We are currently using a Beryl for our boats network that includes our navigation, VHF, and radar on the network. Even with snooping turned on the multicast packets seem to be crushing the Beryl and it drops its wifi regularly.
Most boaters I know use a Pepwave router such as the BR1 max or mini.
I see that GLi-net has the Collie router that physically looks like the Pepwave. Does anyone know how the Collie compares? I can’t really find any specs for the Pepwave but the Collie is about $400 cheaper.
Hi Crayyiii,
The Collie does not have a processor powerful enough to offer bonding like the peplink, only load balancing.
For boating, based on the fact that you may be traversing different mobile and satellite connections and would want an increased throughput, redundancy and seamless move across multiple WAN connections (Mobile providers etc.) I would recommend a bonded service. I have used and installed almost all the peplink options for many years and I moved to Teltonika about a year ago.
Since then I have replaced around 200 client Mikrotik routers with dual sim failover to Teltonika bonded solutions and I am very happy. Full disclosure, I am a Bondix reseller.
We currently offer bonded connectivity on both the Flint and Slate however we only have the dongle which can provide LTE on these so not useful.
Instead, for boating I recommend the Rutx12 which has two built-in Cat6 LTE radios, GPS, Bluetooth, dual band Wi-Fi and excellent bonding (up to 4 WAN’s can be bonded seamlessly). These are extremely well priced compared to the peplink equivalent.
Don’t get me wrong, we love GL.Inet, but in this case they are still working on a more powerful router with dual LTE to offer bonding.
Give me a shout if you need more information.
Yeah, we’ve been using the Gl-inet products for years and have absolutely loved them! They have traveled the world with us to provide connectivity and security.
We are currently sailing around the world for the next 8 years on our catamaran and have our onboard network setup using the Beryl as the router.
Like I said above, The network includes all of our high end navigation equipment, VHF, location tracking, radar, server that monitors boat equipment, Plex server, photo and video backup server.
For internet connectivity, we use wifi repeating (rarely), Starlink, or the Puli 4G router.
Our navigation equipment uses multicast heavily and even with snooping turned on, the Beryl occasionally drops its wifi and “reboots” just the wifi portion of the router. When it does this, we lose our navigation and VHF communication causing a safety issue for us.
It seems like we need a more powerful router for our use.
I was looking at the Collie router and it seems interesting but it also looks to be lower spec than the Beryl, is that correct?
In our travels we rarely have more than one type of internet connection available to us so I’m not sure the bonding and failover is a big deal for us but robustness of the wifi and networking is.
Let me know how best to contact you if you want to provide some guidance on product selection.