By Ki Grinsing

Linksys WET610N and WES610N are dual band wireless Ethernet Bridge devices connecting home theater devices to the network wirelessly with the high speed up to 300Mbps

Ethernet-based home theater devices

Mostly today’s home theater devices including Blu-ray player, XBOX gaming console, or internet HDTV are equipped with internet ready (Ethernet) 10/100Mbps port. They are ready for connecting to the internet by running the twisted network cable to your existing home network (the router Ethernet port). Running the network cable from where your home theater devices are located to where the router is located can be long enough. The easy solution is to install such kind of wireless internet adapter or any types of wireless bridge to let your devices connect wirelessly to the network.

WET610N Vs WES610N wireless bridge

Linksys by Cisco has two types of wireless dual band bridge:

1. WET610N
2. WES610N

The main spec WET610N Vs WES610N dual band wireless Ethernet bridge can be shown in the following table. We can see that the only difference you can see is the number of Ethernet port. WES610N includes four Ethernet ports, but WET610N includes one port.

Comparison table

Universal wireless bridge

Linksys WET610N / WES610N dual band wireless bridge are universal bridge devices to let you connect any types of Ethernet-base devices including Blu-ray player, XBOX gaming console, or internet HDTV to the wireless network. Powered by the latest wireless N technology and with 3xinternal antennas, the devices deliver the high speed up to 300Mbps and are optimized for streaming HD video and fast responsive gaming.

To protect your wireless connection to the network the WET610N and WES610N support the latest industrial standards WPA/WPA2 for strong wireless encryption. You can connect to the router which supports dual band such as Linksys E3200 N600 wireless router or other high performance dual band wireless routers.

Easy installation

Installation is easy, if your network uses the router with the DHCP server ready, the device receives the IP address from the DHCP server automatically. But if no DHCP server exists, the default IP address of the WET610N is 169.254.1.250. You can use the web-based utility by typing this address from your browser to configure the device including changing the default SSID, password and the IP address.

Click here for WET610N manufacturer’s specs and details and click here for WES610N spec details.

Connection Diagram

The figure 1 shows the wireless network that uses Linksys E3200 N600 wireless router as the center of the network and WES610N or WET610N as the wireless bridge connecting multiple home theater devices such as Game console, Blu-ray player, HDTV with internet ready.

Cons and Pros

WET610N / WES610N advantages and disadvantages:

Pros:

• WET610N receives averagely 3.6 out of five stars customer ratings for ease of use, setup and installation as well as features. WES610N is still a new product, no reviews from the customer so far
• Dual band supports

Cons:

• Supports only one single Ethernet port on WET610N.

Alternate Solution

If you mainly use the wireless bridge to connect your XBOX game console or other gaming console including PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 or Wii you can consider the WGA600N dual band wireless gaming adapter which is capable of selecting the band and the channel automatically for best performance possible.

For multiple Ethernet-base devices, you may consider:

1. D-Link DAP1513 wireless dual band media bridge with 4xEthernet ports
2. Airstation WLI-TX4-AG300N Wireless N Dual Band Adapter with 4x Ethernet ports
3. DAP-1525 WI-FI booster with smartbeam technology & 4x Gigabit ports

By Ki Grinsing