Cisco-Linksys WET54G Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $69.99 You Save: $30.00 (30%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $43.93 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WET54G Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge
Customer Review: Works for Me
Summary: 4 Stars
I debated between investing in a used Airport card and the recent version of the Linksys WET54G (version 3.1) in order to have my old G4 iMac connect to a wireless network. After reading this information (search: plantphys.info/advice/wet54g), I decided to take the plunge and buy the Linksys product. The instructions from the website were great, and my G4 was connected to the network within minutes.
The only modifications that I would make to the instructions on that website is to ensure you enable the encryption if it is present on your network and add the network's password. One issue that I had with the adapter after it was running was that I needed to reset the adapter after I had turned off the computer and my wireless network when it was not in use. Once I upgraded the firmware to the most current version (found on the North American website), this problem went away. If you upgrade the firmware, you have to click on the "help" tab during the installation process, which directs you to a page where you browse for the updated firmware file that you have already downloaded onto your computer or key drive.
I gave this product only four stars because the company should have provided instructions for Macintosh users, and the process of upgrading the firmware was not as straightforward as it could have been.
Customer Review: Frustrating firmware, but now working
Summary: 4 Stars
I received hardware version 3.1, but unfortunately it had a two-year-old firmware version installed in it which would not support WPA2. When I went to the Linksys support site to download newer firmware, I was amazed to see there had been nine versions released since the the version my WET54G shipped with...why does Linksys continue to ship products with such obsolete firmware installed? Since this was hardware version 3.1, the unit was obviously not stale stock.
Even the latest firmware has bugs, though none were fatal. In infrastructure mode, the channel number cannot be changed from the default channel six, for example. The solution was to set up in ad hoc mode, change the channel, then reconfigure to infrastructure mode. There are other glitches, too, suggesting to me Linksys is just plain sloppy.
But, once up and running, the WET54G seems to do exactly what it's supposed to do, though somewhat slowly. I'm using it to stream video from a network camera and found I had to reduce the frame rate due to limited bandwidth.
The WET54G is somewhat unique in that it's a bridge that doesn't need drivers installed and can thus be used with "dumb" ethernet peripherals such as net cams and printers. If that feature is not important to you, I think I would consider a different model.
Customer Review: Most Linksys products great, this one is *AWFUL*
Summary: 1 Stars
I don't usually write many reviews, but after seeing so many reviews being so critical of Linksys and people saying that they'll never buy another Linksys product I felt I had to say something. I've been using Linksys products for years, both the 'b' and 'g' products, at home and at work, and they've been great. Reasonable prices, easy to set up, work without a hitch -- just set up and forget about it.
The WET54G is the *exception*. It's like they took all their worst engineers and instead of firing them, made them into the WET54G team. I'm on my fourth box, the first was a version 1 and didn't have a range beyond 5 feet. It eventually died with a blinking power light and I got it replaced by Linksys. The second died during a firmware upgrade. The third had better range with newer firmware but barely got a signal, about 20%. It eventually died too. I finally got them to send me a version 2 box and that's been much better. It's worked for months, gets good signal strength and range, but it seems to lose the connection after a couple of days and sometimes just powers off.
The new WET54GS5 seems to be getting decent reviews other than complaints about the WPA security, so the masochist in my is thinking about giving it a shot.
Customer Review: Works, but not easy to setup
Summary: 2 Stars
Technically this product works, and once you've setup it will just do its job and you'll forget that you have it.
But to get there is quite the hazzle. The install instructions are incomplete, and whoever designed the product made a lot of assumptions about your environment, which is most annoying.
Unpacked the device - all the usual, device, network cable, power adapter, separate antenna, CD with software. Put everything together and installed the software, ready to configure the device. As part of setup the bridge needs to be connected via wired network to setup the WiFi parameters. But the software can't find the bridge and the error message is useless. Tried all kinds of things, no luck. A few Google searches later found out that the device defaults to a different subnet than my network is operating on. So had to go to my network settings and temporarily change my computer to a different static IP address and netmask to get the setup working. Then once configured, reset everything.
End to end to get it working, 1 hour.
There aren't many reaonably bridge bridges out there which support WAP encryption. But this is not a device for folks which aren't good with advanced network configurations.
Customer Review: Run far, far away from this
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased a total of 4 of these units to replace a fleet of aging WET11 bridges (which I may add performed flawlessly in their years of service) at both my home and business. Immediately after setting them up I began to notice problems which required frequent rebooting of the bridges. After less than 24 hours, one of the units went completely dead and unresponsive, and since then one other has bitten the dust as well. I have wasted countless hours with Linksys support online, and was told that I should run WEP encryption on my network to help solve the problem, even though the main reason I bought the WET54G is because it supports WPA. Needless to say I returned all of the bridges for a refund. To make matters worse, now my old WET11 bridges are now also acting strangly (I'm guessing due to my WRT54G router's firmware upgrade that was suggested by the fine folks at Linksys).
I have long been a fan of Linksys even though most other people seem to put them down. However, this product on its own has convinced me never again to do business with Linksys. If you are in search of a wireless bridge, do yourself a favor and go with the Buffalo WLI-TX4-G54HP wireless ethernet crossover, or else look into a WDS system.