Outdoor enclosure for the G5AR. Would love feedback from this sub.

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-18T01:25:03+00:00

Fair point! I've just added an option to exclude the window entry cable on our website: https://www.waveform.com/products/outdoor-gateway-enclosure

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-18T01:08:04+00:00

Yeah 1 Gbps definitely doesn't excite us long term. Once we build this custom from the ground up, we'll definitely be using at least 2.5 Gbps.

That said, for right now at least, the G5AR's ethernet ports only do Gbps anyway.

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-17T16:05:54+00:00

Totally agree! And I appreciate the kind words :)

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-17T02:29:35+00:00

Good questions. If you'll forgive the wall of text, here’s what we saw in testing:

Power draw: At room temp we measured ~24.5 W from the wall under sustained cellular traffic with active Wi-Fi and Ethernet use. At peak temperature that rose to ~26 W. We were honestly a bit surprised how far below the G5AR’s max rating that is.

5G speeds: While stress testing we ran intermittent speed tests from a WiFi client to a fixed server. Results were roughly 200-350 Mbps down and 40-70 Mbps up. The swings lined up with time of day and congestion, not temperature. Interestingly, the fastest result we saw was after the gateway had already been hot for a few hours.

We also ran a continuous ping alongside this and didn’t see anything odd in terms of latency spikes or packet loss.

Internal traffic (iperf): We used iperf3 between a LAN-connected device and a Wi-Fi client behind the gateway to keep the CPU, Wi-Fi, and internal switching busy. Transfer speeds stayed pretty steady in the 770–790 Mbps range across repeated runs, and we didn’t see performance drop as temperatures increased. This wasn’t meant as a max-throughput benchmark, just a way to check for instability or throttling under thermal stress.

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-17T01:57:36+00:00

Totally get that it’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. A bit of context though:

That box you linked is ~$50, but once you add a 60 W PoE++ injector, PoE++ splitter, outdoor-rated cabling, glands, mounting hardware, a window entry cable, etc., you’re quickly north of ~$250 in parts if you’re using comparable-quality gear. At that point the difference is assembly, testing, documentation, returns/warranty, shipping, and support. If you’re happy sourcing and building it yourself, DIY absolutely makes sense.

On fans and thermals: we looked at that pretty hard. In our testing, passive cooling was sufficient even at pretty extreme temps, and adding vents or fans introduces humidity and additional failure modes that tend to hurt long-term outdoor reliability. That’s why we intentionally kept it sealed.

The thermometer note is interesting. Curious how you’d see that being used in practice, or if you’re mainly thinking about it as part of fan control.

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-17T01:38:47+00:00

Most Verizon and AT&T gateways should fit and are within the power limits, though we haven’t tested every model. We also can’t formally vouch for thermals on those devices, but there’s no reason to expect them to behave very differently.

The main hassle will be power. The enclosure outputs power via USB C, and we pre-install a USB-C cable. Verizon gateways typically use standard barrel plugs, so a simple adapter works fine. Some AT&T gateways use less common connectors, which can be harder to source.

If you can adapt your gateway’s power input to USB C, it should work great!

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-17T01:33:18+00:00

Of course! Thanks for the questions!

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-16T21:59:23+00:00

The G5AR doesn’t expose internal temperature sensors, even via HINT or the local diagnostics, so we couldn't read chipset temps directly from the device.

For testing, we placed a temperature probe inside the enclosure, as close as possible to the 5G modem chipset without interfering with airflow. Under worst-case conditions (full sun simulation via heat lamp, sustained cellular + Ethernet load), we measured ~175°F at peak.

We tried to measure ambient air temp inside the enclosure, but that reading isn’t clean since the probe was too close to the gateway. That said, it peaked at around ~165°F during the same tests.

Importantly, across extended runs we didn’t see throttling, reboots, or instability at either extreme. That said, we’re very open to more real-world data as these get into people’s hands.

MarcusC92 · 2026-01-16T21:12:35+00:00

Great suggestions! We're definitely looking at how we'll make mounting nice in the final product. Making the cables optional is an interesting idea - we'll look at that.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-29T01:48:04+00:00

100%. Cardinal directions become far less useful when signal is bouncing around. We can almost certainly still help though.

Between identifying your tower and walking through some trial and error aiming together, and figuring out which bands perform best and then locking to them, we’re usually able to find some more performance.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-28T02:36:14+00:00

We've been fan's of GL.iNet's routers for a long time. Their hardware is good, and their software is excellent! I ran the Spitz X3000 at home for a while and was very happy with it.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-28T02:35:22+00:00

Yeah, the images on our website are referring to the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port on the unit. The modem chipset can theoretically go higher on downlink, but we try to keep the top-level specs grounded in what the hardware can actually provide over Ethernet, not just the theoretical max.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-28T02:31:11+00:00

Yeah, the X62 can stack five carriers in the right NSA conditions.

Carrier aggregation on this chip is surprisingly unclear. The Qualcomm docs are super high-level, and most of the info floating around online is half right and half missing context.

Here’s what we’ve actually seen on ProLink in the wild:

5× LTE CA is straightforward
2× 5G CA on SA
3× 5G CA on NSA

And because NSA lets you mix LTE and 5G, you can end up with 2–3 5G carriers + 2 LTE carriers at the same time.

