Hi folks.
Have an ageing D-Link DIR-510L travel router which we take on holiday to provide a local WiFi network (and firewall!) which is piggy-backed onto the Hotel’s own WiFi (which requires password/signup/access-webpage etc).
What would be a good replacement for this device, please? Here’s a link to it: D-Link DIR-510L
Thanks 
I love travelling with my Beryl AX (GL-MT3000). I’s not the same form factor as what you had. But a great device with lots of features.
Yep, would go with Beryl or Opal as well. I am using the Opal and it works sufficient for hotel stuff.
My absolute favourite all-around device is the Slate Plus. Small form factor, much power.
For hotels a Mango/Shadow is enough mostly. Sometimes I am using a power bank in between to avoid reregistration, when I am leaving the room for breakfast or similar.
Slate AX, hands down. Advertised 500 Mbps max. WireGuard VPN speed, 512 GB uSD card support and USB 3.0 port. Like the Slate Plus, if you get sick of the GL GUI firmware or find it too limiting then flash it w/ ‘pure/vanilla’ OpenWrt (brought to you by @solidus1983 )… & have full access to the entire OpenWrt ecosystem when you’re ready, even if out of warranty/support.
Thanks everybody for your suggestions! I’ll go and take a look…
Now would be the time to buy; those Black Friday prices look great!
FYI: You can flash the latest release of OpenWrt on that. Give it a go after you get your new GL device up & as you like it; it’s a good good practice to have a ‘sandbox’ to experiment before committing to vanilla OWRT on a production/‘daily driver’ device… even if you don’t fully commit to vanilla.
“You can flash the latest release of OpenWrt on that”…
Yep! Already done that!
But I’m not an expert on OWRT and it appears that the .bin image install from the OWRT site makes it (effectively) just a wifi access port (and the orig WAN eth port becomes part of the local LAN instead) rather than what it was originally: the WAN. But OWRT image doesn’t install the concept of a WWAN (a wireless WAN) firewalled from the local WLAN… my skills don’t yet stretch to configuring the “firewall/bridge/switch/physical-devices” bit sadly…
I don’t fully understand how the OEM D-Link did the radios originally, as it only has two actual radios (the 2.4 and 5gig) and it used to (as an OEM install) have a WAN WiFi -and- a LAN WiFi simultaneously on the same band (2.4) … How does it do this??? (2 wifis on 1 radio?)
If I had to guess, probably VLANs &/or the radios happen to support multiple SSIDs. When you get your chosen GL device, there’s the default option for a guest Wi-Fi subnet (192.168.9.0/24) that’s completely separate fr the ‘primary’ (192.168.8.0/24) which applies to both radios.
Virtual LANs (VLANs) can be further configured to isolate say, your CCTV feeds from your general network. Setting that up does require some extra work though.
As for your DIR-510L’s WWAN you’d probably have good luck setting up a Repeater. I haven’t tried this particular HOW-TO but it looks straightforward enough:
Not quite sure what you meant by this??? Could you expand pls? Tnx
He uses something like this to power it:
OK, I knew what a power bank was -- but why not just leave it plugged into the power socket? – but I thought It was actually something cleverer(!) that was keeping the WiFi link alive here, when he wasn’t actively browsing the web in the Hotel Room (since sometimes hotel wifi access “times out”, eg overnight).
Apologies if my question was perplexing (dumb? LOL), but I thought something more clever was afoot here!
I’ve read at least one report in this forum certain hotels kill all power to known empty, but still occupied, rooms inc. the AC outlets. Some may/may not have a single dedicated outlet to maintain current to whatever’s connected. It’s all supposedly something to do w/ ‘green’ initiatives.
So yeah… consider yourself better armed than most for that potential nasty little surprise.
Re: overnite timeouts:
That theoretically shouldn’t be an issue for you. By default the GL GUI has a ‘Multi-WAN’ feature enabled OOTB. It pings whatever IPs you set every (n) seconds.
Be warned about the 100mbps only LAN port.
… & that’s still an optimistic rating!
In hotels I’ll stay, you put the Key card in a slot near the entry. If you leave the room, you take the card and the power will be cut …
So I use a little power bank (see link before) and the shadow will stay online. So I don’t need to wait for power up, re-register at the capture portal and don’t have do activate the VPN again.
The Shadow has only 100mbit and only 2,4 GHz WLAN. Right.
It comes with a small price, small size and very low power consumption. You can power it direct at any Laptop USB port or even mobilephone with OTG cable.
In performance it is more than enough for most hotels.
I steam movies from my NAS at home. Not in 4K, but before the Shadow break together, the hotel line is the bottleneck.
If you want maximum power, use the Beryl AX, with 2,5GBit WAN and WIFI6 … Depends on how much hotels you are stay will support this bandwidth.
The choice It is up to you, I just tell my experience. The highest numbers in datasheet are not the only important value.
C’mon, Lupus… we both know that 2.5GbE is a marketing gimmick. You’d never hit that rate at a remote location/hotel/conference/whatever. It’s better to have a more performant WG client == Slate AX.
/ mic drop.
My first post started with Slate Plus as road device.
My Slate AX is at home as WLAN Bridge for a VLAN.
One reason: My bags are often used and not very often full cleaned, so I don’t want dust in the fan. The Slate Plus got no fan.
But where to draw the line if 100 MBit, 1 GBit or 2,5 GBit it best? I think this is up to the user.
you can put any credit card sized plastic in to avoid cutting electricity when you leave the room, does not need to be the key card.
I have a bit of plastic from an old sim card, works fine.
… but that’s not quite the whole story is it? 2.5GbE with 300 Mbps max WG or 1.0GbE with 550 Mbps max WG (as advertised). IDK about you but these days a VPN endpoint rotation is near mandatory if you don’t want to be commodified by our corporate overlords.
(I won’t bother w/ 100 MbE as that’d be lucky to break 35 Mbps WG.)