GL.iNetGL-AXT1800(Slate AX) Portable Gigabit Travel Router, Pocket-Sized, Wi-Fi 6, Extender/Repeater for Hotel&Public Network Storage, VPN Client&Server, OpenWrt, Adguard Home, USB3.0, TF Card Slot

I decided to buy this primarily for travel use so that even when I am away from home.I can connect to my home network via WireGuard VPN and access my NAS drive without replying on software VPN on my laptop and mobile.As a side benefit I travel a lot to countries with lot of internet censorship and It helps me overcome those censorship. All my devices, laptop/tablets, smartphones are connected to this and this router is connected to my home network and I don't have to worry about any app blocked in that country.I feel Wiregaurd client on windows and Android/ios is not stable enough and connection gets degraded over time. But I have not felt it when using Wirgaurd thru this Router.It is one of the fastest VPN travel router with 4 core Qualcomm chip capable of around 500Mbps VPN throughput via WireGuard.Software UI that GliNET provides is very neat and clean and easy to understand. I was able to setup withing minutes. It can connect to Internet via its Ethernet Wan Port, via WIFI as well as USB tethering.It also provides standard OpenWrt web interface which is more advanced but I did not have to use that.Besides wiregaurd which is gold standard these days for home VPN it also support OpenVPN, ZeroTier, TailScale.It also provide option to turn on adgaurd in the router and all devices connected will have ads blocked.On the WiFi side it provides both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSID and you can name them differently. Also provides options to set Guest SSID for both bands.It has tons of plugins that can downloaded on to this router and activated. Astonishing to see so much functionality packed in this tiny little device.If you are looking at it and on the fence. Buy it and you will be amazed how much functionality this device can provide.*Edit*Fan bug has been fixed in the latest firmware and you can set the temperature threshold from 70 degrees to 90 degree. I set mine to 70 degree and fan maintains this temperature and adjust the speed to stay at this temperature.

The big selling point for me is OpenWRT that is the underlying operating system. I have dabbled in IT (networking included) for years, and I know how capable and flexible OpenWRT has been.While the GL.inet web interface is more intuitive and easy to use, it does not provide all the options that are necessary in certain enterprise Wifi situations. Using LuCI (the web interface to OpenWRT), I was able to specify the necessary configuration. That took a little bit of research and experimentation.OpenWRT and LuCI are open source projects and are widely used. There is plenty of information and instructions online. That being said, some background in IT and networking may be needed to dig through some of the material.The little router does run barely warm in an ambient temperature of about 68F. That is to be expected because the RF components consume a bit of power. The circuit board has a large heatsink and a quiet fan for active cooling. As long as the router is not being run inside a closed environment, thermal management should not be a problem.Like most portable routers, power is supplied via a USB C connection. This is a great feature because one can potentially run the router using a USB power pack for truely wireless networking in a mobile application.If you are not familiar with OpenWRT, but otherwise have a background in networking or IT, read about OpenWRT and understand the capabilities and flexibility. I was willing to drop down to command line interface configuration, but LuCI was sufficient to specify the configuration. Otherwise, knowing Linux and how to use the command line interface will be quite handy.Look at it this way, this router is essentially a Linux computer pretending to be a cute portable router with a fantastic software package installed. The GL.inet user interface is sufficient for most non-enterpeise wifi setups, LuCI handles probably most of the rest of the configuration situations. If necessary, drop down to the Linux command line interface for the finest level of customization.