Advice please :pray:

Jairo · 2021-12-08T08:54:58.586Z

Hi guys, I need some advice about which router is the most suitable option, I aim to connect it 24h to a portable battery device, that will be plugged, so in case of a power failure will remain connected. That’s why I like the GL-MT300N-V2, because the power intake is just 5W. I also would need to connect it to my router via LAN, but in case of power failure (or just lack of data) it should connect to a mobile device via USB, I think this can be made by AT commands. What do you think? Is this possible?

limbot · 2021-12-08T09:47:43.634Z

So low draw and USB port. The Mango would be fine at < 2.75W but you could potentially get a little bit more runtime with a Shadow at <2.0W.

elorimer · 2021-12-08T12:09:31.246Z

The Beryl doesn’t use that much power either. It has a 3 amp power supply mostly to support the USB port, I think. I take it by failing over to a phone the USB port won’t have any draw to speak of.

It would be interesting to know how you mean to use this, if you already have a LAN and a router in the mix.

limbot · 2021-12-08T12:16:04.216Z

As long as your battery pack supplies 5V/3A , yes then you could support any of the range Beryl or below however the Beryl power consumption is <7.5 W, so theoretically your battery pack would run out almost 4 times as quickly.

Heck you could run a B2200 on a 5V/3A powerbank but with <15W draw, it would only last 1/7th the time a Mango or a Shadow would.

Worth noting that the unit may actually try to draw a bit more power with a tethered device as it will try and charge the device at the same time.

Depends on the capacity of your powerbank and how long you expect power to be out.

Johnex · 2021-12-08T13:03:01.624Z

Yeah that is the real question here. If there is a power outage, unless you have copper ADSL, then you won’t have internet since the ISP’s edge router will power down. ISP’s don’t require to have backups for power, only mobile operators, and they usually only have backup power requirements of around 2 hours for voice, and something like 30 minutes for internet.

So the question is, what will you use the router for if there is a power outage?

David · 2021-12-08T13:24:49.412Z

Hello!

I don’t know the answer because I haven’t tried it. In my country the current goes every two by three.

As Johnex says, the ISP shuts down but the cellular network does not, so Jairo wants to know if when there is a blackout, the Gl.iNet router goes from having internet through the LAN cable to having it automatically through the cellular network thanks to a USB device.

So I guess the question is: if the power goes out, how does the router connect to the cell phone network automatically, right?

Johnex · 2021-12-08T14:24:50.264Z

He would still only have around 30 or so minutes of internet even on cellular. Depending on the country. US + EU have laws saying that the cellphones must work for some time during blackout, other countries might not have this. He needs to check in that case. If he will only have internet 30minutes during blackout, maybe it’s not so useful?

If he will just use the router on its own during the blackout, then that is another story.

elorimer · 2021-12-08T15:35:27.223Z

Around us the nearest cell tower has battery backup for around 10 hours. The bigger problem is that when the power goes out, data usage spikes. Our coverage is iffy because of distance, and I’ve seen a 1-2mbps connection drop to 300 cps, like in the old, old days.

I take it the OP’s idea would be to install mwan3 on the mango, and when the main router goes down, the mango would switch to the cellular connection. That presumably would run off its own battery. If the battery bank was 20k mwh, then you might get 4 hours, yes?

At home my solution is less automatic. I enable the hotspot on the cell phone plugged into a battery bank. I might just think about tethering the mango in those circumstances as it might have more capabilities.

Johnex · 2021-12-08T20:26:44.519Z

Yeah apart from more traffic on the single tower, towers handle more traffic by reducing the output power, so they basically shrink in range to increase throughput. In some cases, you might loose connection completely because you fall out of range if there are a lot of people using the same tower at the same time. Depending on your location, towers might be laid out in a way that in the worst case, gives you a blind spot (some operators will actually balance this into their costs when laying out towers vs chances that this happens, while other places will give a perfect overlap in towers for any situation). This is noticeable in some situations like rush hour traffic, where you are in the middle of a call, and your call drops suddenly because the towers no longer overlap due to increased network traffic. If that happens, your operator was thinking about costs and not service quality

Almahadeus · 2021-12-08T21:38:53.813Z

I can see the idea itself as being quite attractive but I cannot think of what it would be useful for as any network device or client connected to the router that I can think of are powered by electricity rather than by battery and will therefore be rendered useless in the event of a power outage.