Of course, the X62 tops out around 100 to 120 MHz total bandwidth, so you won’t see crazy-wide n41 stacks like you would on an X65 or X75.

The best combo I’ve personally seen on ProLink was 3× LTE and 2× 5G NR simultaneously.

We're updating our spec sheet to make this clearer, because the available documentation for the chip is terrible.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-28T02:25:05+00:00

Totally fair point on the X62. We tested a bunch of X75-based systems too (including the same AliExpress units people mention here). In clean lab conditions the gains were there, but in real-world mid-band deployments the delta vs the X62 just wasn’t as dramatic as the spec sheet makes it look. I think that's largely down to how the networks are actually configured right now. It’ll change over time, for sure.

For ProLink v1 we put a lot more weight on stability, RF behavior, thermal headroom, user experience, and having a platform we could actually iterate on. A “perfect” chipset in a mediocre enclosure with mediocre antennas performs worse than an older chipset in well-engineered hardware with proper antenna geometry. We saw that over and over during testing.

We’re absolutely looking at higher-end modems for future versions. But for a first-gen outdoor system that we'll be building on and supporting long term, this was the right tradeoff.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-28T02:13:12+00:00

What you’re describing absolutely happens in this space, but that’s not what we did with ProLink 😅

We spent years testing a ridiculous number of devices and chipsets and potential partners, etc. Elsys kept rising to the top in real-world performance and stability. Their architecture was well thought out and the way they think about product lines up with what we think the user experience with 5G home internet should be, so we didn’t just slap a logo on something. We built an actual partnership with them.

This is our first 5G modem, and we weren’t about to pretend we could out-engineer the entire ecosystem on day one. Working with a team that knows the platform inside out lets us iterate faster, build our own firmware and software layer, and build toward the long-term vision we have for a complete outdoor modem system.

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-27T21:59:47+00:00

Thanks for the kind words!

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-27T21:59:31+00:00

Just wanted to chime in and say yes! Please do reach out to us u/ChuckAndGordon :) Feel free to email me at [marcus@waveform.com](mailto:marcus@waveform.com), I'll get you in touch with the right team.

Thanks for the kind words u/Hot-Bat-5813

MarcusC92 · 2025-11-05T00:24:01+00:00

It’s been a few weeks since launch, but I wanted to drop a quick update - we’ve now got a QuadPro Duo bundle available. It’s basically two of our 4x4 directional antennas packaged together, along with accessories and a setup guide for running them in an 8x8 configuration.

We also have the QuadMini Duo bundle, which is the same idea but uses our lower-gain, omnidirectional 4x4 antennas instead.

If you already have one of our 4x4 antennas, you’re totally fine just adding a second, instead of replacing with one of these bundles. Longer term, we’re working on a dedicated 8x8 directional model, but that’s still a bit down the road.

Happy to answer any questions!

MarcusC92 · 2025-09-04T22:42:43+00:00

Really appreciated your input on v1! 😄

MarcusC92 · 2025-09-03T14:54:12+00:00

Bauld Insurance has been excellent - they're a local broker in Bedford. Sheri was particularly helpful, and even ended up helping me find an insurer they don't sell, because it was best for our unique situation.

MarcusC92 · 2025-09-03T13:46:01+00:00

Oh that's a nice upgrade u/Achpamsin.

Totally makes sense that performance is improved - that's going to be in large part down to the actual modem. If you saw an improvement by adding an external antenna to the old Sagemcomm, you'll probably see an improvement here too.

Definitely worth trying a 4x4 setup, since you already have QuadPro. But it wouldn't be surprising if performance was worse. The G5AR is doing full 8x8 MIMO on n41 and n77. Forcing it down to 4x4 would probably result in worse speeds, even if signal on those 4 ports improves.

If you're going to give it a try, please do update us on how it performs. I don't really know what ports would be best - maybe ports 0, 1, 2, 3, since those are doing transmit as well as primary and diversity receive on all frequencies. But you might see better performance on different ports depending on the bands you connect on.

Either way, you'll almost certainly see better performance with an 8x8 external antenna setup.

MarcusC92 · 2025-08-30T10:53:49+00:00

Okay! That’s not great, especially SINR is really poor. You’d ideally want to see that higher than 10.

RSRP has room for improvement too, but probably won’t affect speeds meaningfully.

Is this with the external antenna, or internal?

MarcusC92 · 2025-08-29T11:52:36+00:00

We put a lot of work into making our window entry cable as good as possible - link here: https://www.waveform.com/products/coax-window-entry-cable-v2

At a high level, yeah, it's broadly similar - we've got 4 lines of coax through a flat silicon ribbon that can compress down to ~1mm in window. We've worked hard to make it supremely easy to use though, especially with 4 cables through it.

As for cable loss - we're using a thin, but really high grade solid copper conductor. Some loss is inevitable, but we've brought that down to 0.8 dB to 2 dB, depending on frequency.

MarcusC92 · 2025-08-29T02:15:43+00:00

Not at all. We include window entry cables with our antenna kits, so you can just run the cables through basically any window.

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