I’m currently in South America for work and using the Orange as my travel router (I live in the US). So far it has been fantastic! Performance is excellent for the hotel WiFi (Marriott). Setup with a captive portal was as easy or easier than my Beryl AX with one caveat…I had to use my work laptop to connect to the hotel Wifi as I only got a blank white screen on my iPhone via the Firewalla app.
VPN Configuration:
Orange —> WireGuard (Site to Site) —> Firewalla Gold Plus
Application: Sensitive work data, large file downloads and transfers, online meetings, gaming, and TV streaming. I travel globally and not always to the nicest or most trustworthy places. I also have routing requirements that aren’t supported by the Beryl AX.
Performance: My current hotel WiFi speed is about 15Mbs and this configuration easily outperforms that. My Teams meetings today were flawless and I downloaded movies without any issues.
Setup: With laptop, easier and seemingly almost as quick as my Beryl AX (highly recommend!). However, I couldn’t log in via the hotel’s captive WiFi with my iPhone. Once I realized I needed to use my laptop instead of my phone setup was quick. It may have taken a little longer than my Beryl AX, but not meaningfully for me. I’ll test this out over the next couple weeks (I travel every week for work), but I liked the Firewalla captive WiFi login experience better. I’ve surprisingly had problems with captive WiFi’s with my Beryl AX which was a driving factor to purchase the Orange.
Overall: A huge upgrade over the Beryl AX in security and performance, albeit at a significant price delta. The Orange is larger and takes more space in my bag, but I love being in the Firewalla ecosystem while traveling.
Beryl AX - An inexpensive (comparatively) and slightly more portable option that provides basic security and capabilities. Highly recommended.
Orange - Supercharged performance in the Firewalla ecosystem. A no brainer for my use case. Highly recommended. The Orange is also a much better option for family travel, IMO.
Btw - I have no affiliation with Firewalla and don’t get paid for posting this. I’m just a network geek that travels too much. I enjoy this stuff.