GL.iNet Mini Smart Router Mango (Model GL-MT300N-V2) Thoughts

Lately most of my posts have been web3 related ( NFT / crypto ), but I decided to shift gears a bit.  I am not going to do a full deep dive review of this product, there are plenty online.  I did want to share my thoughts on the setup and use.

I purchased a Mini Smart Router ( Mango, model GL-MT300N-V2 ) from GL.iNet.  From time to time I would research OpenWRT compatible routers, and GL.iNet products would come up because they are OpenWRT based and many (but not all) seem to be supported by full OpenWRT releases.  I saw a good deal on Amazon and just decided to snag the Mango as a low cost entry point.

GL.iNet Mango ( GL-MT300N-V2 )

So first things first, I didn't have a pressing need for a travel router.  I have played around with OpenWRT on other devices ( RAVPower RP-WD03 and a Raspberry Pi 4 ) so I was familiar with the setup and use.  Ultimately I purchased the Mango as a cool gadget just for the fun of it.

Initial unpacking notes:

• The device is small and light.  I expected it to be small, but it was lighter than I expected.
• It comes with an Ethernet and USB-A to microUSB cable, which is a nice touch especially if you don't have many spare Ethernet cables.

Setup 1 - Initial setup

I didn't get creative here, I just followed the directions in the box.  My goal was to set the device up as a Wi-Fi repeater for my home network.  One thing to keep in mind, this device only supports 2.4 Ghz not 5 Ghz.  I was up and running pretty quickly with this option, the software is easy to setup.  Using Speedtest, my download speeds were a bit slower than connecting directly to my 2.4 Ghz network but still usable.  I looked around the interface, it seems much more user friendly than the LuCI interface on OpenWRT.

Setup 2 - Tethering

I wanted to try using the tether option via my smartphone.  Of course my phone can just run its own hotspot, but sometimes you just have to try things out.  I put my phone ( Pixel 6 Pro ) in USB tethering mode, and I was able to get it to work.  My first test had decent speeds, but that is because the Mango re-connected to my Wi-Fi (by default it will try to reconnect).  Once I disabled the reconnect option and tried again, I got the painfully slow speeds that I expected since my plan doesn't include high speed tether.  However the important thing is, the option worked.

Setup 3 - Access Point

For my next test, I just connected one of my extra LAN cables to the WAN port of my Mango.  I didn't have to change any settings for things to work.  I really like the fact that minimal configuration is required.

Android App

I checked the Play Store and an app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.goodcloud.glinet ) that is actually pretty nice and seems to come from Gl.iNet.  From what I can tell you can access most of the same configuration options that you can via the web interface.  It has a "cloud" option that you can use to remotely connect/control, but I didn't test that.

NOTE: I tried to setup the Wi-Fi to support for WPA3 and after that I couldn't connect, luckily I just had to hold the reset down for like 10 seconds and set things up again which was easy.  Not sure why that didn't work, I will research it later.

VPN

This took a little more work to figure out how to figure, but I was able to configure the device as a VPN client.  The coolest part is that there is a switch on the side that you can use to manually turn the VPN on and off.

Additional thoughts

After using the device for a while and playing around in the interface, I noticed a few things that I thought were pretty neat:

• The default setup seems to include mwan3 (Multi WAN load balancing).  So if you have Ethernet to one provider and Wi-Fi to another it can automatically switch between the two and I think it does some level of load balancing.  You can read up on that a bit more here ( https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/multiwan/mwan3 ).
• You can enable LuCI ( the default interface of OpenWRT ) to basically get more configuration options like you would with a traditional OpenWRT device.  This does not replace the GL.iNet interface which I actually like, it is just like adding a "power user" set of options.

Bottom line: So far I like the little router and might consider other GL.iNet devices in the future.

GL.iNet Product Page: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt300n-v2/
Amazon Product Page: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073TSK26W/