Best WIFI Dongle

[ItsMurf]

Hello, I am currently using my Pi in a room that does not have "full" access to a Ethernet port.

I was wondering what the best WIFI dongle would be.

The room is about 30 ft. away from the router.

The router supports 5ghz however that is not needed.

[anand1]

I was wondering what the best WIFI dongle would be.

I have been using leoxsys WiFi USB dongle bought from ebay its very cheap almost less than 3 bucks or so.......its working fine after minor tweaking to install the driver in my Raspbian Jessie.....

[ItsMurf]

I was wondering what the best WIFI dongle would be.

I have been using leoxsys WiFi USB dongle bought from ebay its very cheap almost less than 3 bucks or so.......its working fine after minor tweaking to install the driver in my Raspbian Jessie.....

Sounds good. Thanks.

Any other idea's?

Is it even worth it to get an expensive one?

[DougieLawson]

Buy the cheapest WiFi dongle you can find on eBay. They mostly work, most of the time straight out of the box. It's only the rtl8188eu dongles that are a pain in the tail.

The best is the official RPF dongle: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/usb-wifi-dongle/ although you may have a struggle running that with Win10IoT.

[ghodan]

If you want THE best wifi adapter in your pi, then i could recommend these 2:
TP-LINK TL-WN722N
Alfa Network AWUS036NEH

Bot have external antenna that are a few inch long, and because of that they easily beat all the nano wifi adapters with their build in mini antenna.
The antenna can also be replaced with a larger one like 8db or 9db.
Also nice for indoor to a specific area or extreme outdoor range: You can plugin a panel antenna.
Also the AWUS036NEH can do 1000MW power... i dont know if that is allowed in your country...

And both do packet injection in Kali Linux if you are into that stuff.

Update:
The internal antenna of the Wipi v2 is big for a small wifi adaptor:
http://raspi.tv/2015/new-official-raspb ... and-edimax

[davidcoton]

Also the AWUS036NEH can do 1000MW power...

That could solve the world energy crisis, if it still runs from a 5V 2A supply.

[ghodan]

Also the AWUS036NEH can do 1000MW power...

That could solve the world energy crisis, if it still runs from a 5V 2A supply.

Oops... that will not work eh?
This one work for sure: TP-LINK TL-WN722N
Its my main wifi adapter for my current Pi2

[allfox]

I had a TP LINK TL-WN722N before, I dropped it when I know its firmware could only support 7 stations in AP mode. I quite regret that as those dongles seem no longer available in China.

It uses ath9k_htc driver so works OOTB in both station mode and AP mode. Unlike most TP LINK products, this dongle's new version do not change the chip, means it always have a good driver.
It has a big antenna, and changeable.
It has 1 transmitter, 2 receivers, so more powerful than most 150M dongle. Even that one on Pi 3 is a 1 transmitter 1 receiver device.
The thing which makes me made the wrong decision is it could only support 7 stations in AP mode.

Currently, I'm using a TP LINK TL-WN822N. Its newest version is using Realtek 8192EU chip. So there is no driver in Raspbian. Thanks to MrEngman who provides a workaround for this.

[davidcoton]

Also the AWUS036NEH can do 1000MW power...

That could solve the world energy crisis, if it still runs from a 5V 2A supply.

Oops... that will not work eh?
This one work for sure: TP-LINK TL-WN722N
Its my main wifi adapter for my current Pi2

Sorry, my comment should have been marked
I think you meant 1000mW (1W), not 1000MW (1000000000W), the output of a big power station.
I don't know whether it will work legally or with the supplied drivers, but to use 1W RF output you will need a good power supply.

[dobra-dobra]

I can recommend the following two dongles:
1) http://www.ebay.com/itm/WiFi-300Mbps-US ... SweW5VY8tW
2) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Protronix-Mini- ... SwDuJWxgcj
Pick the one with antenna when you plan to use your Pi far from the router.
And do not buy this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/262217166401?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
It's the cheapest one on eBay, but it heats a lot and connection is not stable.
Look for better offers, these are only for example.

[mutley]

EDI Max AC600 is what I would recommend as the best I have tested so far. Super fast, very reliable and very little packet loss. It supports both 5 and 2.4 Ghz on the Pi and uses the 8812au chipset. On 5Ghz it gives me better performance than the built in SMSC95xx Ethernet adapter on a Pi 2.
http://www.edimax.com/edimax/merchandis ... w-7811uac/

It is not supported natively though, but since it's 8812au chipset there are pre-compiled drivers all over the place for it. This is the thread where I got the driver from
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=102323&p=782878

[ric96]

Pi3

[ItsMurf]

If you want THE best wifi adapter in your pi, then i could recommend these 2:
TP-LINK TL-WN722N
Alfa Network AWUS036NEH

Bot have external antenna that are a few inch long, and because of that they easily beat all the nano wifi adapters with their build in mini antenna.
The antenna can also be replaced with a larger one like 8db or 9db.
Also nice for indoor to a specific area or extreme outdoor range: You can plugin a panel antenna.
Also the AWUS036NEH can do 1000MW power... i dont know if that is allowed in your country...

And both do packet injection in Kali Linux if you are into that stuff.

Update:
The internal antenna of the Wipi v2 is big for a small wifi adaptor:
http://raspi.tv/2015/new-official-raspb ... and-edimax

I think I will go with the TP-LINK or maybe the official Pi one.

[gychang]

I have been using leoxsys WiFi USB dongle bought from ebay its very cheap almost less than 3 bucks or so.......its working fine after minor tweaking to install the driver in my Raspbian Jessie.....[/quote]

what do u mean by "minor tweaking"??

[gychang]

EDI Max AC600 is what I would recommend as the best I have tested so far. Super fast, very reliable and very little packet loss. It supports both 5 and 2.4 Ghz on the Pi and uses the 8812au chipset. On 5Ghz it gives me better performance than the built in SMSC95xx Ethernet adapter on a Pi 2.
http://www.edimax.com/edimax/merchandis ... w-7811uac/

It is not supported natively though, but since it's 8812au chipset there are pre-compiled drivers all over the place for it. This is the thread where I got the driver from
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=102323&p=782878

this seem ideal for me since I have AC router, but never having compiled scares me a bit, will assume it also works in ubuntu variants?

[NickT]

My main criterion for selecting a dongle is price, rather than performance, so I have gone for cheap e-bay items. The search term I used was RTL8188CUS . These have come from the far east and cost less than £2. They have always worked out of the box for me.