Is there any reason to keep an RT-N16?

[mbraun]

Doing some housecleaning and came across a new in box RT-N16 router. Must have bought it on sale and then never used it. Routers I've been using have been 68U's (standalone and mesh). Is there any reason I should keep this RT-N16 or is it a candidate for Goodwill or the Salvation Army? Thanks in advance.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Three reasons to consider keeping it.

1. If it has gigabit LAN ports you can repurpose it as a switch by disabling wifi and the DHCP server. Even if it just has Fast Ethernet LAN ports you still can use it as a switch in a location such as a media cabinet where 100 Mbps is fine.

2. Set it up with the latest firmware available for this router and as close as possible match the settings on it with your primary 68U. Then if your primary router dies you have a working router that you can plug into your network while you fix or replace the 68U.

3. Check if the power supply for the N16 is the same as for the 68U. If it is you have a spare power supply if the need arises.

 

[sfx2000]

Doing some housecleaning and came across a new in box RT-N16 router. Must have bought it on sale and then never used it. Routers I've been using have been 68U's (standalone and mesh). Is there any reason I should keep this RT-N16 or is it a candidate for Goodwill or the Salvation Army? Thanks in advance.

Keep it around for IoT things... they don't generally need much more than what the N16 can offer...

 

[digixmax]

I use my two old RT-N16's (one of them had a burnout capacitor I had to replace) as wireless ethernet bridges to connect old client devices that do not have WiFi.