Support for USB WIFI Adaptors

eric · January 20, 2021, 4:16am

This is a Feature request for future GL iNet firmware: Support for USB WIFI Adapters

For multiple reasons users need to add a USB WIFI adapter to their GL iNet travel router, which the GL iNet GUI does not handle, and I have seen the GL iNet GUI overwrite changes that I have made to my router configuration with LUCI, to get my USB WIFI adapter to work. Right now the only way to configure a USB WIFI adapter is to flash the router with a generic version of OpenWrt, and give up on the GL iNet firmware. You loose a lot of features when you do this.

My reason for needing a USB WIFI adapter is I need to reach an AP that is out of range of my AR300M16-ext. Using generic OpenWrt firmware on my AR300M16-ext with a $10.00 RT3070 USB WIFI adapter shows more then a 20db improvement over the AR300M16-ext radio. I purchased the “ext” model of the AR300M16 so I would have an extended WIFI range device, but the product is not that good when compared to some inexpensive USB WIFI adapters that are readily available.

In the forum post: GL-AR150 router with extra USB wifi device - #17 by nonames
Alzhao wrote:

Alzhao
Sorry not ignoring. But didn’t have a good solution for you. We are not good at antenna design.

The GL iNet travel routers support USB modems, USB storage, and USB tethering, but there is no support for USB WIFI. Even if the support started with only supporting the RT3070 chipset, that would help most of the requests I have seen in this forum. As the driver for the RT3070 is already in the GL iNet routers, it is only a user space software change.

Here are several posts to the forum looking for help or support of USB WIFI devices on GL iNet routers:

Thank you for your consideration.
Eric

nonames · January 20, 2021, 11:25pm

Should be a sticky topic at the top of the forum.

@alzhao

glinoob · March 27, 2021, 2:12am

Supporting even a single generic chipset that’s already fully supported by OpenWRT would be an amazing improvement!

alzhao · March 27, 2021, 4:11am

3070 and 8187 chipset are very common old wifi 2.4G chipset and should already been supported. But you need to configure in luci.

Supporting every chipset that openwrt has already supported, may be that you can install the kmod of the wifi driver and configure that manually. Luci is also developed for compatibility. We are not replicating its job, but rather, just reserving it.

For some new dual-band wifi chip, may not be supported by openwrt as well. So on MV1000 we did a lot of work to make them work. Pls note, some of the wifi drivers may not be open source because of the code license.

So, things are complicated and we always try to improve, but with priorities.

Flasch186 · December 22, 2022, 8:19pm

Is there a WIFI dongle that works out of the box on the MT1300? One that extends the wifi coverage at say a baseball field?

jdub · December 22, 2022, 8:22pm

Like you want a wifi dongle to cover an entire baseball field? If that’s your goal you’re probably going to be better off with a real wireless access point.

Bitty_Bytes · December 29, 2022, 10:09pm

github.com

morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_are_supported_with_Linux_in-kernel_drivers.md

## USB WiFi Adapters that are supported with Linux ```in-kernel``` drivers

```in-kernel``` means plug and play, no need to install a driver.

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Important: Price and availability of listed adapters is subject to change. Updating the list of adapters does take a considerable amount of time. I try to complete a review of the links at least once per month. This site has increased in popularity to the point that readers of this site may cause inventory problems for some sellers at times so you may need to wait for inventory to be refreshed. To help with this problem, I have listed multiple links from multiple sellers for some products. If you see any problems or have links that should be added, please post in `Issues.`

Market Conditions: 2022-09-20 - Many good adapters are available. Prices for some, but not all, adapters are still higher than before the pandemic and certainly higher than we would like to see. The global shortage of chips caused by fab plants being shut down for periods during 2020/2021 and the inadequate investment in new fab plants for many years has led to tight markets that have caused high prices for some products and shortages of some products. This problem has recently been compounded by international shipping problems, continued outbreaks of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Higher than normal prices as well as periodic shortages may continue for some time...possibly into 2023. Most of you should be able to find something that meets your needs at a price you can afford if you shop around.

WARNING: I am seeing reports that concern me from users that want to buy adapters based on the mt7921au chipset. They are ending up with adapters that use the rtl8832au chipset due to bad information on some websites. One adapter in particular, Comfast CF-952AX, has been purchased due to ads that say it has the mt7921au chipset. However, it contains the rtl8832au chipset which is a really bad chipset for Linux users. The list below is carefully constructed and maintained to provide information and links that are known to be good. Mistakes can be made and I want to hear about mistakes so they can be corrected. An example of how this site is careful about information and links is that recently Netgear released a new adapter called the A8000. All evidence points to this adapter using the mt7921au chipset but the available evidence is not conclusive at this point so the adapter is not listed yet. Be careful with online information. 

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### Tri Band USB WiFi Adapters that are supported with Linux ```in-kernel``` drivers

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#### AX3000 - USB3.0 - 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz (WiFi 6E)

This file has been truncated. show original

I picked up an mt7612 usb wifi chipset and it works fine at 5ghz under Openwrt with the kmod packages installed.

For the next version of the brume2 and travel routers with USB-C power, having 2 fully powered USB3 ports would be a nice feature for expansion.

V1TAS · May 14, 2023, 5:51pm

Hi,
so can i add an usb wifi adapter now as wan interface (to use hotspots as inet source) and have the build in wifi of e.g. the beryl ax router as lan wifi for my devices?
And if so are there any specific wifi chips/adapter models i should look out for?

For me the whole point of a travel router is to put it in between the “public” inet (mostly wifi) and my devices ( e.g. smartphone/tablet)

glinoob · May 22, 2023, 8:02pm

You may be able to do this using Luci or the command line interface, but for the most part it’s not officially supported.

The MT76xx chipsets would be good, except they are currently affected by a kernel bug which limits their txpower severely. I checked a couple weeks ago and the fix has not yet made it into OpenWRT: GL-AR300M Shadow 5GHz dongle?

Chipsets on this list may work, but be sure to search first and see if they actually work in practice. Just because something works on desktop Linux does not mean that the driver in OpenWRT is the same, or up to parity with what’s being used in a desktop Linux distro.