If you’ve never experienced it, the MAX Adapter is Peplink’s state-of-the-art cellular USB modem. It can be used in several ways:
Add an additional LTE/5G WAN via the USB-WAN of your Peplink devices. I.e, a HD2 Mini.
Create an LTE/5G connection for your non-cellular Peplink device. I.e, Balance One.
Provide instant on-demand connectivity to your laptop (Windows/Linux) on-the-go.
Used to expand devices of other brands. I.e, LTE/5G failover etc.
A full list of supported devices can be found here.
As we are always looking for ways to stay ahead, we would like to hear your thoughts, experiences, and insights into the MAX Adapter. We are particularly interested in hearing:
What application was this used for? (which vertical etc)
What product(s) did you use it with? (Peplink and/or other brands)
How did you find it? Was it useful?
What’s the best thing about the MAX Adapter?
Did you consider or have used other USB modems? If so, which?
Any other feedback and/or improvements you feel this needs.
We (Dennis Hofheinz and I) also created a nice video about the MAX Adapter to talk about the advantages and configuration possibilities of the device:
(For all EN speakers out there: Subtitles are your go-to for now!)
Part II is in the making, so stay tuned - and in the meantime: feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel “Vitel Academy” to get more infos about new products, tips and tricks shared by our Vitel Experts @dennis.hofheinz@nadir.yilmaz and our partners!
We’ve had issues with the Max adapter on UK sims, it either wont connect or when it does will latch to 3G only, I have an ongoing support ticket on the issues.
Also feedback wise it would be great to get it to a point so that
All cellular tech info is shown in the UI and incontrol
You can use and select the 2nd SIM slot when connected to a Peplink router (eg: Balance 20x)
*Enable a soft reset of the modem as per inbuilt modems
As Marcus wrote, set the bands is a must have for the MAX Adapter.
I see this device as an external Cellular module, so it should do everything like the internal modules.
Missing is also the possibility to “insert” the SIM via SIM Injector. This could be possible if the Adpater is connected to a supported router.
Right now we are planning FW9.0.0 to enable additional benefits. It can be recognized as a cellular WAN, which then means more advanced features will be available like auto sim switching and cellular advanced options can be configured via the Peplink router’s UI. These features are unavailable on regular USB dongles.
@EW Will the list of supported devices renewed if new devices are available. e.g. BR1 Pro 5G is a new devices, so I would guess it is also compatible with the Max Adapter, but not in the list.
Just received 5G version today. It will connect to T-Mobile through Windows computer, but will not even activate the modem for Verizon/ATT SIM cards.
To see if there was any difference I tested it in my 310X and HD2(HW2) both running 8.2.0RC2, did not test on a 580. The HD2 just kept cycling the USB, never connecting. The weird thing is that when I tested it on the 310X every single SIM card connected (T-Mobile/VZW/ATT). Unclear why these connections do not work on my desktop or why the HD2 wont even register the device.
Lastly, since I setup everything up on my desktop and added it to IC2, it reports online there, but not on my 310X. Also once disconnecting from my desktop, it takes a while for IC2 to actually register the device is no longer offline (It said online 19 minutes ago, and just switch to red in IC2).
I’d open a ticket on the hd2 and desktop software. I suspect it still needs a software update to fix some of these bugs. The windows software is actually what makes the max adapter report to ic2. The software /driver for the max adapter is not built into the pepwaves yet, but should be coming in the next major release.
The global 5G version of the MAX adapter is great, so far has worked with any SIM card I’ve thrown at it (Telus, Verizon, AT&T, Ting, and T Mobile).
I did want to use it with PFsense or OPNsense, but I don’t believe AT commands are supported which seems to be the way these FreeBSD based devices initialized USB modems.
Are AT Commands supported? Can one configure the device without the Windows application or modem manager?
Stay tuned!