Small Cheap Wireless Bridge

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Small Cheap Wireless Bridge

bakedjake

5:12 am on Feb 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

This probably doesn't exist, but:

I need a small, cheap, wireless bridge that has a PoE jack (that is, it will send out power to an ethernet device).

Since this likely doesn't exist, I'll settle for a small, cheap, wireless bridge and use a passive PoE injector. Anyone know of a good one?

Why is it that wireless bridges were like $30 a couple of years ago and now they're $100+?!?! It's unbelievable, but the Apple Airport Express looks like the cheapest offering!

blang

4:18 pm on Mar 1, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'd recommend finding yourself a used WRT54G (v2 ~ v4) or WRT54GL and flash it with DD-WRT firmware [dd-wrt.com]. I usually pick these up on eBay for around $20.00 or so and flash them with aftermarket firmware (either the aforementioned DD-WRT or OpenWRT [openwrt.org], although I find the former is much easier to setup as a wireless bridge). IIRC, I've even seen a couple of hacks where PoE was used with a WRT54G to put it on the roof.

Just be sure you get a model with a supported version. Some other routers (e.g. Buffalo) can also be flashed and work the same way, and can be found cheap.