I’m looking at picking up a Mikrotik to use as a travel router in order to provide VPN access to my devices. I currently use a laptop to connect to the vpn and share the connection, but it’s a PITA, especially with getting everything to use the right MTU.
I was originally looking at the mAP line due to it’s low price, but I’ve seen comments about it having poor wireless performance. The hAP line seems to be what I need, but with so many versions it’s hard to tell the differences.
What do you think would be the minimum hAP for this use case? What would be the best bang for the buck?
If you don’t mind not having a 5GHz band, then the hAP ax lite LTE6 would be the most affordable option.
You can put in a SIM card and you would only need to plug it in when you need a connection. And the RRP is $99,-.
But if you don’t need the LTE and want that 5GHz band. Then the hAP ax² would probably be your best bet. It is quite compact and also has an RRP of $99,-.
Absolute bottom budget would be a hAP ax lite. It lacks the 5GHz and LTE, so you need a wired connection in any case.
But it is only $59,-.
If I’d be travelling a lot, I think that I’d opt for the LTE capable one.
But if I could leech a wired connection, then I would take the ax². I currently have one at home and they’re great little machines.
I have the the hAP ax² and it’s a very solid router. It has a really solid body and seems really durable, but also if weight is a factor, then the hAP ac lite might be a solid choice - it has a USB port to add LTE support if you need that down the line. If you know you want LTE now, then the best hAP is probably the ax lite LTE6 like Aug mentioned.
I have several hAP ax3 and a hAP ax2, I would immediately go for the ax2. The LTE of the ax lite LTE6 is nice, though no 5ghz would be a bummer for me.
I run a bunch of things on each of the listed mikrotiks, they’re at different houses connected via wireguard and exchanging routes with BGP. They are solid and don’t run into any trouble.
I don’t see myself needing LTE and I’m not traveling that much so cost and value are big factors.
Besides 5GHz, what would I lose going to the ax lite? Is wireguard slower? Is the 2.4Ghz coverage worse?
Weight is not a huge factor. While USB power is nice, it’s not a big requirement. The primary use will be at hotel rooms where I can just plug it into the wall.
Why do you recommend the ax2 over the ax3?
Do you see any performance differences between the models with wireguard? What speeds are you typically getting?
The ax lite is a bit weaker in the CPU and has less ram. You can probably run wireguard just fine and maybe not even any slower than on the ax². Both don’t have hardware encryption, so it’ll go over the CPU regardless.
But if you’re relying on the connections you have available at a hotel, then your limiting factor would most likely be their connection.
For crowded areas like hotels and such, I would personally prefer something with 5GHz. The penetration/range isn’t great, but it makes it a lot easier to get a faster connection to the router.
I’d pick the ax² over the ax³ because of the size. The ax² is just a more compact thing without any external antennas. While you barely have any less performance. I think only the ram is larger on the ax³?
As long as I can get around 100Mbps with WG I’ll be happy. I can make do with 50M but that wouldn’t be my preference.
I’ve definitely considered how much contention there might be and if I would need 5G, but when I was using my laptop I only had 2.4 and that worked well enough. I’ll have to look and see what supports 5G out of my typical kit.
With the ax², I ran a couple speed tests from work through WireGuard to my home connection… That maxed out at around 300~350 Mb/s.
I have a gigabit fibre connection at home and I work at a uni, so we have plenty bandwidth there to facilitate such a test
@CJRoss
This video just dropped… I don’t see a product page on their site yet and it will probably take a while before it is actually available. But this seems like a nice travel option which is small and rugged to take along as well.
