Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys WET200 Wireless-G Business Ethernet Bridge

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an excellent wireless bridge. I have it communicating with a Linksys WAP54G running WPA2-PSK to connect an "island" of wired computers to my main network wirelessly. The WET200 includes 5 10/100 ports, so you can connect several computers, a printer, etc. to your network.

The WET200 passes NETBIOS traffic, so Windows file and print sharing work fine. The WET200 also passes DHCP traffic, so you don't have to assign static IP addresses to the devices you plug in. This is especially handy for me because I sometimes have guests who bring their laptops, but those laptops cannot get onto my wireless network (usually because they don't support WPA2). With the WET200, they can just plug in to an unused port and they are instantly on the network.

The bridge features are quite advanced -- more than I need. It is a real learning bridge, not a dumb repeater. It supports VLANs, QoS, Spanning Tree protocol, etc. The good news is you don't have to worry about any of this if you don't need the advanced features. The WET200 comes configured from the factory with sensible defaults.

Setup and installation was a breeze. I followed the quick set-up instructions and was up and running within a few minutes.

At this price point, the WET200 is a steal.

I've had this for several months now. It's worked really well with WPA encryption. I use it for Moxi, Tivo and Wii systems in my entertainment center, with the router 2 rooms away.

I'm not using POE so I don't know how well that feature works.

An important note that could save you some headaches:
The instructions tell you to connect it to your *PC* using the included ethernet cable (not your home network). Make sure you set a static 192.168.1.x IP address on your PC, then connect the bridge directly to it (disconnecting your PC from your network temporarily). I made the dumb mistake of connecting the bridge to my home network and trying to configure it there. I was able to connect to it, but as soon as I set up the wireless, the wired connection was very erratic and it wouldn't connect wirelessly. I think the router freaked out trying to give out DHCP addresses to both connections. As soon as I realized what I'd done, I connected it directly to my PC and got it working within a few minutes.

UPDATE 8/30/08:
I've been using this bridge for about a year. 99.99% of the time it's worked great. I have noticed, however, that a few times (maybe once every 3-4 months or so) it seems to lose its connectivity (devices stop connecting and I can no longer connect to the bridge's admin page). A quick reboot by reconnecting the AC power cable always fixes it.

The descriptions of this product sound quite wonderful. It's the only one I could find that seemed to meet my needs. I followed the installation instructions exactly, and at the end, the product would get hung up in rebooting -- it would reboot forever, and only unfreeze when I held down the hardware reset button for 10 seconds. I searched for help on the Linksys site, and found none. Their live chat service doesn't support it. There was no troubleshooting information about it. The community forums were empty. They advertise a network troubleshooting product you can download, but it doesn't support the WET200. And no number to call that I could tease out of their site. So I'm stuck. I'd much rather make it work than return it, but Linksys isn't making it easy. It's true my other equipment isn't all Linksys (as they recommend), but it's all less than a year old, so a product of this kind shouldn't have a problem. I would feel less frustrated if they appeared to make an effort to support the product, but apparently even going through the motions was too tough for them. I'm delighted the other reviewers had success and I wish them well, I only wish the same experience for myself.802.11G Enet Bridge Adptr Poe

Ordered the WET200 after several attempts at other solutions. I have three devices that are too far from my wireless router--(Directv DVR, Slingbox, and Xbox360)--so this really did the trick. There's even room for a couple more devices, as it has 5 ports.
Setup was relatively easy if you've done any router setup before, although it did seem as though the user manual assumed a certain base knowledge of networking, probably because it's considered a more advanced device to begin with. Anyway, I was up and running in about 15-20 minutes after configuring it. It's been running since I set it up (several weeks now) without any hiccups or need to reboot it.
I would definitely recommend this product for anyone who already has a wireless router but has multiple devices that are both, A: not wireless and B: too far to plug into their router.

The first two reviews on this product sum up the features and setup well. Definitely noteworthy information.

This works well to provide a remote base-hub (using your wireless net) to attach hard-wire devices to. If you are not using WEP, and using WPA or the like, you will probably like this unit. If you are using WEP, it's a bit more of a challenge, but perhaps if you have the info here, it will be much easier.

Using WPA security will also save you a lot of time, since WEP does not work as documented. In most cases when using WEP, the bridge will not appear to save the configuration. In some cases it will actually work (it does save) although it does not appear to be saved. The trick is to save the WEP info (without viewing the saved info since it will appear to be lost) and then restart it and test the connection. It definitely makes it a lot easier if you have 2 computers -- one you can use for config, and the other to test the connection.

Spent a ton of time on configuration and ultimately got it to work in a way that will work for me. I also spent a lot of time with support (in India) trying to resolve the firmware shortcomings. Support finally gave up and declared the device as defective. When I got my replacement, it worked (or didn't work) the same with the WEP issue. I basically had to upgrade any network devices that were older since I had to change (upgrade/update) my security to WPA. It's an all-or-nothing switch for most wireless routers.

