about devices which don't take our network security seriously. The other problem I ran into was with the physical design of the device. I planned to install the device in my garage, where I have hard-wired Ethernet, but have always had terrible WiFi connectivity. I had assumed that this device, like most other small electronic devices, would have those little keyhole shaped holes in the bottom to let one wall-mount the device on a couple of screws. No such luck. What?? Because of this, I ended up having to make a little shelf out of a scab of 2x4 to mount it, and zip-tie it to the shelf. This is a rather worse state of affairs that I would have liked. All of the connector sockets are on the back of the device. With anything plugged in, the effective size of the device ends up being a few inches deeper than the actual physical size of the device. If I were able to hang the device flat against the wall, it'd be fine to have the plugs hanging below the device (though the power cord doesn't lock in and might fall out). Mounted on a little shelf horizontally, there's no way to fit the device into a stud bay and have the front facing forwards. I ended up mounting it sideways. It's a little offensive-looking, but I can live with that - it's just a garage. For want of a couple of holes molded into the base of the device, I ended up getting annoyed. So, the bottom line is that this seems to be an entirely competent device marred by a simple production design issue and by shameful documentation of the important security issues associated with installing a device like this.