Are you a network administrator, managing lots of connected devices in your network? This article is made for you to give an insight into how Silex wireless bridges can streamline your operation.  

What are Silex Wireless Bridges?

Imagine you have a device, like a printer or a medical instrument, that only has an Ethernet port, meaning it's designed to connect with a physical network cable. Silex wireless bridges are clever devices that act like a magic adapter, transforming these wired-only devices into wireless ones. They allow your equipment to join a secure, high-speed Wi-Fi network without needing any changes to the device itself or its software. This is super handy in places where running new network cables is difficult or impossible, like in hospitals or factories.

And their manageability is critically important.

Our AMC Manager® software allows remote monitoring of Silex wireless , including RSSI value, noise level, number of DFS channels being used, and more that can help maintain a healthy wireless environment. It also enables users to easily configure, manage, and monitor Silex products connected to a wired or wireless network remotely, including status monitoring, configuration changes, firmware update and device rebooting.

Single-Client Mode vs. Multi-Client Mode

Silex bridges operate in one of the two ways, depending on how many wired devices you want to connect:

• Single Client Mode: This is for connecting just one wired device, like a single medical cart, to your Wi-Fi network. The really neat thing here is that the bridge becomes "transparent." It essentially takes on the identity (the MAC address) of the device it's connected to. So, to your network, it looks exactly as if your medical cartitself has Wi-Fi built-in! This mode is also versatile, supporting many different communication protocols, it also offers faster and more stable connectivity.

• Multi-Client Mode: If you need to connect several wired devices—up to 16, for example, a group of cameras or industrial sensors—you'd use this mode. You'd typically connect an Ethernet switching hub to the bridge and then plug your multiple devices into that hub. In this mode, the bridge uses its own MAC address for wireless communication, rather than adopting the identity of the connected devices. Wireless bandwidth is shared with all devices. This is a more complicated setup and requires a Wi-Fi access point that can support proper MAC forwarding and may restrict some security features.

What is "IP Intercept" Mode?

"IP Intercept" is a special feature found on Silex wireless bridges, like BR-500AC and BR-330AC-LP. It solves a unique challenge that arises in Single Client Mode.  

Remember how in Single Client Mode, the bridge becomes "invisible" by adopting the connected device's MAC address? While great for seamless connectivity, it makes it tricky for a network administrator to access and manage the bridge itself (e.g., to change Wi-Fi settings or update firmware) because it doesn't have its own distinct MAC address on the network.

The bridge itself can have its IP address (optional), but some networks don’t allow 2 devices with different IPs sharing 1 MAC address. Having two different IP addresses for the 2 devices is necessary so that a user can access both devices, but in some cases it is not allowed.

IP Intercept is designed to fix this!

When enabled, both the bridge and the wired device get 1 common set of an IP address and a MAC address.

It allows you to access the bridge's web configuration interface wirelessly by using the same IP address as the wired device connected to it. So, if your medical cart is at 192.168.1.50, you can type https://192.168.1.50/ into your browser to reach the bridge's settings, even though that IP address primarily belongs to the medical cart. It's a clever way to "intercept" that IP for management purposes without disrupting the connected device's normal operations.

But what if your medical cart has a web user interface which uses that IP address? Then you can access the web user interface of the bridge, but not that of your medical cart. In such a case, you can change the port number of the bridge for HTTPS communication.

For communication with HTTPS, it usually uses Port 443. When you connect to a website with your PC, this is usually the case.

In our IP Intercept function, if the non-wireless device's  webpage uses Port 443 to let users access it anywhere on the network, the Wi-Fi bridge can be set up to use Port 8443, for example, to enable access for a network administrator.  So in our example, you can type https://192.168.1.100:8443 into a web browser to access the Wi-Fi bridge's webpage and  https://192.168.1.100:443 to access the non-wireless device webpage. 

One important thing to note is that when IP Intercept is active, the connected wired device cannot send data to the bridge itself using that shared IP address. This is a deliberate design choice to keep the data flow and management separate.

Summary

With Silex Wireless Bridges, you can provide Wi-Fi connectivity to various devices. Their remote management option makes your work life as a network administrator easier, and your management will see increased productivity in your work.