I’m trying to hook up a Tivo that requires a wired ethernet connection in a different room from my modem.
Is it possible to use this router to receive my home wifi and relay it to the Tivo via ethernet cable? It looks as if it’s designed to do the opposite - hard-wire to the internet and send signals to wireless devices, so what I’m thinking of may not even be possible. But all the instructions I’ve found online have been extremely confusing.
I think we need a little more info to answer your questions. But it is doubtful your old Belkin will work for what you want to do.
I assume you have a current router with wireless for your internet?
Is the Tivo too far from that router?
The normal way to do this without running wire, is to get an access point that works as a repeater. Basically is gets the signal from the actual internet router and sends it on to the wireless device like your Tivo. Figure on place the need Access Point Repeater about half way between your router & Tivo.
The issue is that the Tivo does not have wireless capability (it’s about a 10-year-old model). I’ve moved it from my living room - where it was hard-wired to my xfinity router - to my bedroom. The wifi is well within range, but the Tivo needs a way to receive the signal.
I used a D-link for this purpose before I moved, but I discovered it was broken in transit. So I know I could buy another one of those. I just really don’t want to spend any money on this.
I had that router many moons ago and I believe it had a wireless bridge mode, but I don’t know if it was proprietary to Belkin where you needed a similar router.
You could setup the wireless bridge and then plug the Tivo into the Belkin.
There are units that do that, but your Belkin almost surely cannot.
Few questions, do you use your Tivo as a DVR or just to stream?
If just to stream you might want to just get a nice new unit like a Roku or Firestick with built in Wifi. Both have some very inexpensive models, probably cheaper than any decent Wifi repeater with a cat-5 port that would hook to the Tivo.
Your Tivo might be compatible with a USB Wifi adapter. This might be worth looking into as it is simple and some refurbs are inexpensive. I honestly don’t know much about Tivos. As an example, there seems to be many in the $10 to $25 range.
So short answer, no, unless your main router is an F5D7130.
Many companies “range extenders” actually can be setup to act as three different things. Extender, access point, and what you want, Wireless Bridge.
The good news is different brands can now usually talk to each other.
This one is 30$. When setup as a Bridge the radio connects to your main wifi and the yellow Ethernet jack goes to your Tivo and allows the Tivo to connect as if it were cabled to your main router.
Simple powerline adapters have an Ethernet interface and encode the data in onto to a domestic power outlet. Another powerline adapter in another room decodes decodes the signal it hears of the power outlet and turns it back into Ethernet.
Just plug one into the wall and a router ethernet port. Then in the other room plug in the second unit and connect your TV to it with an ethernet cable.
It does not disturb the existing router Wifi in any way.
Here is an example of a simple ethernet powerline adapter. There are other models that also reproduce the Wifi, but you don’t need that for a simple ethernet device like a Tivo.
You don’t mention what sort of Internet connectivity you have. If it’s cable, you likely have a cable drop at the modem and where you’re going to install the TiVo. If so, that makes MoCA an option. A ten-year-old TiVo won’t have MoCA built-in, so you’ll likely need two bridges, making it a more expensive option than some of the others, but it will almost certainly give you much better bandwidth than WiFi. I figured it was worth offering for consideration.
You don’t have to buy the TiVo-branded adapter. I use two Motorola adapters for my TiVo setup, but the model I use doesn’t appear to be manufactured any longer.
If that Belkin router does not support wireless bridging out of the box (if icbm is correct that it doesn’t, it sounds like it’s so old re-flashing it will not help) and you don’t want to spend any money, sounds like it boils down to what working hardware you have lying around. A USB wifi adapter compatible with TiVo sounds like the simplest solution. Or an old router that does do what you want, like that D-Link. Or an old Raspberry Pi that has WiFi already. What do you have?
Some older routers can support bridging, I did this once with an old linksys WRT54G, if you google ‘WRT54G bridge’ you’ll find the guides on how to set it up. I have a couple of these just sitting in a box, I’d be happy to send one to you if you want to give it a try.
But the quick and easy way is to use powerline adapters. I use three of these in my house right now, and they are pretty much just plug in and go. Easy to expand if you need to also.
I happened to have something like this lying around already. Mrs. Wheelz had bought it for her home office a couple years back and it turned out she didn’t need it. (Coincidentally, it’s also a Belkin.)
Setup was easy, and the Tivo is now up and running. Thanks for your help, everybody!
We did something like this when we got our first smart TV. It came with a wireless adapter but it was so unreliable that we’d get about a minute into a movie and it would freeze, requiring us to reconfigure the setup every time.
Since there was a cable outlet in the room we got a MoCA adapter. I’d have to look behind the TV, and I’m too lazy to do that right now, but I think I put a cable splitter (coax from wall in, two coaxes out: one to cable box, one to adapter). And the TV is connected to the adapter via ethernet.
I think that whole setup cost a bit over a hundred dollars, between the splitter and the adapter (we already had the cables). Like another poster said, a cheap Roku or similar might be your best bet.