Got the new OTD500 outdoor router a week ago. Did some tests and got great 5G results with almost 500Mbps DL speeds.
Here are the weak points:
It is IP55 rated (in the manual) and in reality even less. The SIM card tray and 2x RJ45 slots are open without any seals protecting them. SIM card just slides in, without klick or fixation of any sorts (hangs upside down). Looking at the OTD500 build quality and design I would not think of it as an outdoor router compared to everything else I have seen and handled.
The lower cover just slides into position without any seals to protect from the weather. You have to make a cut for the CAT cable, there is no rubber seal for it either.
The router when tested for prolonged time (1h+) shut itself down most likely due to high temperature. It was sitting inside, on a white window sill with an open window, however in direct sunlight. That seemed strange because the unit is supposed to be outside in direct sunlight with operating temperature (in the spec) up to 60C?!
In the first operating week outside (mounted on a pole next to the roof) I checked the temperatures.
Temp outside 18C, no direct sunlight. Unit internal temp 52C.
Temp outside 25C, direct sunlight. Unit internal temp 69C on moderate load.
There was some stormy weather during the week. As of yesterday the unit did not respond anymore. Took it down and could not get connection from the main POE port after restarting the unit multiple times. However I did get a direct laptop connection from the secondary port. When connected to management interface there was a new FW version available. I allowed the upgrade, unit restarted and now is “bricked”. Can not get any connection in any way, lights come on briefly but no LAN connection is established, and now 3G-5G connection is established by the indicator lights on the bottom.
Long story short - I have used multiple RUTX products which have been rather solid with some FW problems but all have work with external antennas etc. OTD500 however I have growing feelings that this unit is NOT built the same and should be reconsidered.
Teltonika - I will contact my local retailer that I bought the unit from to send it in as a warranty repair. If you want more info directly please let me know (serial nr etc).
Thank you for taking the time to share your detailed experience with the OTD500.
To better understand the situation you have faced, could you kindly clarify a few additional details:
Where and how was the device installed? Was it mounted on a wall, pole, or under eaves, or was it fully exposed?
You mentioned stormy weather. Was the relative humidity likely near 100% during that time? According to the unit’s datasheet, the operating humidity range is 10% to 90% (non-condensing), so this could be relevant.
What kind of PoE cable did you use? It’s recommended to use an outdoor-rated Ethernet cable with waterproof shielding and connectors, especially in fully exposed outdoor setups.
Just to confirm, was the firmware update initiated after the main PoE-in port stopped responding? When connecting the device via the second port (PoE-out), how was it powered during that time?
If the device is still at your side and hasn’t been sent in yet, I’d recommend trying the bootloader recovery method to re-flash the firmware directly via bootloader. Instructions for this procedure can be found below:
The device was installed outside, mounted on a pole (vertically) outside the roof, fully exposed. Just like in the use case scenarios on your website.
Unit is located in Estonia, I believe there is no “extreme” weather in this region of Europe that would be outside of any regular outdoor unit limits.
Cable is CAT6A Outdoor cable with regular CAT6 RJ45 plug. I do not know of any “IP rated or waterproof” RJ45 plugs. Always the water protection is given with seals and external casings which in this case is almost non existent.
I could not get LAN connection from the POE in port. However the unit still had POE voltage and lights were on after connecting the POE CAT cable. I then proceeded to connect my laptop through the secondary port leaving the POE injector still connected in the POE in main port. Thus I got access to the router and prompted the FW update.
Tried it without success. I could get the unit to work for maybe 1 minute, got access to it from the secondary port (main port still no LAN connection, only POE connection is working), accessed the main menu then the LAN ports as well as 3G-5G lights went out and the unit was non accessible again.
All in all - seems the unit is broken and will not work so I will still send it back to the retailer and hopefully will get it sorted without problems. I will try to talk with them and maybe get a TRB500 instead with some kind of outdoor antenna casing. I do not see the OTD500 as a viable long term outdoor solution at the moment.
The main thing is that I do not see how this design was accepted and how it was tested in regular outdoor conditions before production. I have handled multiple outdoor units from Teltonika and others (in similar and lower price ranges) and 100% of them have had external cases with seals and CAT cable pass throughs with seals, also much higher IP ratings from IP66-IP68.
I had the same issues with 4G Version ,IP rating needs to be improved, i had water ingress in the unit.
I had it mounted on a 10ft pole attached to my chimney,it packed up,due water ingress on the ethernet port socket corroded,and lasted a year in service.
Decided to sell it as parts on eBay.
I decided to buy a RUTX50 and fit it in a Quwireless antenna enclosure which is a far better enclosure.
Update on this subject. It has been a month since I have tried to solve this problem.
It has been 3+ weeks since sending the unit back to warranty via our local dealer.
There has been 0 responses from Teltonika about the warranty issue. Not the best start with the OTD500 and Teltonika on this behalf.
Thank you for the update. In this case, to assist you effectively, we’ll need to continue this process privately because sensitive/publicly unshareable information needs to be gathered. You should find a support request form in the inbox of the email address you used for your forum registration. Kindly fill out the form, and please reference Ticket ID: 14702 when submitting it. Once the form is completed, we’ll contact you directly via email to investigate the issue in detail and help work towards a solution.
Just an update to this thread, or should I call it saga already.
It has now been ca 40 days from sending the unit back to local dealer and it should be atleast 30 days from Teltonika distributor/factory or whom ever receiving it.
0 feed back from dealer, distributor or factory about the warranty case. This is getting interesting. Will continue to provide feedback until this gets resolved. So far I truly do not understand what has happened to Teltonika - product design wise as well as customer service.
Apologies for this prolonged situation. At the moment, your distributor initiated the RMA process on the 25th of this month, and the warranty service is currently waiting for the device to arrive.
Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding.
Thank you for your patience while we investigated this case. Our repair team has analyzed the issue with your OTD device and determined that the malfunctions were most likely caused by overvoltage on the Ethernet lines due to the lightning activity you mentioned near your location.
Our R&D team already has an improvement in mind to help prevent similar issues in future hardware revisions.
Additionally, to mention, the broken device will be replaced with a new one.
I was disappointed that the OTD500 POE-Output is ‘802.3af Alternative B’ only. This means you cannot daisy-chain any Ubiquiti Access Points [twigs or disks] as they only work on ‘Alternative A’. I don’t know why the OTD can’t auto-sense like any other device. It’s an expensive piece of kit and it should be able to auto-negotiate the two standards.