Jairo · 2021-12-09T16:06:35.401Z

Thank you all for your answers. Well, in my case I am not thinking in a total blackout, I live in a place where the electrical supply was made 80 years ago and for half of the population that is getting that electricity today (and with the nowadays demands, with air conditioning devices, electrical water heaters,…), so it usually falls due to high demand or just to manteinance, as to keep using the same station for, I don’t know, 5x the demand that was made for? (and the way the town was built becomes impossible to build a new station and divide) makes outages quite often in my neighborhood, but not on the outside, where the 4g antennas are. 95% of the time would be connected to the router through the LAN connection, it is only that I work from home and that 5% is important for me. Also security would be connected, so in case I don’t have power supply I would like to keep the whole system working. As you may notice, I have been thinking a lot about this, I am looking for a router that can make that connection income switch automatically, and if possible, with the lowest intake, so in case the supply is off for hours (last time was around 9 hours) the router lasts on as much as possible. I also considered Shadow as limbot suggested, I thought the intake was the same, that makes it even more interesting

elorimer · 2021-12-09T18:33:10.435Z

The failover part is mwan3 and any of them with a USB port would work, I think, although I’ve never done it. I’ve done it with my Asus routers.

So the next step is to define what “the whole system” is that you need in an outage, and how automatic it needs to be. Is it a laptop and the cell phone? Just tether it and keep going. Is it a laptop, a printer and the cellphone? Now you probably need the router, but the printer is your biggest power hog by far. More than one computer, or perhaps you need a switch?

9 hours is hefty, particularly if your laptop isn’t charged, but you might seriously look at a big UPS.

Also, you’ve introduced a different complexity: if you put a Beryl, Mango or Shadow between your LAN and what you want to keep working, you have to handle how that is going to work when you aren’t having an outage. With the Beryl you have 1 gig ethernet ports, so that plus routes might get you going day to day. But the Mango/Shadow has 100m ethernet ports, so you may be strangling yourself with the LAN routing.

I think maybe you map out the power on/power off diagram, and then figure out how to power it.

Jairo · 2021-12-09T22:24:25.977Z

Hi elorimer, and thank you for your reply. It would need to be connected to a laptop by Lan (laptop battery does not worry me, because if the power is off and I’m working I realise and I can react before it turn off, but I cannot do so with the router) and some IoT devices through wifi, maybe a raspberry in a future (with a low data transfer), I don’t pretend to have power for everything during 9 hours (normally outages are shorter), maybe a couple when using the laptop and some longer if the blank is during night. I already thought about the data transfer, but I don’t need more than 100 MB normally, and if it becomes necessary on a regular day, I can always unplug and connect to 5ghz in the main router (during a blackout, all the data transfer that may fit in the 4G net, about 10MB?)

Johnex · 2021-12-09T23:37:06.494Z

Notice that the port might be 100mbit from lan to lan, but not from lan to wan. If i remember correctly it was something like 80mbit unless someone else can find the data before me . Also remember some routers are near EOL, you are better off getting one of the newer routers such as Beryl. You will have more software updates, and future proof yourself in case you change your internet in the future.

eric · 2021-12-10T05:20:13.904Z

So which routers are near EOL? Once GL iNet stops selling a router, how much longer will they be supported? Should we be afraid to buy routers like the GL-MT300N-V2 due to GL iNet planning on dropping support in the near future?

Johnex · 2021-12-10T15:52:18.517Z

First of all, there are some topics about this already, search is your friend.

For which routers are near EOL only @alzhao knows.

HOWEVER, from a consumer perspective, new products will always have the most support. Since GL has only a handful of firmware engineers, new products get updates first, then the most popular products, and then the rest of the products, mostly by age.

