I broke down and bought a Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge. My office is at the wrong end of the Loft and I want to connect all my work computers to the cable modem. Now all my work machines share a local 100mb hub at the office end, and the hub is wirelessly connected to the wireless router connected to the cable modem.
The bridge comes with the following:
- ethernet cable
- small power brick -- look at the picture, it is the vertical kind that does not block other sockets at the powerstrip. Very nice
- setup CD (see later)
- the unit itself
- the antenna separately in the documentation bag
It is quite obvious how to wire the thing up so I got everything plugged in under 1 minute. One nice touch -- next to the ethernet port is a switch to set the port to either cross over or direct. You will use the cross over if you can connecting it to another ethernet port directly (for example, to an X-Box).
Thinking that the unit does not need any setup, I fired up the browser on the connected PC, and nothing happens. A quick look at the documentation implies that I need to configure the device. I pop the setup CD into my system, and the setup program runs -- note: The setup program runs off the CD, no software installation onto my PC. I love this thing already.
I can either use DHCP or give the bridge a static IP. I went with the static IP because then I can easily access it's web interface. I am still a little unclear as to why setup is necessary. My other SMC access point is transparent. It just bridge the ethernet with the wireless net electrically, so to speak. But the setup was painless, and I am up and running in less then 2 minutes.
As a side note, what do you think of my mobile computing platform? Two shuttle PC's, one tower PC, LCD screen, printer, on an anthrocart with a UPS that will power this whole thing for a few minutes, while connected to the net via the wireless ethernet bridge. Pretty nice don't you think? These last two pictures show that I have added a top shelf and now my printer is sitting on top, even tidier then before. The anthrocarts are not cheap, but they are very well built and can hold a lot of equipment. I used to put a pair of Sun E250's on them. That's about 400 pounds of servers.
Summary
Pros:
- No install softwar setup
- web control panel
- Small size, two axis rotatable antenna
- small AC brick that does not take up extra room
Cons:
- Price -- $100 for a wireless bridge, when you can buy a wireless router for $80.
Conclusion: Recommended.