Customer Reviews

D-Link DWL-810+ Ethernet to Wireless Bridge, 802.11b, 22Mbps

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Network hardware advertisements are chock full of plug and play claims. In most cases things come up automatically only in a perfect network. And any time you are trying to integrate a Playstation 2 into a mixed Mac and PC wireless network you are far from perfect.

After one struggle with the game connector created by the company that made all of the other non-Mac parts of my network, I was completely sure that my PS-2 was never going to see my cable connection in a million years. That one didn't do what it said it would do, took inordinate amounts of setup time and still didn't work right.

Sheer stubbornness convinced me to try an ethernet bridge as a second effort. I selected this D-link model, brought it up and, despite happily winking lights, refused to talk to anything - no matter what I plugged it into. Fearing I was facing the same insurmountable difficulty I relented, and read the manual.

Well, duh!! in about 10 minutes I discovered that the 810+ was using 192.168.0.30 as an address, and my subnet was set up for 192.168.1.x as the subnet. Using my portable, I disabled DHCP, changed the subnet and linked it directly to the 810+. Much to my surprise and delight, there was the administration screen, and I promptly changed the 810+'s subnet. I returned the portable to DHCP, reset the network (and detached the 810+, and there it was, live on the line.

The 810+ may be a bit cheaply made for it's price, but the simple fact is that I did get it to work with only a moderate amount of effort. It has a good management console built right in, a straightforward manual on CD and, above all, it does the job.

I tried a different brand of wireless bridge and it didn't work from out of the box, so I returned it, I wont mention the name though because it could have been just a plain dead unit and all companies are guilty of having a couple bad apples.

So I went out and bought this D-Link bridge right away and I have to say it works great. The smartest thing to do is to plug it into your wired network with the ethernet cable and access the admin pages through a web browser. After that upgrade the firmware and set it up so it will communicate with your wireless network, (ie. SSID, WEP key, channel, etc.). After configuring it you can unplug it from the router and plug it into your PS2/XBox/Tivo/whatever has an ethernet port you want connected to your network. It is as easy as that.

I currently use this product with D-Link's Airplus wireless router (DI-614+) to allow my gaming consoles to go online wirelessly. I also have 2 PCs connected to the router with ethernet cables.

Needless to say, after taking about a minute to update the bridge's firmware (to 1.3), I was online in seconds. It truly is plug and play ready!

The unit is small, portable (for those wireless LAN partys), and works like a charm. My bridge is about 80 feet away from my router and I get no loss in reception, even with cell phones and cordless phones on simultaneously!

My only concerns are that the Power and Act lights are a little too bright and may distract some players who may be placing the bridge by their TVs; and if you don't own a D-Link router, the firmware updating process will take a few more mintues because you will have to set up a static IP for your router. The update is required to use the bridge with Xbox Live.

Otherwise I have to hand it to D-Link for creating an excellent product for those people who want to go online wirelessly with their gaming consoles, but don't want to drag a huge ethernet cable from one room to another.

I have this hooked up to a switch in my basement and it recieves signal from my DWL-800AP+ which repeats the signal of my DI-614+ and everything works great.

I can play with my PS2, or Xbox online and everything works great. Xbox live works great with no lags on my half, and setup was super easy.

Setting this up was almost easier than any other networking product I've ever setup. All I had to do was plug it into the switch, and access the web interface via Internet Explorer with a computer that is hooked up to the switch. Then I changed the SSID, the mode, and WEP. After that I've never touched it.

Works great and never had problems. Highly recommended. A++

I bought this product so I could play PS2 online with a wireless connection. when it was time to set it up i just followed the directions and within under 5 minutes it was set up and working great! I give it my highest reccomendation.

I was able to set this up to convert my Desktop PC into a Wireless conenction in about 5 minutes. Just plug it into your Ethernet card in the PC and type in the IP in internet explorer. Then the configuration screen pops up and you configure it to connect to your wireless network (WEP, SSID, channel, and that's it.). After that you are connected wirelessly to your network and it's just like you are wired except no wires to trip over.

Sometimes I will connect it to my XBOX so I can play online, but I rarely do that anymore since I don't have much time for my XBOX anymore. :( Configuring it for the XBOX takes no effort at all, it's just a matter of physically plugging it into the XBOX and thats it, since it is already setup.

I attached the DL-810+ to my Sony PS2 and had it working in under 15 min. I also have a D-Link wireless router. I beleive this makes a big difference. I had originally purchased the Linksys WET11 and I could not get it to work. I would recommend purchasing the same brand bridge as your router.

It was kind of hazy at first but when I figure out to change the subnet it worked as expected. I hooked it up to my PS2 and was gaming in minutes. I've even used it for my MP3 music network.
My only problem( And the reason I didn't give it the 5th star) is the problems I had with the range in my house. I've got an old house with lots of walls between my wireless router and where I wanted my access point to go. I'm using a Trendnet TEW-311BRP wireless router. When I put the access point in the basement I could not get a reliable signal. I've had other wireless devices( ie a laptop) down there and they work fine. To make the 810+ work I needed to buy a booster antenna. It was $20. But still cheaper then switching to G or spending $60 on an range extended( Which I did but returned)

This bridge worked great right out of the box and synched with the D-link AirPlus Router immediately. And contrary to one review, you can use this bridge with a hub to connect an established wired network, just make sure that if you have mac filtering on that you include the mac addresses of all the computers on the hub. I use this in a home network and haven't had any problems so far.

My only complaint is the user interface isn't as user friendly as it should be, and for the average user who wants to set up security, it may throw them off a little.

Works well with my XBOX and D-Link router which is approximately 50 feet and 2 walls away. Did not notice any lag during game play. One problem I had was configuring it via a laptop, I spent over an hour trying to make the bridge connect to the router with no success. When I tried the same by connecting the bridge to my desktop everything configured perfectly right away.