Recommendations for a wifi-to-ethernet access point or device (bridge?)

I'm not sure if what I'm looking for has a name. I want a device that can wirelessly connect a few ethernet devices to my home LAN over wifi. I don't know if a plain vanilla wifi router can be used this way or not. I guess this is a wifi bridge?

I'd like the connected devices to appear to be on my home wired LAN, not on a separate LAN or subnet. I currently have a couple of (old) wifi routers, 2.4 ghz, I'd like this new bridge device to connect to one of them (which-ever has a stronger signal I guess). Or will I need to buy something new for this bridge to connect to?

DeopHaft said:

I don't know if a plain vanilla wifi router can be used this way or not.

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Yes, I have 2x Linksys E5400 purchased and used for this purpose specifically. They have Bridge Mode in firmware, 4x Fast Ethernet LAN ports (100Mbps), small physical size and cheap around $30-35 new. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios can be used for wireless bridge. If you need Gigabit LAN ports you have to find the corresponding model with Bridge Mode in firmware. Most Asus routers have it, called Media Bridge mode.

I see Renewed E5400 on Amazon USA for $25.



In the GUI:

DeopHaft said:

I'm not sure if what I'm looking for has a name. I want a device that can wirelessly connect a few ethernet devices to my home LAN over wifi. I don't know if a plain vanilla wifi router can be used this way or not. I guess this is a wifi bridge?

I'd like the connected devices to appear to be on my home wired LAN, not on a separate LAN or subnet. I currently have a couple of (old) wifi routers, 2.4 ghz, I'd like this new bridge device to connect to one of them (which-ever has a stronger signal I guess). Or will I need to buy something new for this bridge to connect to?

Click to expand...

Look for an out of date router (cheaper) that has the wireless bridge mode in its firmware in the setup mode. It also should have at least AC radios. While it can be done with N or even G radios your download and upload speeds will not be nearly as good. I am using an TM-AC68 (circa 2014) running the stock TM/ASUS firmware and when I connect it to my AX88Pro using the 5 Ghz radio I get a link rate of over 800 Mbps and when I run a speed test on a PC connected to the bridge with Ethernet I also get download speeds over 800 Mbps. If I use the 2.4 Ghz radio for the link it reduces the bandwidth significantly. All four LAN ports on the bridge router are available to connect to and will be in the same subnet as other devices on your LAN.

If you connect to your main router using the 2.4 Ghz radios and a 20 Mhz channel it will significantly reduce your bandwidth.

You do need something that can be specifically set into "media bridge" mode (the terminology varies across manufacturers). If running in regular "access point" mode, the device will not do what you want because it has exactly backwards assumptions about which data needs to be forwarded where. ASUS AIMesh has such a mode, though it only worked middling well for me when I was using it a couple years ago. (Maybe they got the bugs out since then, though.) The UniFi gear I use now doesn't seem to have such a mode. Can't say about other makes.

tgl said:

The UniFi gear I use now doesn't seem to have such a mode.

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Officially - no. In reality - people use the LAN port on wirelessly linked APs and it works with exception of eventually VLAN separated networks. I was also interested how they do it on single LAN device with PoE power and turns out the wired connection goes out of the PoE injector data port. Haven't tried this yet, but I see it discussed as possible option and used.