Disclamer

This Review is not sponsored, I bought the device with my own money after hearing about it on ShortCircuit.

Product Page: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt3000 Amazon

Overview

The GL-MT3000 is a great and small wireless router. With the integrated WIFI-6 Antenna and 2.5Gbit/s network interface it has a lot of capabilities. The builtin OpenVPN and Wireguard integrations make it easy to setup the device as a VPN-Server or VPN-Client. The device comes with a simple GUI for easy configuration but also offers the Configuration with LuCI which allows direct configuration of the underlying OpenWrt.

With the relatively low power consumption of approx. 8 Watts it can be easily driven over USB-C.

Multiple GL-iNet Devices can be managed over their goodcloud.xyz portal remotely. That functionality is opt-in which is greatly apprechiated.

Highlights

• Wi-Fi 6
• 2.5 Gbit/s LAN
• OpenWrt
• DFS

My Usecases

Holiday

• Wifi-Repeater: Have you ever been at an Apartment that has WIFI but it barely reaches your room? Just do a quick WIFI-Room-Scan with a mobile APP (like WIFIman) to figure out the nearest location to their AP or Router. Set the Uplink of the GL-MT3000 to Repeater and connect to the existing Wi-Fi (5GHz if available). PS: you can set the WIFI-Credentials to match the ones of your home. That way all your family members can connect automatically.
• VPN-Client: Setup the VPN-Client on the GL-MT3000 to connect to your home network. You can either choose to make the resources from your home network available or route the whole Traffic through your home for a higher level of security.
• Network-Storage: Plug an USB-Drive or Harddrive into the GL-MT3000 and setup a local NAS for sharing Fotos and Videos locally.
• AdGuard: Setup a DNS-Based Ad-Blocker for your whole network with just a few clicks.
• USB-Tethering: Connect a mobile Modem or Phone to the GL-MT3000 to get Internet access over mobile data. You can even use it for Failover or Loadbalancing.

Shotland

• Standalone Router Mode: For Shotland I only need a local area network.
• USB-Tethering: It helps to have internet access now and then to sync the time of the raspberry pi for correct timestamps in the log.

Conclusion

I think the GL-MT3000 and probably any product of the product lineup is a great device for experts that want easy deployments or hobbyists that would like to learn about networking. For the relatively low price one gets performant hardware, solid, open source software and a tinker-friendly product.

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