TP-LINK TL-WN723N on Raspberry Pi B+ with OpenELEC

6 Dec 2014 1 mins Network, OpenELEC, Raspberry Pi, Wi-Fi

Simply speaking it works without a glitch. Plug in, boot, set up Wi-Fi network and done. Now it runs days without crashing, freezing or something like that.

OK, maybe little bit more info. I’m running OpenELEC media center on Raspberry Pi B+. I have to say I’m surprised how smooth it is, given such a small nifty device. Anyway. Cables are good, but there’s always enough cables around audio-video. So I decided I’ll use Wi-Fi for Raspberry Pi. Not willing to spend way too much money on Wi-Fi USB dongle I finally settled on TP-LINK TL-WN723N. It’s small enough that it will not look like another Raspberry Pi attached and at the same time big enough to have at least some reasonable antenna (not a big fan of “nano” dongles).

My fear whether it will work with my Raspberry Pi B+ and OpenELEC was short lived. After the device booted I was able to set up Wi-Fi network in OpenELEC smoothly. And I’m not even using some beefy USB power adapter, only 700 mA. Sweet.

I’m not going to post any speed tests because it greatly depends on environment. So it’s useless, I think.

Good work on all sides. I’m pleased. Also I suppose all the TL-WN72x should work the same way.

Jiří Činčura is .NET, C# and Firebird expert. He focuses on data and business layers, language constructs, parallelism, databases and performance. For almost two decades he contributes to open-source, i.e. FirebirdClient. He works as a senior software engineer for Microsoft. Frequent speaker and blogger at www.tabsoverspaces.com.