Average Customer Review: ( 24 customer reviews )
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13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Works great Nov 12, 2007
By C. Davis
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.
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Works great, easy to set up (but read instructions carefully) Dec 17, 2007
By JohnK-Seattle-WA
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.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
 Can't make it work, no support Feb 17, 2008
By David B. Black
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
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Worked exactly as I had hoped. Nov 11, 2008
By J. Conrad
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.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Good overall with some feature issues Feb 13, 2008
By Indy Plex
"indy"
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.
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