TP-Link Roam 6 AX1500 Portable Wi-Fi 6 Travel Router | Easy Public WiFi Sharing | Hotel/RV/Travel Approved | Phone WiFi Tether | USB C Powered | Multi-Mode | Tether App | Durable Design | TL-WR1502X

I bought this to use while at a program with multiple "modes" of wifi available to me that I could test with. This little router is nice for the price, and as I have TP-Link's higher end routers at home with mesh wifi at my house, I figured this would be good since it would have a similar interface and features. It turns out that it has some interesting features but also some quirks. OOTB, the firmware needed an update which was painless. I don't like using the phone app for configuration, but it is handy. The web interface is functional and responsive, although I don't like how the pages load templates and then fill in the "settings" after the page loads. The "Internet" page in the web interface has a password field for networks with passwords, but it is plain text so passwords aren't hidden, even if you refresh the page for instance. Wifi tethering was the reason I bought this router. When you look at available networks, it doesn't just show available SSIDs, but lists explicitly the available SSIDs, network frequency, and MAC address. There is a lock feature, so networks with multiple APs can be explicitly connected to. In early wifi systems where the mesh standard wasn't implemented yet, this alleviates issues where some devices don't connect to APs properly. You can also specify a specific band to connect to. In the building I'm in, the wifi system has a problem on the 5GHz band, so I can lock the connection to a specific 2.4GHz AP with the right mac address and although the connection is a bit slow, it functions. There was no possible way for me to get wifi on a 3 year old laptop by changing the wifi hardware settings in the driver, which seems odd. A bit of a fluke for Windows? Anyway, there are other reasons to carry a travel router. The VPN function was a breeze to setup. I linked the router to my VPS and had Wireguard running easily. Turns out that unlike my home system, this router allows you to toggle specific devices to use the VPN. There is also a server option which could be handy if you have multiple routers and want to link networks without running a separate machine. I tested the guest network with some friends and it works great. Able to specify bands and have both guest and primary network on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously unlike my Orbic hotspot. The guest network does not allow access to the web interface for configuration. Number of devices appears to be significant... You can specify subnet mask and DHCP server settings. By default you get 254 devices, which should be enough. DNS can be overridden for wifi tethering, including using DoT and DoH encrypted DNS without requiring a separate forwarding agent for systems that don't support encrypted DNS. The only disadvantage to messing with DNS is that on some networks, you may run into issues connecting to networks if they use web based login pages that can't be accessed when DNS is overridden, so be careful with that. I was able to setup my router to connect to NextDNS with DoH but not DoT. DoT wouldn't work for some reason; the server was detected but NextDNS reported that it wasn't using a profile. This wasn't the case with DoH. One feature request I have would be the ability to have advanced DNS configuration settings by device or at least by network, so the guest network could use a different DNS configuration or perhaps the default DNS from the wifi. The last feature I like about the router is QoS. My Verizon Orbic has a very high speed connection before I use up my data when I have a decent signal, however sometimes QoS is a good feature to have to ensure you don't abuse your own data caps if you're going to be out a while and need to conserve data. It's also useful if you're sharing a hotspot through a travel router without QoS like the Orbic, and want to make sure nobody uses all the data. NAT can be disabled, which might be interesting to try with the VPN feature. The MAC address of the wifi tether connection is completely changeable, and with the web interface can autodetect the devices' MAC address you login from and clone it. This is useful for instance, if you pay for wifi access from another device but later want to tether that wifi through the router without paying again or signing in again. I haven't tested router mode, usb mode or any of the others. Router mode would actually be useful from the Verizon Orbic or a hotspot with an ethernet port on it with the IP passthrough mode enabled and a short ethernet cable to cut down on wifi interference. The biggest most major quirk the AX1502 has is the 12volt USB-C power. I bought a USB battery, but with the router connected while my laptop is, it slows down the laptop charge rate. Same with my wall adapter. Both of these are Anker chargers. The next model up of this travel router supports USB-C 5V, but it's 3A which is also not really great for standard adapters. Don't lose the stock power adapter, which ironically enough is a 12volt USB A plug! I hope it's safe. The router itself literally draws about 3 watts of power max, so it's probably fine to get another small battery for it if I need, but I'd rather not have to carry yet another thing in my bag of tricks. Wifi range is decent, but obviously don't expect miracles. There are no external antenna connectors or even antennas. Literally just plugin and go. Works best for short range applications, but the signal will go through a wall or two. Performance is decent, but not my main consideration with this router. Most hotspots are not fast or even reliable to begin with so when tethering it's not really a consideration. VPN performance was identical to running Wireguard software on my laptop, which is a plus. One quirk is, IPv6 is not supported for Wireguard clients on the router. Why this is the case makes sense, but I don't have faith that this travel router is really IPv6 compatible to begin with. Size is fine, just feels a bit plasticy and cheap. Hopefully the chassis won't break.

