Once Upon a Time

As an expat, from time to time, I got to get some garbage whenever friends from my home country moved back. Well, they are not exactly garbages. But still, they are not very fancy or brand new.

One of them is an old TP-Link WiFi router. Until I moved to a bigger apartment couples of years ago, I did not need any extra WiFi router because the one from ISP company could cover the whole flat.

Old Router in Use (in uncomfortable way)

After I moved, I found some weak spots at home and I reminded the wasted router. At that time, I didn’t have much time and I just set another subnet, for example, 192.168.100.0/24 was from the ISP router, and 192.168.101.0/24 was from the old one.

The problem is that, I could not setup the routing table properly inside of the two routers, and I could not communicate inbetween those two different subnets which was annoying. For years, I just beared with it.

Necessity of One Subnet

Then, another friend threw me a Chromecast when she got a branch new smart TV. To control the thing, I should be in the same network whereever at my home.

Journey to One Subnet

Firstly, I dig up the old router’s manual. The box was there, but the manual was gone. I Googled the model name. Unexpectedly and thankfully, TP-Link keeps old model’s manuals.

I followed the manual. But it did not work. I could set the “WDS Bridging” checkbox, but when I tried to set the IP of the router to one of the ISP router’s subnet, the web UI of TP-Link router raised error.

I tried upgrading the firmware. Then, I found there is “hardward version”. 🤯 Mine is v2 and the WDS feature is supported from v4. Why the hell they put unsupported checkbox on their UI??

Other Options

Firstly, I looked for some WiFi expander or repeater. But apparently, they get the WiFi signal and send it. It means there will be large overlapped area.

I went to buy another router. I was going to wire it and minimize the overlapping. My decision was supported by the fact that there are some LAN wires over my apartment already. It runs through from the living room where my ISP router stays and it connects my working room and the guest room.

New Router(s)

I found a “Xiaomi Mi Router Gigabit edition” on Amazon Germany. The model itself is quite cheap but the seller on Amazon put even lower price than usual. I ordered two of them.

I opened one of them and put it in the bridge mode. It worked! 🎉

And apparently, the new router has stronger WiFi signal and if I put it in the guest room, I could eliminate asll the weak spots. I even didn’t need the second router!

Small Problem

I was happy but I found a tiny problem. The wire was about 15 cm shorter than I needed. But I don’t have any tool to extend it. I brought back the old TP-Link router, and turned it into a switch.

Posible Future Improvment

It is not a mesh yet. It means I have different access point ID. Thus, a new mobile device has to register both access point.

Funnily, “Xiaomi Mi Router Gigabit edition” has the feature. But apparently, the model that I got and installed wasn’t the one. They were lower model “Xiaomi Mi Router 4C”. I asked Amazon Germany for replacement, but the seller already sold every “Gigabit edition”. All Amazon could do was refund. 😮‍💨 🤦

I gave up and adapted to the current semi-comfortable system.