3 free tasks to strive earlier than throwing away your previous Wi-Fi router

Old Wi-Fi routers get thrown out lengthy earlier than they cease being helpful. Before you toss yours, three tasks may give it a second life, and so they value little greater than time and a spare Ethernet cable.

A traditional Wi-Fi extender/repeater

Stretch your sign into the useless zones

Turning an previous router right into a Wi-Fi extender is the preferred second life for retired {hardware}, and for good cause. Many routers embrace a repeater or client-bridge mode of their inventory firmware, and people who do not can typically run OpenWrt or DD-WRT, which add the characteristic. In repeater mode, the previous unit connects wirelessly to your principal router and rebroadcasts the sign. That fills in a storage, yard, or upstairs bed room, mainly wherever the first router struggles to succeed in.

There is a catch. A repeater with a single radio has to obtain and retransmit on the identical channel, which might reduce throughput roughly in half. Dual-band routers soften the penalty, since one band can discuss to the primary router whereas the opposite serves your gadgets, however the outcome remains to be slower than a wired connection. Placement issues too. Put the repeater the place it nonetheless will get a powerful sign from the primary router, not contained in the useless zone itself, or it can merely lengthen a weak connection.

If you’ll be able to run an Ethernet cable, there’s a higher possibility: entry level mode. Connect the previous router’s LAN port, not its WAN port, to the primary router, flip off its DHCP server, and provides it a static deal with in the identical subnet as your principal router. Then match the community title and password so gadgets roam between the 2 routinely. Because visitors travels over cable as a substitute of the air, you retain a lot of your connection’s full pace on the far finish of the home.

Either strategy works greatest with a router that helps 5 GHz. An older 802.11n unit will nonetheless cowl a room for primary looking, however it can bottleneck sooner connections. For good plugs, cameras, and different low-bandwidth devices, that’s typically greater than sufficient.

Dedicated VPN router

Protect each gadget from a single field

A VPN router encrypts visitors for each gadget related to it, together with those that may’t run a VPN app. Smart TVs, sport consoles, streaming sticks, and plenty of IoT devices haven’t any native VPN consumer, so routing them via a router that holds the tunnel is the only option to cowl them. Set up the previous router as a VPN consumer, join its WAN port to your principal community router, and provides it its personal Wi-Fi community. Any gadget that joins that community goes via the VPN, whereas the remainder of your property retains utilizing your regular connection.

Support is dependent upon the mannequin. Some routers, particularly from Asus, ship with OpenVPN and WireGuard consumer choices of their inventory firmware. Others want third-party firmware akin to OpenWrt, DD-WRT, or Asuswrt-Merlin. Before flashing something, examine the firmware venture’s {hardware} compatibility record in your actual mannequin and {hardware} revision, since putting in the mistaken picture can go away a router unusable. Also examine flash storage and reminiscence, as a result of very previous gadgets with 4 MB of flash or 32 MB of RAM are typically too restricted for present releases.

Performance is the primary limitation to take note of right here. Encryption is processor-intensive, and an older router’s modest CPU might prime out properly beneath your web pace, typically at only some dozen megabits per second with OpenVPN. WireGuard is significantly lighter and normally performs higher on weak {hardware}, so choose it in case your supplier helps it. For HD streaming or on a regular basis looking, that ceiling is usually acceptable, however on a gigabit connection, it will not be.

Finally, allow a kill swap or a firewall rule that blocks visitors if the tunnel drops. Otherwise, gadgets quietly fall again to your common connection and expose your actual IP deal with.

Storage/print server

Share information and printers throughout your community

If your previous router has a USB port, it could turn into a primary community storage gadget. Plug in an exterior exhausting drive or flash drive, and the firmware can share it throughout your community utilizing SMB, the protocol Windows, macOS, and Linux all perceive. Many inventory firmware builds provide this in a menu labeled one thing like USB storage or media server, and OpenWrt handles it via Samba packages. Once configured, everybody at house can attain the identical folders for backups, pictures, or a shared media library.

Speed is the compromise. Older routers normally have USB 2.0, whose real-world switch charges land properly beneath what trendy drives can ship, and a gradual router CPU drags issues down additional. It will not substitute a correct NAS, however for transferring paperwork, storing household pictures, or streaming music and video to a TV, it really works wonderful. Format the drive with a filesystem your router helps, generally NTFS, FAT32, or ext4, and examine whether or not the firmware limits drive dimension. Bus-powered exhausting drives may also draw extra present than a router’s USB port supplies, so a powered drive or hub is safer.

The identical USB port can double as a print server. Older printers with out Wi-Fi will be plugged into the router, which then shares them with each laptop on the community, so you’ll be able to print with out connecting a cable to your laptop computer. Some inventory firmware choices help this natively, and OpenWrt affords it via packages akin to p910nd or CUPS. Driver help is the standard sticking level, significantly with all-in-one gadgets and scanners, so check your mannequin earlier than committing.

Whatever you arrange, maintain the previous router off the general public web. Once a producer stops issuing safety updates, any uncovered service turns into an actual danger. Use the gadget solely in your native community and disable distant administration.

Old routers nonetheless have loads of work left

An getting older router can nonetheless lengthen protection, defend good gadgets via a VPN, or serve information and printers. Each venture has limits, principally pace and safety updates, however all of them value little. Check what your mannequin helps earlier than you ship it to recycling.