I have only had this a little time. I will share that the product worked as expected. I was able to connect the router to hotspot and share it in client mode without issues. I was very happy because I was trying to do this with an outdated DD-WRT router which only supported the G band wifi. The old DD-WRT router I had was too slow for the purpose and couldn't keep a constant signal. This TP-Link was able to keep good speed / no connection drop (as of now) and has surprised me in its ease of setting up thru a wizard and a PC browser thru the LAN port. All was easy going and no issues. I was happy that wifi could be turned off and it just shared the connected wifi via ethernet only as I wanted. The price is cheap compared to me trying to source a new router and the hassle of flashing DD-WRT to one. As long as it holds up without connection drops, the price was well worth it to me. So far happy.

Have used this extensively at home and on the road for months with zero issues. Connected to every hotel, airport, and coffee shop I’ve tried, with solid speeds — usually, only a function of the host network. Extremely easy setup and configuration, as router or hotspot. I consistently use the web-based interface over the Tether app, only because I don’t want yet another app to have to manage. It’s straightforward and intuitive, and I am up and running within just a couple of minutes wherever I go. Compact and lightweight, takes up very little space in my kit. Firmware also successfully updated.

I am mainly using this to extend my work Wi-Fi father out it does a pretty good job. It easy to setup with easy to understand instructions. i will say that if you want it to run off a power pack you will need to make sure it is big enough because my 10k one wasn't big enough but the 20k was. I would say for the money it is a great mini router.

EDIT - Stopped working on my third ever field shoot. Less than 8 hours of total lifetime use. Takes 2-3 plug/unplug cycles on average to boot up ,then will sometimes boot up, run for five minutes, and crash. Multiple bricks and cables did not help. It's possibly just a fluke, but if this is indicative of its reliability, I can't recommend it. ------- This works great for my use case - I got this to add to my photography kit for setting up mobile photobooths - I can pre-pair my cameras, laptop, printers etc. to a known private network ahead of time, and not need to deal with the often unreliable wifi provided by the venue. Unlike some devices I've tried, it will happily allow you to set up a network that's not connected to the Internet in any way, even during initial setup (Netgear devices, in particular, have a really hard time with this). The web UI is basic but functional, and gets the job done without any distracting "easy setup" wizards that invariably always make things harder. The default SSID and unique-per-device password are written on the bottom, and also encoded on a scannable QR code there. The default admin password is the same randomized string as the WPA password, and it clearly says so, so it's easy to connect to without needing to google anything. My biggest annoyance is that there's no "remember me" for the admin website login, so you'll have to log in to the web UI every time you access the page...even if you're simply refreshing it. I had some trouble getting through the FTUE with the iPhone app, and found it easier to set up the first time with the web UI, but after that hiccup the app seemed to work fine. There are some nags for some typical "cloud account" nonsense, but it mercifully provides a "don't show again" button which it seems to actually honor. Powered by USB-C! This is incredibly useful for a travel device, but do be aware it requires a power brick (such as the included one) that can provide at least 9V via the USB-PD standard. Simple "dumb" 5V USB-C ports, including most laptop ports or USB-A adapters, won't work. The three-position physical mode switch on the side is a neat touch, and might be useful if you want to use this as a home router that you carry with you when you travel. Broadly speaking, "Router mode" is for creating a wireless network and optionally connecting it to a wired WAN (including a USB modem or USB phone tether), "Hotspot mode" is for creating a wireless network and routing it to an existing wireless network (like hotel wifi or a wireless phone tether), and "AP mode" is for connecting to a wireless network and routing it to a wired one (the LAN port). Changing the switch position reboots the device. Boot time, by the way, is glacially slow - almost two entire minutes (1:51 in my tests). This is particularly unfortunate for what's supposed to be a travel device, but once it's running, the performance seems fine. Pros: * Can be completely administrated using only a web browser, only an app, or both. * No mandatory cloud administration stuff (though it does have that it you want it). * WPS can be completely turned off. * 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks can use the same SSID (separate by default) * USB-C Power Cons: * Slow startup time * Requires full-blown USB-PD to power

