[RT-N66U] Tethering Samsung Galaxy S5 as Primary WAN

[InverseParanoid]

Just got the RT-N66 yesterday and set the router up with the latest Merlin firmware. However, I can't seem to get the router to properly connect to the phone so that other device's can connect to the internet through it.

I tried 2 different Merlin firmwares and 2 different stock firmwares, and none of them seemed to allow the router to connect to the internet through the phone. It would recognize it as a Samsung Android but whenever I would try to activate tethering on the phone it would "uncheck" the box or grey it out, indicating that it wasn't making a successful connection.

Right now I have the phone connected to an old laptop via USB tether and then I bridged the connection to the ethernet port and hooked the laptop up directly to the router's WAN port. Everything works perfectly this way, but I have to have the laptop on 24/7 in order for the router to have internet.

Does anyone know of a reliable way to connect the phone directly to the router and let the network use its internet connection? I am willing to install Tomato or DD-WRT if either can offer the solution. Or maybe even return the router and get one that's compatible with Open-WRT (not sure if new accounts are allowed to link here, but if you google "Open-WRT android tether" a how-to guide is the first thing to pop up, but alas the RT-N66 router is not Open-WRT compatible).

Any ideas? My SO doesn't seem to happy about having a laptop running 24/7 under the couch.

Thanks,

Josh

 

[InverseParanoid]

Just an update in case anyone else is looking to do the same thing. I ended up ordering a TP-Link Archer C7, flashing it with Open WRT 14.07 and following the USB Tethering wiki. Everything works perfectly now with the phone connected directly to the router using native tethering on a rooted Galaxy S5.