It may be that using mixed manufacturers' devices was causing me the issues. Nonetheless, some pretty common, old and established standards were being used -- WEP(64/128), 802.11/b, 802.11/g. Even the WPA configuration was a little odd. For example, on my router I had to use WPA-PSK setting while on this bridge (WET200), I had to use WPA2-TKIP. Of all the combinations of security, this is the only one that would work (and I'm not so sure it should have).

Just keep in mind that if you have more than two or three devices, you're probably going to spend a weekend getting this to work right ...and that's coming from someone who does this for a living. Still, I would recommend it because it fills a space where there aren't too many other cost-effective alternatives.

One last note - I did have a small hope/expectation that the bridge would extend the wireless range of the router, but that was an error on my part. Something to note that you would need an additional range extender if that's a feature you might be expecting.

Overall, once I finally understood how to get this working wirelessly it operates well, with little trickery in the settings. Operator Manual is a bit vague on how to make the WET200 communicate wirelessly with my Linksys wireless router - you have to make sure that the Default Gateway/Primay DNS/Secondary DNS of router is set up in the bridge set up.

Biggest issue was that could not seem to run MAC Address Access filter and WPA2-Personal encryption at the same time. Spent a number of hours on the help line with Linksys Technical help (who were quite helpful to get the communications going and working with me to try and get both security measures running) but could never get both security settings running at the same time. They admitted by the end that they had problems during development before it was released getting both to run simultaneously - maybe some future firm ware updates for both will fix it.

I bought this item based on the reviews I had read on various sites. I also have various Linksys (Cisco) items and based on voodoo, I like to keep all my networking items the same brand.

As directed, I set up a fixed IP address of 192.168.1.226 and tried to connect to the bridge user interface, but no luck; it simply would not accept the default user name and password of "admin". I tried hard reset 4 times, tried different computers all to no avail. The support website is worthless, but in their defense, there is not alot to setting up a bridge and by this time I figured I had bad firmware but could not update it if I could not get into the user interface! (The bridge was working cause I could ping it). So I gave up and called India tech support...after 30 minutes of worthless help they came to the same conclusion I had: faulty firmware and I sent it back to Amazon.

FWIW, I will ask for a replacement although I have found some Linksys products are really buggy these days after Cisco took them over. My other items WRT54GX2 and my little 5 port Linksys switch work great. Their media adapter and gaming bridge suck. We will see how this one does when I get a replacement.

Ive just got my wet200. If your wanting to extend your home/office network to another part of your building/s but dont have the cable inbetween then this could be a solution.

i needed to share multiple lan devices off a wifi signal from my neighbour. this box allowed that, as it can share its connected wifi link with 5 lan ports via its switch capacity.

there was a slight issue as i have to connect to a wifi network with wep, not the better newer wap security standard.

i had been given the encoded passkey value but was inserting that into the wet200's interface in the wrong box. their interface provides a space for password conversion into numeric passkeys. i had been pasting my passkey into the password conversion box, resulting in a wrong passkey being assigned. anyway, my fault really.

as soon as i realised this i got it up and running. great big antennae really help to grab the wifi signal and it seems stronger than my laptop connected directly from tests.

I added this to my existing wireless network so I could connect a few wired devices in another room. I could not get it to connect to the wireless network no matter what I tried, so I gave in and called customer support. He wasn't able to figure it out, but he did give me an idea. I tried no security at all, and it connected. Then I tried a super simple passphrase with just letters and spaces, and it connected again. Then I tried my usual passphrase that I've been using for years, and it would not connect. There is something about it that it didn't like! Very strange. So I thought up a new one that used only letters and numbers, and it worked. Other than that speed bump, this is a great device for bridging a distant wired network to your wireless network.

After reading the other reviews of this product, I was a bit wary of spending $115 on something that may or may not work. Others were having problems with this bridge and it concerned me. I've used Linksys router for years without any problems--so I took the chance.

I purchased this bridge along with a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Router for the purpose of setting the two up for my daughter to use at her house. Once I configured the router (I use very few of the default values - but it still took about 20 minutes) it was a breeze to set up the bridge. I followed the Quick Installation guide. Four pages, 5 minutes and I was up and running. I was amazed at how quickly I had this thing running. She uses it for her laptop, her Tivo and her Vonage internet phone adapter.

One caveat: not because I had to, but I did check the Linksys website and saw that there was a firmware update available. So I downloaded and applied it.

If you can read, and follow, directions--you won't be disappointed with this bridge.

When we got the router and bridge to my daughter's house, we plugged everything in and she was up and running in minutes. The total amount of time invested in configuring the router and bridge was less than 25 minutes. And that includes reading the documentation!

Lastly, I was so impressed with this bridge, that I bought a second one for my son. Again, same thing. 5 minutes of setting up the bridge (already had the router set up) and he was up and running. He has two desktop PCs plugged into the bridge as well as his Tivo. He's a big "gamer" and he has been very pleased with the speed of the bridge. He's had the bridge for about 2 weeks and I haven't once heard him scream about "lagging"!

I'm thrilled with the bridges. The kids are happy with them too.

Buy one - if you get into trouble setting it up, email me.