This is my first TP-Link device and I'm impressed (the photo is not where it will be located it's just temporary until I wall mount it). I had an aging Netgear N750 router that was finally giving up the ghost, ports going out, wi-fi range and speed were going downhill. So I decided to by with this TP-Link WIfi 6 AX1500 router. Upon my initial setup I ran into an issue trying to connect my phone back up to it using the Tether app, for some reason I could not log into the router nor connect to it wirelessly. Now to give a little info on how I have it hooked up, I have the internet coming from the Xfinity router via cat 6 to a hub and from the hub to my new TP router. With this configuration there is no way to access the router without being connected directly to it or using the Tether app. So I reconfigured it so I was connected from Xfinity to TP router, and to my desktop PC, from there I was able to log in and configure the router. The wifi issue was due to me somehow adding a space to the wifi password when I created it on my phone, also reset my router login password as it didn't want to work either. Saved all setting, updated the firmware on the router, powered it off and reconnected it to how I had it originally configured. It now works perfectly, although I did have to go back and tell my devices to forget the networks I previously created and re-enter passwords. This doesn't take away from the router it's more of an error on my part for how I have it set up. Some of the features I like about it is being able to set the router to restart, you can have it do this daily, weekly or monthly and pick a time when no one is using the internet; doesn't wipe your settings just clears the cache, similar to clearing your internet history or restarting your PC when it starts to slow down. You can also set it to turn off the LED's for a specific time, like if you have the router in a bedroom or a dorm room, you could set it to turn off the LED's from say 10pm to 6am. You can also change these settings through the Tether app. It does have a gloss black finish on the flat surfaces and fingerprints show up really well on it, so if you are a person who hates fingerprints this might annoy you. It's an excellent router and a definite step up from my previous router. I only have 1 device that supports the 802.11AC standard but all of my devices connect much faster and are more responsive when online. One piece of advice when using the Tether app on your smart device, make sure you verify your password when you create it for your wifi networks. For some reason mine added a space at the end. Not sure if this is a glitch or my smart device being dumb, just verify it to save yourself some stress

I'm currently on a vacation trip and have been using this device nightly when I'm in my hotel rooms. I've been to five hotels in six days and I've had this router set up each night. While I was still at home I practiced both using the router in both tethering and router modes, but tethering is the preferred method I use in my hotels. This is also what I'd suggest users utilize if they are in public spaces such as a cafe/coffee shop, in school, or a public library. Tethering runs the local Wi-Fi signal through the router, but the user connects devices like computers and tablets to the router's SSID, not the available public Wi-Fi signal. An app on my iPhone (there is also an android app) guided me through the setup steps. Each new local Wi-Fi network is scanned by the router, the local password is entered, and the router then allows me to connect to that signal through the router SSID. The router uses both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and given the proximity of all of my devices to the routers, I've been able to use either band with similar results. The router rarely drops the signal and thus far I've not had any issues. I'm logged into the 5 GHz band as I type this review. TP Link has a winner with this product. It is simple to setup, easy to use, reliable, and affordable. I believe I paid $39.99 USD for my device, though it may go on sale during various Amazon sales events throughout the year. I purchased my router just a couple of weeks prior to my trip, so I didn't have the luxury of watching price fluctuations. The router is lightweight. I don't have the exact weight, but it's just a few ounces. It easily fits into my computer bag, and takes of very little room. It has a USB A slot on the back which can be used to access USB flash drives, but I mostly use that port as a passthrough charging station for my tablet. I had used a competitor's travel router for a few years prior to purchasing this device, and I found that other router more difficult to use and less user-friendly. Maybe I'm biased towards TP Link as I've used other networking devices made by them and am partial to the TP Link brand. In days when hackers can be anywhere, having a travel router is a simple step to keeping private data private; TP Link offers a safe, reliable, and affordable option for basic computer users to protect themselves while using public or unsecured networks.

This box is great. I am using it for a remote boat and I tie the router to a mobile hot spot and then sensors, cameras connect to the router. It has a USB-C plug so you can also run this off 12V adapter (to usb-c). It is also easy to configure and affordable. You can also connect it to a public WiFi but I think there would be an issue if you need to accept terms or anything on a screen.