Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys by Cisco WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge with Dual-Band

I bought the WET610N for my Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-Ray Player. My options were either wired, which I didn't want to do, or buy a proprietary dongle from Samsung. I chose the option that Samsung did not mention - I bought the WET610N! The unit was easy to setup, and the instructions were clear. I've never been fond of using Linksys CD's to setup this kind of equipment, but I have to say it was painless and quick compared to some others I've seen. The value of this unit is simply that it will work with ANYTHING that wants a "wired" network connection. So, it doesn't matter if it's a video game system, a DVR type device, or as in this case a blu-ray DVD Player. For this reason, the unit is a great value and will be in use for a long time, even when the current equipment I am using it with now is long gone.

I purchased this because I didn't like how the USB wireless adapter I was previously using had to load it's software before I would get a connection. This would cause some of the programs that I load on Windows startup to give an error message about not having an internet connection unless they loaded after the USB adapter software. I decided to get a bridge because once it gets connected, your computer accesses the internet as if it were plugged in to the wired ethernet. I'm using this with the Linkysys WRN610N dual band router.

Setup on this device was easy. I simply did a quick google search to find out it's default IP address and then opened my web browser and connected. I entered my network information and then rebooted the adapter. I then moved it to where I was going to place it and hooked it up and checked the wireless network list in the configuration page to make sure I was getting an ok signal. thats all I had to do and now it works great.

It's signal strength is okay, but I think it should probably be better. My laptop certainly gets a much better signal from the router when placed in the exact same location. given the size of the antennas in the laptop compared to this small device I'm not surprised. One thing I should note is that you can connect to either a 5Ghz network or a 2.4Ghz network, but it cannot be configured to use one band and then fall back to the other if the signal gets weak. this would be a nice feature to have.

The LED's on the front tell you what you need to know and aren't too bright or annoying like my old adapter was with a super bright blue flashing LED.

I gave this four stars because the built in web interface does not have any help page that explains the options like my WRN610 router does. The included electronic manual also does not have very good explanations either. Also I think the signal strength could be better. However, it works like it should, gets decent speeds, and wasn't difficult for me to set up so I do recommend it.

After I got the unit set up, it works fine for my purposes - connecting my blu-ray player to my wireless home network. The distance is short, less than 30 feet, and just in the next room. The connection will not carry a lot of video smoothly, but it works OK.

But if you are not able to handle a few set-up issues yourself, reconsider. It took me the second try to set up the device through their setup disk. Then it couldn't find my wireless network, which had 2 laptops on it and was running fine. I called technical support. The manufacturer CLAIMS to offer free technical support during the 1-year warranty. But when I called, the very day my unit was delivered, they wouldn't help me unless I bought extended coverage for their router I was using with it. I didn't have any problems with the router, but they wouldn't tell me how to connect my brand new ethernet bridge to the router because the router warranty had expired. Real ripoff. These things HAVE to go through a router so everyone who calls for technical support will have a router. I think this allows them to avoid giving any technical support on this unit without the customer paying. I figured it out myself eventually - without the assistance of the very unhelpful representative.

Update 10/2/09:

New firmware update available from Linksys 8/31/09 (I went from 1.0.01 to 1.0.03 today). After applying new firmware, the reported signal strength increased significantly. So did the consistency and reliability of pings (previously would vary between 2ms and 410 ms as well as skip an occasional ping - now consistently below 5 ms!). I would recommend this product, but be sure to be running firmware 1.0.0.03. This update may address some (but not all) of the issues that previous reviewers experienced.

Original review:

Quick shipment from Amazon. As much as I dread Setup wizards, I used the wizard supplied on the CD-ROM, which I ran from my laptop, which is connected wirelessly via the wireless router. Connected bridge to router with the supplied straight-through Ethernet cable. The wizard quickly detected available wireless networks (I selected mine - not my neighbors'). Asked me for passphrase (it knew I use WPA2 encryption) for router (Linksys WRT54G), waited a bit, then wizard told me to disconnect bridge from router and then connect the bridge to my remote device (in my case - a home-theater-in-a-box) (HTIB) with an wired ethernet connection. A bit later, wizard announced setup finished. Instantly able to watch streaming Netflix and listen to Pandora on the HTIB.

Prior to running wizard, I added the MAC address of the bridge (it's on the underside of the unit) to the allowed list of "PCs") on my router's list of allowed MAC addresses. Second, I ensured that I had a sufficient range of DHCP addresses dispensed by the DHCP server on my router (total of 3 - one for the laptop, one for the wireless printer, and now added a third for this bridge). Third, I had my router passphrase readily available to supply to the wizard.

I think that since I was well prepared, the setup was flawless and quick. I totally understand why wizards are used - they're for novices to easily set up their stuff. In this case, I think it took the wizard less time to set up the device than it would have if I were to have chosen to set up the bridge manually (which is an undocumented option). A novice would have a struggle with a manual setup, I'm sure.

Signal strength on the bridge indicates to be a bit weak for business use, but for home use, it's working great for my sole application. One could certainly add more devices on the bridge side by connecting the bridge to a switch to provide additional Ethernet ports. Of course, the bridge will pass DHCP info to any device connected to any such switch. And of course, no address needed for a(n) (unmanaged) switch.

The only thing I'm uncertain about is this product's longevity. I did have an early Linksys WRT54G totally fail on me, but I'm hoping that having placed my current one on a UPS, this won't happen again. I have confidence in current Linksys products.

I hope Amazon buyers find this review helpful.

I recommend this product.

I have a BluRay player and a DirecTV HD-DVR that offer additional services if connected to the internet. Running ethernet cable lines is a pain in the ass - it's messy, time consuming and expensive and if you ever want to move your equipment then you have to modifiy your cable run. Soulution - The WET610N Wireless bridge.

I actually timed the installation to see just how long it would take from start to finish.
Clock started: I moved my laptop and its AC adapter to the room in my house where the Linksys Wireless Router is located. That took 1 1/2 minutes. I then opened the box and unfolded and read instructions. It took a total of 6 1/2 minutes to format and configure the WET610N Bridge. The installation CD does not install any programs on your computer so don't worry. It simply configures the unit. Eight minutes after starting the clock, my new WET610N was ready to be hooked up to my HD-DVR and BluRay Player.

It took me 5 minutes to move my furniture away from the wall, plug in the unit, move the dresser back and run the Network Setup option from the HD-DVR. That was it. The screen said congratulations your connected to DirecTV via the internet (or something similar.)

In all it took the same if not more time moving my furniture etc, than it did to configure the Network Bridge

If your DVR has 2 ethernet ports, plug this unit into the top port. The lower one is a pass through like having 2 connections on the back of an answering machine. Plug the lower port into any other device like a BluRay Player or game console and now both are connected to the internet.

Lastly, if you ever want to connect another device in another room to the internet you can either just remove the unit you currently own and move it from one device to another or if you prefer you can purchase and configure another WET610N Bridge and hook it up the same way as detailed above.