So the question is not really if GL will update the products or not, its more of a “how often” will they update the products. A lot of users have been frustrated in the past that updates come out very slowly for the older products, but there is not much that can be done for that. Looking at the testing firmwares, products have been getting updates well after 2 years after EOL, so that is around the average you can expect, 2-3 years updates after the last one is produced (if we just look at their current track record, how that is in the future again, only @alzhao could say).

So which are the most sold / popular? Mango most likely of the mini routers, and since there are no new models of the mini routers, then those will probably not EOL any time soon. Other popular products are probably the AR750s. In general any router that has full support in vanilla OpenWRT will get a lot of updates since it is fast to do, without having to do a lot of porting and so on.

Unfortunately some routers have gone EOL quite early, like the Brume-W and USB150, just because the chips in those products are either very hard to find, or just not being produced any more. The “normal” Brume without wifi is however not EOL, so those updates will come for a long time for Brume-W as well since they are practically the same.

So personally if i were to get a router, i would always get one of the latest models. GL doesn’t have a list of release dates for routers, but a quick way is to go on the FCC site and just see which routers are the newest:

https://fccid.io/2AFIW

If you want to have all the latest features, then the newest routers will be first with that. For a travel size router, that would be Beryl for the most powerful one, Opal for a replacement of the AR750s in terms of power. For the mini routers it would still be Mango until a new mini router is released.

eric · 2021-12-10T17:01:07.133Z

Johnex:

… gone EOL quite early, like the Brume-W and USB150

Interesting, as the USB150 was just on Black Friday sales and is still available on Amazon. It is my go to router when I’m out and about, as it fits in my laptop sleeve. Also @alzhao stated there would be fixes for the GUI in 4.x for the USB150 in this post.
Usb150 updated to 3.105 luci is not working well - #12 by alzhao

So per your reply @alzhao only knows which products are going EOL and how long they will be supported. Since some new products like the Brume-W are already going EOL where some of there older products are still fully sold and supported, any statement made by anyone other then @alzhao on product EOL is just a wild guess and should carry no weight in making a buying decision.

Johnex · 2021-12-10T18:19:06.759Z

You can see here:

When will the new generation GL-USB150 hit the market? Technical Support for Routers

USB150’s chipset is EOL. So does the product. Before we find a new chipset for such a model there is no update.

@alzhao Said that USB150 and N300; 2 of the products you own; are EOL. The post you linked to was from the beginning of the year, the one i linked is more recent from August. They are not wild guesses, only factual statements directly from Alfie.

Having a lot of stock that lasts many years and the product no longer being manufactured are two different things. EOL and not offering support are also different things. But as before, unless @alzhao says otherwise, products have gotten updates at least 2 years after EOL, so take that or leave it. Since you asked to a reply i made, and it’s a public forum, you can talk to Alfie in private if you are not satisfied.

eric · 2021-12-10T19:18:33.535Z

Sure be nice if @alzhao or someone at GL iNet posted an EOL product list and a known bugs list somewhere that people could find without having to search the whole forum. People are buying products like the USB150 right now with no idea that they are purchasing a product with a limited life, that has known issues with the GUI that will not be fixed until 4.x, if it gets 4.x

It is unfortunate, at least for me, that the N300 was never well supported by GL iNet. I wasted more time on that router then any other GL iNet product I own. I finally found a task it works well for and it probably will never be updated again.

elorimer · 2021-12-10T19:22:26.956Z

We may be straying off topic, but it seems to me there are three things at work here. One is that all these devices are built on openwrt, which is in active development. The second is that some of these devices are running on proprietary drivers, like the Mango and Beryl, that only GL-iNet has access to. The opensource drivers may or may not be as satisfactory in combo with openwrt. The third is GL-iNet’s own proprietary interface.

If a device was working with opensource drivers, I would be less concerned about EOL; the worst that would happen is you devolve into openwrt without the GL-iNet interface. With proprietary drivers, EOL is a bigger thing, since some security fixes and improvements might only be possible in the proprietary driver, so GL-INet is your only source.

So I would start not with EOL but with whether there are opensource drivers for the chipset. I have three Asus routers that have been EOL for years but are still current with most security fixes through community support in the places where there aren’t closed source Broadcom blobs.