GL-SFT1200 (Opal) Portable WiFi Travel Router, Mini VPN Wireless Router for Fiber Optic Modem, Mobile Internet WiFi Repeater, Dual Band Openwrt Computer Routers, Home/Business/RV/Cruise

I wish I could give this SIX stars. Not only is this a VERY CAPABLE portable router, it is a super-powerful, user friendly, intuitive, whole-home router. When I bought this, I was merely looking for something that would allow me to port forward through a VPN and over-come my mobile provider's unforgiving home internet hardware and configuration. Boy did I get my 40 bucks worth! Not only does it support OpenVPN from a gigantic line of VPN providers, you can manipulate virtually every single setting in the thing and it makes my cellular home internet viable for my home lab. The router interface itself is based on OpenWrt (a lightweight Linux distro for routers and things) and has been cultivated with both the novice, security conscious user AND the advanced, home-brew, hobbiest network engineer in mind. You can setup multiple VPN profile types to support all kinds of needs and quickly switch between them. Advanced ad blocking, interfaces with dynamic DNS services, advanced firwalling, distributed networks and VLANs, and basically anything else you can think of that you might need. I'll try using my phone to tether with it soon. Right now, I'm having too much fun with the available items that are just standard. Because its software is a lightweight Linux system, there are hundreds of installable packages for this. If you have experience working inside Debian, you can run this thing and make it as powerful or as ubiquitous as you want or need. I'm anxious to find out if I can connect external storage to it because it's only got 128 MBs of storage on board. Don't let the size and price point fool you. In experienced hands, this thing is a NetGear & TP-Link exterminator that will NOT bog down your network.

Sometimes things just delight you. This is one of the products. On a recent trip to Europe, I stayed at many hotels. It was nice to connect one device and share the connection instantly with all devices. Easy to connect to, easy UI, fast, reliable, takes little power from USB-C so you can even power it with a small power bank. USB drive to stream own media. Built in VPN. …. Wow wow wow. It even saved me one time. I was at a nice small cozy hotel but their WiFi only worked outside my door (in the hall). No problem. I simply connected the router to a small battery bank and left it outside of my door. My devices connected to it and the router was closer to the hotel WiFi transmitter so I could use internet in the room. I know it’s not a topical example but it was so awesome to be saved this way. I use it each time I work from a coffee shop too. Why not. One WiFi connection, VPN, all my devices go online and are safe (VPN).

The GL.iNet Opal is a gem like it's namesake says. Bang for your buck, this is one of the best value in routers that exists. That said, it is an older router with limitations. Know before you buy: Look, this is NOT a power router with huge throughput for OpenVPN, WireGuard, or your favorite commercial VPN. It will work just great if you need to do normal day-to-day work, but if you're trying to move large files or backhaul multiple video streams via VPN, there are limits to its throughput. The reason is simple: VPNs use a lot of CPU and memory for the overhead of encryption. At this price-point you're not getting a huge processor or a lot of memory. If you need a lot of VPN throughput, then look at GL.iNet's higher-end travel routers for the same form factor and the throughput performance you are looking for. For everyone else, this is the travel router you want. It is an OpenWRT router (though not capable of the newest builds) and will support all of the features you would expect on a router 2-4x the price. Very easy to setup and administer to share an internet connection through tethering to your cell phone or sharing a public WiFi. This device is also easily setup as a VPN server behind your typical NAT primary router by port forwarding. Range is good for the travel form-factor and power consumption. It doesn't hold a candle to the range of my primary router at home, but it still covers the entirety of our 6,000sf home, just at lower signal & throughput a the furthest distances.

4-1/2 stars . My first travel router is working great! I got this for occasional travel and coffee shop use. Set up is fairly easy but there are a few steps to go through and it did take a little google-ing to figure out how to set up my Surfshark VPN with the device. But now that it’s set, it’s easy to enable or disable my VPN if needed. I am using it in repeater mode in a hotel, and the family are all connected. I thought I’d be able to plug in drive and stream media through it. Read something after purchase that this was enabled via a previous software version, and may work in a beta, but not sure. Maybe user error. I am able to stream media from my Jellyfin server and that worked fine. For the price and VPN security (with separate VPN provider) this is pretty cool. Good entry level solution to see if this is something beneficial for you. You can always upgrade to a higher end model later.

