RPi2 and Dual band Wireless USB adapter WeChip 1750Mbps

1st Official Post

    Hello there,

    I own a router/AP Linksys WRT32X AC3200 2.4 and 5 GHz (simultaneous dual-band) AC3200 (N600 + AC2600). In fact AC1300+1300, one of the 2 radios is for monitoring.

    I use Libreelec on a Raspberry PI2 with a Duronic USB wireless adapter 802.11n 150Mbps. The speed is too slow even to listen music (FLAC) from a hard drive connected to the router.

    I installed the new LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-9.1.502.

    I bought a new USB adapter WeChip 1750Mbps USB WiFi Dongle 11AC Dual Band Wireless WiFi Adapter RTL8814AU for PC/Laptop/Desktop/Windows/mac/Linux.

    I know, this adapter will be limited by the USB speed but I forecast to buy a new box next year (not a Raspberry).

    Unfortunately the adapter is not working. Seller said it is working on Raspberry Pi but with Linux.

    There is a Linux driver, for Ubuntu with a detailed documentation with a guide to compile the driver. See here

    I am not skilled in package integration.

    My question is; How hard could be to compile the driver and add it in the image. I’ll need some help even if it is not too hard but I can help to test the device with LE 9.2.

    My main target is to have at least one frequency working, it will be faster than what I have so far 150Mbps.

    Any advice and link to info are welcome.

    Thanks

    After some reading, I see in this thread that RPi3 can get working a dual band wifi adapter. here

    Is it the same for Rpi2?

    Can anyone recommend some troubleshooting steps? Is it a driver issue? What can I do to work toward a solution?

    Note to the moderator: Is this thread in the good forum? Maybe you could move it in the Development?

    Thanks

    • Official Post

    Realtek breed new wireless chips faster than anyone can figure out how to support them, and 80% of their drivers are "out of tree" with low-quality driver code. Over a period of years we got bored of adding ever more shitty realtek drivers that break with every kernel bump, so we stopped adding them. In the future we'll probably move to IWD which will making it technically impossible to use half their junk too. Get a used Apple A1rport Express and run it as a WiFI bridge. It will present Ethernet to the Pi, has better range/throughput than any USB dongle, and there's no drivers required so they're future proof. You can use any WiFi bridge device, but I find the A1rport ones to be cheap ($15-20) now since Apple stopped selling them.

    Thank you chewitt, I'll return it.

    The Apple a1rport you propose is more expensive and I can't find one second hand where I am living.

    So, what are other possibilities without Realtek chip. I can see only AC1300 with Reatek, and can't see brand chip for other AC1200.

    What brands chip are plug and play with Libreelec? You wrote Atheros chips using the ath9k driver, still good?

    Thank you

    • Official Post

    Devices with Atheros chips are generally well supported in the kernel, but few vendors give details on the chips inside the packaging so you've got quite a mission to find devices. As a general rule - if it's cheap it's Realtek (sadly). eBay UK might give more options for WiFi bridge devices.