Beryl AX is sooo finicky
Want to preface this with that I love the idea of having a mini router with me. Everything from multi WAN (tethering + wifi repeater), to having VPN baked in is really cool and exactly what I want. A bit of background: I’m working in IT, I (think) I know my network stuff and have a good bit of experience administrating servers.
I got my Beryl AX last month and packed it for a longer trip abroad. It’s been now a month of almost daily usage with an unlimited data SIM and so far it feels just so dang finicky. Half the time I spend the first 10-15 minutes just setting it up and hoping that my internet works now. I’m at the point where I’m wondering if I should just not pack it and tether directly from my phone instead, because that seems to be far more reliable. Right now I’m still using the Beryl AX, because I want it to work, but I am close to switching to my phone wifi instead.
My setup:
- Samsung phone with unlimited data SIM
- Connected to Beryl AX through USB cable, tethering through USB enabled on the device. Occasionally tethered through WiFI when USB is having issues
- NextDNS setup through manual DNS
- Repeater set to cafe wifi as fallback
- Other stuff that’s enabled: Tailscale (not exit node), IPv6, DDNS, Hardware acceleration
- Network mode: router
The phone has internet, devices that use the phone tethered wifi directly have internet, but devices that use the beryl have constantly sites not loading. This is also when changing the DNS to automatic, and just using NextDNS on the end devices instead (my point is, it’s not a DNS issue).
When I try to use repeater only, I often get issues that it can’t join the WiFi, even when forcing 5g or 2.4g.
Are there problems with the hardware when tethering from an android phone through USB? I tried switching between WiFI and USB, and it feels like WiFi repeater is a lot more reliable/stable, which is unfortunate because I don’t want to have 2 devices next to each other that both create a wifi network.
Am I doing anything wrong with the way I use it? Any tweaks I can do to make it more reliable?
Anything I can try here?