Long Range WiFi USB with Antenna for Raspberry Pi

Was easy to set up and has awesome range. I even even picked up my neighbor's wifi signals 3 houses down. It came with all kinds of specs so I know what's in it... For the price, a great addition to my Raspberry Pi setup...

I was a little skeptical to buy this product after reading other reviews. But I still gave it a try and I am glad that I bought this product. The shipping was also quick compared to other international shippings and it arrived almost 8-10 days earlier than what it was showing to me as an estimate. Most of other people here who say that this didn't worked for them, maybe they don't know how to figure out the correct driver and configuration settings for it and/or maybe received a different model than I did.Going into the technical details- The product I received is an LB Link Model BL-LW05-AR5 (same which Adafruit sells for around 20 bucks). I first gave it a try by connecting it on my MacBook Pro. It wasn't turning on and also any led indicator was not turning on. But I could see the device information in "System Information" utility in OSx. I could see Realtek Product ID "0x8176" and I googled up to install the correct driver for it. There was a CD provided to installed the driver but my MacBook doesn't have any disk drive. The driver I installed was for Realtek RTL8188CUS Chipset which I downloaded from following location:http://www.realtek.com/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=274and clicking on Software link under Download Page Links. It opens new page to download RTL8191SU driver for appropriate platform.After installing this driver and rebooting my MacBook it started working automatically.Now moving on to Raspberry Pi 2:I have installed Raspbain Wheezy Kernal version 3.18. When I first connected this usb adapter on my Pi it wasn't working. But then I followed a simple and very easy to follow guide from Adafruit here:https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/setting-up-wifi-with-occidentalisDoing those steps and rebooting my Pi, it started working automatically and it was connecting to my wifi router seamlessly.Additionally to avoid WiFi Drop Out issues, configure your Pi in such a way that it doesn't have power management turned on in Linux Kernel (which by default it has turned on). You can follow a simple step mentioned here:https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure#fixing-wifi-dropout-issuesFor more information- on my Pi when I do 'lsusb' command I can see the information about this usb device connected- 'Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter'. As you can see it's important that it should have genuine Realtek RTL8188CUS chipset to make your life easier on it.

I got 2 of these to create a wifi repeater expecting long range as described. These don't perform as well as my macbook's built in antenna when connecting to a wifi signal at long range.

I can't say enough good things about this antenna relative to its use on my Raspberry Pi model B. There are loads of guides on how to enter in your SSID and wifi password into the text configuration files, and this thing is just plug and play. Forgot to connect it before you powered it on? No worries, just plug it in and you have wifi connectivity in seconds.Be aware that if you've underpowered your Pi, this device won't work. Any standard micro USB wall charger SHOULD work, but if you made some custom battery pack with too low wattage output then you may find that this device wont get enough power. Only a concern if you're already making the mistake of underpowering the Pi!

Worked for 1 year 85% of the time use BUT the range was amazing and the reliability was unbelievable. I loaned it to my parents for its last 3 months so I'm not too sure if something happened to it of if the device simply failed. (Something probably happened to it.)

I am using this to replace the Edimax low-profile USB WiFi that came with my Raspberry Pi starter kit. I need to communicate with the RPI which is I have placed in my basement, ~100 feet from my WiFi router. I was unable to connect to the RPI with the Edimax WiFi adapter at that distance, works great with the Long Range WiFi with Antenna. At first, it seemed to drop-out intermittently, which some people had complained about, but it turned out to be the RPI was putting the WiFi adapter asleep to conserve power. I followed this tutorial at Adafuit: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure#fixing-wifi-dropout-issuesand haven't had an issue since. Antenna is working great.

I needed to access WiFi from a building across the parking lot from where the network is deployed, so I built a repeater using the Pi. I mounted (taped) the USB WiFi adapter onto a window and it give me a 27dBm gain over the signal received by my laptop (that's 500 times the signal strength). I could not be happier. It just worked with Raspbian Buster.

Was working great for 3 months. Range was okay'ish (onboard Raspberry Pi 3 adapter has better range), but after 3 months of light use it began disassociating clients rapidly, to the point of being completely unusable. Going to go with a more durable adapter from a different manufacturer for the replacement.