Xiaomi Mi AC2100 – Back from the Almost Dead This formerly rather tired-looking old Xiaomi Mi AC2100 router has just had a bit of a resurrection.After a good clean-up and an upgrade to the very latest OpenWrt, it’s now been pressed back into service as a handy network extender.Initially given to me to review years ago by Banggood, this Mi AC2100 (not to be confused with the Redmi AC2100) arrived in Chinese only – with no way to change language.
Well, that wasn’t the best start – a 3 Lan + WAN + dual-band WiFi router about which I could not understand a WORD.My friend Antonio soon helped me strip it of it’s Chinese software and put in OpenWrt.I used it for a couple of years, ignoring its one DIM blue light and not realising the setup had a DHCP issue (see other blog entries on the subject) as an extender router (access point) should not have it’s own DHCP.
Also the WAN port was wasted and taped up.Ultimately I’ve reviewed and hence own various upmarket routers for Gl-iNet and this ended up in a cupboard until today when I dragged it out – got out the Servisol and consulted by favourite AI to see if there was anything we could do with it.To cut a couple of long hours very short, it now gives me four LAN ports, along with 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, looks great and it’s working a treat to extend my network – lack of WiFi 6 won’t offend my IOT devices so this is going in the garage.
It turns out that the dim LED is the Power LED and not controllable – but there’s a WAN LED which can be changed to always-on and that is now the main proof that the router is alive:-) Not bad for a router that had very much headed towards retirement – the photo here is no exaggeration – thanks to Servisol it looks great and thanks to a very recent freely available OpenWrt it WORKS great.A slight settings adjustment brought the perviously defunct WAN port into the LAN.The router has LUCI – the semi-friendly OpenWrt interface – sitting on UCI – the unfriendly version – also has Tailscale installed in case I ever need it.
Runing the latter is as hard as entering “Tailscale UP” and adjusting a couple of settings – I’ve written about that elsewhere in the blog.I’m chuffed.Moral – in the age of AI – never abandon old crap without asking if it can be upgraded.
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