We’re all about recycling and repurposing old hardware here at XDA, and what better way to do this than with an old router! We’ve likely all got one or two from previous house moves, upgrades, and even building your own firewall. Instead of throwing it into the local authority’s household waste system, why not repurpose it to get more from the device for your smart home? That’s precisely what I did with my old Wi-Fi box, allowing me to boost the signal, provide more LAN ports, create a dedicated guest network, and even use it as a portable wireless hub for travels.

Enhance wireless coverage

Get a signal in every room

Even the best router will struggle to broadcast wireless signals everywhere in the home. It’s why mesh networking and range extenders, and repeaters exist, even to this day. Weak network coverage can prove challenging to those managing the home LAN and will cause frustration to family members and guests who attempt to hop online and get stuff done. That’s where my old router came into play. I was able to install it somewhere else in the house and use it as a repeater, taking the signal from the primary router and sharing it with devices in the vicinity.

So long as your router has a repeater, WDS, or bridge mode (it likely does), you’re good to go! After plugging in the router and logging into the admin GUI, I quickly enabled the feature and had the router connect to my new device to rebroadcast the signal. All I needed was the main Wi-Fi SSID and password, and I was ready to rock and roll. If your router doesn’t support one of these features for extending wireless signals, don’t worry, as it may be possible to flash it with custom firmware to unlock it.

After doing so, I was able to ensure we had an adequate signal in the rear yard, which was particularly useful in our old house due to the weak mobile signal both my wife and I had with two different mobile operators. It’s worth noting that since we’re not using the router as a wired access point, total bandwidth on the network will reduce slightly due to how rebroadcasting works. If you do have the means and desire to use Ethernet cabling, the old router could be turned into an access point, which acts as a wireless broadcaster.

Doing it this way will ensure you don’t lose out on precious bandwidth, but you will need to use a cable that will either be on show or require cable management to prevent comments about an ugly blue wire hanging across the home.

Unlock additional LAN ports

A switch and AP in one

Before migrating to dedicated switches and building a more enthusiast-grade network, I relied on an old router for additional LAN ports. Not only was I using it as a wireless access point, but it had two 2.5GbE and two 1GbE ports, making it ideal for placement in the home office and hooking up PCs and other devices to the LAN. Certain routers will even support running media servers such as Plex, which can almost allow you to create an AP, switch, and NAS all-in-one hub. We always recommend using wired over wireless whenever possible.

Because it’s a router, there’s a good chance you’ll have access to specific advanced features such as Quality of Service (QoS) and Virtual LAN (VLAN). These two alone can help improve performance across the network when under load and segregate clients. The latter is great for running guest and Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks that don’t interfere with normal clients. All one needs to do is ensure the DHCP server is disabled on the old router; you’ll encounter problems with both devices fighting one another otherwise.

Creating segregated networks

Speaking of which, let’s talk about VLANs because it’s something you should consider even if you’re not building a smart hub with countless small devices all sending data to one another. Want to offer wireless to guests who may stop over for the night? You could simply give them your SSID and password, but what if you could create a separate guest network? That’s precisely what you could do (and what I did) with the old repurposed router. Isolating devices is a great idea, as TVs, guest hardware, and smart plugs may have vulnerabilities.

The second router could be used as a dedicated hub for guests and/or IoT hardware, or you could keep it working in tandem with the primary router and use VLANs to achieve similar results. I have a few VLANs available on our network currently. One for servers and network infrastructure. A second for self-hosted services. A third for IoT hardware. A fourth for guests and new devices. Finally, one more VLAN for IP cameras. This setup ensures communications do not take place unless I specifically allow.

Take it with you

Vacations and business trips

When I’m heading out on the road, I take the repurposed router with me. We’ve already covered why you’d even want to bring a portable router with you for hotels and the like, but it’s a neat idea nonetheless. Think about it. You’re staying at an Airbnb, hotel, or even a cabin in the woods. There’s a good chance the wireless network isn’t the most reliable. But what you could do is connect the router to this Wi-Fi network and then use the router as the base for all your devices to get online. VPNs are a great alternative, but some hotels may block them.

Then there’s the fact that these networks, especially those in hotels, are used by potentially hundreds of guests and are inherently insecure. You could also get around any device limitations with the router counting as a single device, which then broadcasts signals to all your hardware. By using your own router on the go, you’re effectively bringing your home LAN with you, which is pretty cool.

You can do more with old hardware

Like PC parts and other devices, your old routers can be repurposed with new leases of life. Being smart with used equipment can save you money, improve your experience with getting online, and learn something new in the process.