The router performance is about the same as the Tenda AC1200 AC8 it replaced. It does that with MUCH smaller antenna and only two of them compared with 4 antennae of the AC8. Prepare for very small fonts in the start up instructions! I did have an issue and needed to go online to the site for clarification. Possibly due to language differences there was confusion as to which password to enter into the router once it rebooted. Either the new router password or the host password. That was resolved and the router has run smoothly since 12/11/24. It was setup in our house but it will be transferred to an office environment shortly where its host and password will again be changed before it settles into service at that location. Based on its performance we ordered three more. This router was approved for use by our national organization. We also bought the carry cases for them as Amazon offered a case designed for this router. We do need a case to protect the router when not in use. If you use "WISP" mode to connect to the host wirelessly this router does not have one. Its equivalent mode is "Repeater" and it works the same as WISP as it connects to the host and on to the Internet in our case. We have not used the router in any other mode, however we expect that it will meet our expectations. There are two LAN and one WAN port along with a 2.0 USB port. With its small size we may use a switch for allowing access to other devices. A four port switch device is very light and won't interfere with portability this router affords. The color blends in very well with our office surroundings. The AC8 was only offered in black or white colors and with 4 large antennae it did not blend in very well. Packing it for travel or storage was very annoying. This Opal router works well and has side benefits. The antennae design worked well in a TP-Link access point we used several years ago. The Internet speed test we ran did not differ very much from the AC8 design so we expect about the same performance from this smaller unit as compared to the larger Tenda AC8 design. I also bought one for our house. A nice touch was the power supply and cord. Both match the unit color and the plug has a unique design. The cord is a flat design that FOLDS very nice within itself. I am NOT going to purchase round cords any longer. When one coils (folds) this cord just follow the contours that you see when you first look at the unit in the box. You can then fold it back into the same size. I took a photo of it so I could refold it correctly and it DID! A nice small package without using an elastic. Its funny how the little things add up to a nice design. The Gli folks have a nice design throughout the product. Even the box design is very well done. BTW the route unit takes up about 1/2 the box and the cord and power supply take up the other half. The router is in a soft sleeve and one will realize it is only 1/2 of the box size. The plug of the power cord will need a 10 second assembly. It seems to be a universal plug that allows the unit to adapt to US, EU and other electrical systems. The contacts assembly are separate from the remainder of the cord assembly. The instructions indicate how to connect the contacts to assemble it to the cord unit by aligning the contact unit with the cord unit and then clicking the two into place with a slight twist of the wrist. Sounds complicated BUT it is like aligning an aspirin bottle top with the bottle edge and slightly twisting the top on. The U.S. model has a standard U.S. plug contacts. The units going to the EU probably have the EU type contact assembly. Slick! We do not need speed greater than the AC1200 standard right now. However, if we need more speed or more features the GLi company will be the first place we will look. GLi put a lot of thought into their design and it makes me confident that their electronics are designed with the same care and detail.

This baby rocks! It does EVERYTHING! It is one of the easiest routers I have ever setup. Well documented online and ample support on the website. I could go on and on about how much I love this router, but I want to explain about the "bonus." There is a usb port on the router. I did a little research and you can turn this baby into a NAS or network drive with a usb thumb drive! I just happened to have a 1TB usb drive laying around, so I gave it a try. I found out on their website that I needed a router upgrade to install the app to handle the network drive. I had the latest "stable" upgrade, but needed a beta upgrade for the app. I installed the beta upgrade and everything worked like a charm. I set everything up in the routers setup program. I connected my new network (NAS) drive to Q4OS linux in my shop and to Windows 7 in my study. Pretty much all NAS, network and ethernet drives are well over 100 bucks! This baby is a super cheap alternative with the addition of an inexpensive thumb drive!!! I LOVE it! Beats all the Belkin, Linksys, Cisco, AT&T Spectrum and other routers I have ever owned or dealt with! I will definitely be buying another when this one dies. I have owned mine for about a year now with zero issues. It has stronger wifi than the AT&T router in my home. I got this to extend the range of my Wifi to my shop and garden. It has far exceeded all of my expectations!

This router may be small in size but it works great. Makes port forwarding easy as well as adding static routes. Seems to have all the things you would expect in a pricey router but at a much lower cost. Its made as a travel router so you can pick up wifi signals and bridge it into your network. I use it as a home router and it is better than many more expensive ones. I believe it runs open source software so you can also putty into it and manually configure things.

So let me start by saying my review was based completely on use and what its capabilities and not the actual device; therefore, keeping this in mind, my low rating indicates for the purposes in question it did not meet expectations. So again remember to determine what you are using it for. I needed to use it as a RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) connection as a repeater and this is where the unit had extreme limitations so please make sure to take this into account. In the past I have used a Beryl AX (GL-MT3000) with no problems but that one costs much more and I tried to save money and as the saying goes, you get what you paid for, I guess. When using it for RDP purposes, there is lot and I mean a lot of lag which is a huge problem when it comes to use continuous use on a telescope. My total guess is that the lag I was experiencing with the Opal (GL-SFT1200) versus the smooth performance of the Beryl AX (GL-MT3000) was that when controlling my telescope rig it is not just a matter of “speed”, but primarily due to Latency (Jitter), Protocol Efficiency, and likely Processing Power. I think, RDP is incredibly sensitive to "jitter" (variations in latency). While the Opal is fast enough to maybe download a file or send an Email, which I have read in the reviews, I think it struggles to maintain rapid-fire, real-time communication of an RDP connections to stream to a mini-PC, especially when bridging a connection from 25ft away outside. When I use the router in repeater mode, it has to receive a data packet from my home Mesh System satellite and then re-transmit it to my mini-PC (or vice versa). I think this doubles the work load on the router; therefore: --The Opal (WiFi 5) struggles with this because it has a weaker processor and uses an older communication standard that handles data one at a time. --The Beryl AX (WiFi 6) handles this effortlessly because it uses a modern standard designed to handle multiple data streams simultaneously. Also and more importantly, make sure to review your WiFi system "Language" and make sure they match (i.e., WiFi 6 vs. WiFi 6) to this unit. On my mesh system satellite system, it is a WiFi 6 system which the Opal is not. Anyways, the overall takeaway is make sure you determine what you are using it for and determine if the unit is capable of providing the support you need or you will run into the same issue I did. Good Luck!!!!!!!