MikroTik RBmAPL-2nD 2GHz mAP lite access point 802.11bgn 2x2 PoE in

The MikroTik mAP Lite is the adorable cousin of the mAP 2n—the one that shows up with half the features, a third of the weight, and still somehow manages to be useful in situations you didn’t see coming. With only a single Ethernet port, you lose a big chunk of the Swiss Army knife tricks the larger mAP can pull off, but what remains is still a shockingly capable lab and field companion. In the right hands, it’s the fastest way to pop up a Wi-Fi network when you’re tired of standing in front of a rack, need to reach gear from across the room, or want to stop leaning over a switch like you’re trying to smell the firmware. In the lab, the mAP Lite earns its keep over and over. Need a quick test SSID to validate DHCP, DNS, or captive portal behavior? Done. Need to figure out what a device is doing before you commit it to the production stack? This thing will happily give you a clean, isolated wireless bubble to experiment in. And the “one Ethernet port” limitation actually simplifies certain workflows—you plug it into something, it becomes the gateway drug for diagnostics. No bridging tricks, no inline MITM setups, just a tiny radio that gives your laptop or tablet the wireless rope it needs to poke at devices hiding behind racks, under desks, or in the dreaded top-of-ladder zone. In everyday tech work, the mAP Lite is basically a get-out-of-jail card for laptops without Ethernet. That single port becomes your emergency NIC, your temporary portal into stranded VLANs, your way to SSH into switches that live in awkward corners of MDFs. It’s not winning any throughput awards and it’s very much a “2.4 GHz only” child, but for powered-from-anything PoE-in convenience and dead-simple portability, it’s a tool that quietly becomes part of your standard kit. It doesn’t replace the full mAP, but it fills a niche you don’t appreciate until you’re on-site, stuck on Wi-Fi-only hardware, and wishing you had just one more wired hop. This is that hop. ⸻ Pros • Tiny, featherweight, and ridiculously easy to toss in any toolkit • Great for lab testing, quick SSIDs, and isolated “what is this device doing?” scenarios • Perfect workaround for laptops with no Ethernet port • PoE-in makes it deployable anywhere a switch or injector exists • Incredibly cheap for the utility it provides Cons • Only one Ethernet port—no bridging, no inline MITM, limited tricks • 2.4 GHz only, with all the crowding and interference that implies • RouterOS depth is still there if you stray beyond simple configs • Throughput capped by both hardware and physics • More limited Swiss Army knife than the full mAP

This thing is tiny, and can be PoE powered, making it incredibly flexible. I have a remote gate that I wanted to install the highest resolution Ring doorbell, which is unfortunately not the one that has Ethernet support. So, what to do. My wifi signal out to that location is weak, and the doorbell would not reliably allow for two way communication with people at the gate. I had ethernet out there, then found this little guy, and it made for the perfect solution. I put it in a little weatherproof box, sealed the ethernet wire into the box, and powered it with PoE. I stuffed the whole thing in the wall behind the doorbell and it's set to act as a wifi to ethernet bridge with a custom SSID just for my doorbell to use. Now the doorbell has a strong wifi signal six inches away and works flawlessly. The mikrotik has an accessible IP on the internal side of the bridge so I can still manage and update it as needed.

RouterOS is incredible, especially that it can run on such a small device. I'm using it to connect to my phone hotspot and provide a backup WAN connection. The only real cons I see are - Its almost too small (not really a con) - The PoE doesn't work, at least on my switch without a modified cable

I installed this device in my home as a low-power dedicated AP for a floodlight camera. My other cameras are wired and powered with PoE, so the mAP lite sort of "represents" the floodlight on my wired network. The FCC ID is TV7MAPL2ND if you want to check out the guts before you buy it. I did have issues initially connecting to the web interface since it turns out the documentation was a little ahead of its time. A firmware upgrade followed by a factory reset causes the device to behave as documented, but with the shipped firmware the LAN interface did not come preconfigured with the IP address 192.168.88.1. Out of the box, it served up an unprotected wireless network named something like "MikroTik-XXXXXX", but I could not simply connect to this network to configure the device. What I ended up doing is plugging the mAP into my computer and enabling Windows internet connection sharing to share my computer's existing network connection with the mAP. This assigned an IP to the mAP, and I was able to connect to the web interface afterwards. Holy cow are there configuration options... I just used one of the quick settings to do what I needed. The reason I removed a star is the jack. Yes, the slim design looks nice, but the jack that was actually sourced is not great. It holds onto cables very well. Too well, actually, as it has a hard time letting them go. I have to push the entire connector down pretty forcefully as well as press in the connector's clip near its fulcrum before the jack releases the cable. This can't be great for the longevity of the cables or the jack, but luckily this device is a permanent fixture. I found the PoE support on the mAP lite to be great. I've powered this thing using an 802.3af/at injector from Cudy (model POE200) as well as a passive 24 volt injector from TP-Link (model TL-POE2412G). I haven't had this device for terribly long, so I'll update this review if things go south. In the meantime, pretty neat!

It seems like great hardware. Unfortunately, I was looking around this device's web interface shortly after purchasing and apparently I changed something causing both the wifi and ethernet port to stop working normally. It's now a brick because apparently there is *no way* to do a factory reset. Hours wasted trying to get this thing back to baseline while going through their horrible documentation, I give up.

I love these things. As configurable as any other Mikrotik, and idles under 1 watt. Flexible ways to power it. It is limited in capacity, especially wifi throughput (20mbs or so with my usual firewall rules). But as long as you don't ask too much of it, you'll be happy with it. I use these to add wifi to ethernet only devices, as emergency or backup routers, and even as standalone dns or dhcp servers. I keep one in my networking toolbag.

Physical hardware: Pretty cool. Device is tiny. Built-in magnet and adhesive plate is a nice touch. Ethernet jack design make it somewhat pocket/bag unfriendly since it could catch Software: Manual says hook it up and connect to 192.168.88.1. Spent a bunch of time trying this because I wanted to configure it before having it on a network. Finally tried a windows machine and their winbox utility to find out there is no IP set by default. Resetting config was a waste of my time because the default is a bridge AP mode and dhcp client. Somewhat of a pain because you can't count on configuring this device without having a windows machine and their winbox utility or a dhcp server on the network. Otherwise seems like standard routeros. Lots of configurability, a couple quickset modes (router, ap), and a big list of items to hunt through for setup.

If you love configuring IT gear, enjoy puzzles and searching for gold with torn scraps of faded treasure maps then you're the target demographic for this little guy. If you want a TINY wifi AP/router/bridge/etc. that can be PoE or USB powered in your bag of tricks, you'll endure the UI and documentation. Does the job once configuration is dialed in, and much smaller than anything similar. I have several, each set up for a different use case.