Xiaomi Mi AC1200 Router

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unmesh

Regular Contributor

• Apr 9, 2015

• #1

This is an intriguing router currently not distributed in the US. I'm thinking of getting one and loading OpenWRT/OpenVPN on it to use as a travel router it but was wondering if a reader had experience with this. It has 16MB of flash and 64MB of RAM!

http://www.xiaomiworld.com/original-xiaomi-mi-mini-wifi-wireless-router.html

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/mini

 

L&LD

Part of the Furniture

• Apr 9, 2015

• #2

That device for that price looks very interesting.

Tim, would you be able to test it out for us?

 

U

unmesh

Regular Contributor

• Apr 9, 2015

• #3

The seller in the OP has high shipping costs to the US. Found it elsewhere for $31.84 including shipping

http://www.gearbest.com/networking-communication/pp_148364.html

 

sfx2000

Part of the Furniture

• Apr 9, 2015

• #4

I think the problem here is that it doesn't have FCC or EU approval, at first glance... which can make importing a bit problematic...

interesting device, but perhaps very limited to the China market...

 

U

unmesh

Regular Contributor

• Apr 9, 2015

• #5

I had not thought about certs, but they are distributing it in several Asian countries.

 

thiggins

Mr. Easy

Staff member

• Apr 10, 2015

• #6

No FCC ID, no test.

Anything without an FCC ID AND registered in the FCC database is illegal for sale in the U.S.

 

L&LD

Part of the Furniture

• Apr 10, 2015

• #7

thiggins said:

No FCC ID, no test.

Anything without an FCC ID AND registered in the FCC database is illegal for sale in the U.S.

Click to expand...

Which to me means the marketing bs is HIGH and the (potential) performance is most likely low.

 

U

unmesh

Regular Contributor

• Apr 27, 2015

• #8

A friend just came back from China and got one for me! It has a beautiful GUI which is unfortunately only in Chinese but I was able to get it on the WAN using helpful screenshots someone had posted online after which Chrome and Google Translate took over. This weekend, I will do some throughput benchmarks and possibly install PandoraBox which is a Chinese version of OpenWRT.

 

sfx2000

Part of the Furniture

• Apr 27, 2015

• #9

Doesn't matter how cool it looks or the GUI, it's not legal for import into the US, and perhaps the EU...

Xiaomi s an Apple clone at best efforts... and they do it poorly... but the local market eats them up -

I should note that the India Air Force warned folks off due to Xiaomi's MiCloud and potential exposure to Chinese national interests... and then their Chinese money worked it thru - just trust us, they say... don't mind all those stacks of money on your desk...

Not in my network...

 

U

unmesh

Regular Contributor

• Apr 28, 2015

• #10

Good advice, especially about the EU.

When you talk about Apple clones, were you thinking of their phones or their broader product portfolio?

FWIW, I was not going to deploy this in my network but rather considered it as a travel router for when I'm overseas. If I do that, I will restrict its use to the various Asian countries where it is currently sold. Otherwise, it will have been an interesting toy for me to have played with.

It is remarkable, though, how slick the Chinese branded goods are beginning to get. And I have a friend in Silicon Valley who has recently gone to work for Mediatek whose SOC is in this product.

 

U

unmesh

Regular Contributor

• May 21, 2015

• #11

Finally got around to installing OpenWRT and discovered that the unit has 128MB of RAM instead of the advertised 64MB which was a nice surprise. It works fine though I have not done any benchmarking, partly because they made the design choice to use Fast Ethernet wired ports instead of Gigabit Ethernet ones. I knew this going into the purchase but it did not bother me particularly since the use case was as a travel router and I would be getting nowhere near the bandwidth to saturate the ports.