OpenWrt One: The New Open Hardware Router with WiFi 6 and 2.5G Ports

Off topic, but what amuses me about the "Wrt" name is that it was originally alternate firmware for the Linksys WRT54G router from 25 years ago. The name has stuck for whatever reason; I guess since only geeks use it and know what it is.

What a coincidence to see this on the front page!

I just received my OpenWrt One because I’m tired of dealing with the questionable quality of most routers.

And I don’t feel like resurrecting my old PC that I used as a router for a while. I stopped doing that because it’s loud. Pretty sure the power supply fan is about to fly off.

But Qualcomm WiFi pci card with giant antenna in a dirt cheap PC running ancient Ubuntu and a simple hostapd setup is so far the most reliable WiFi router I’ve ever had. I hope openwrt one is even better :-)

How about OPNSense on open hardware of your choice, and passing messy wireless to separate AP?

OpenWRT is very good, but the installation and upgrades are not easy. There is a zoo of images for different hardware, installation options and tools. It has to run on small devices, so there are limitations. The documentation on Wiki is scattered and could be improved.

I had to search forums for weeks for a custom package installation for my router. Right now I have been trying to upgrade to the latest version via LUCI for a while, and it stucks. Probably have to wait for few weeks, go through CLI and maybe search forums again.

I just thought I am paying a hefty time price for a bit more expensive x86 mini pc and AP.

$106usd or $84usd without a case and antennas. That’s a solid price. Wish it had more than 1gb ram - goddamn datacenters.

If someone is interested in open hardware running openwrt, also check out Turris.

https://www.turris.com/en/

I have been using them for years and I'm really happy. I recently bought the WiFi 6 upgrade kit for both of my turris. They "recently" released their latest version which is expensive but comes with WiFi 7 and 2.5 Gbps RJ45 and 10 Gbps SPF.

Since we're talking WiFi, I'll mention

https://www.wiisfi.com/

The single best wifi reference I've found to date.

I have and love my OpenWrt One for my main router. I have two, so that I have a backup one I can switch to if the first one ever dies. It is the best device to run OpenWrt on as it is fully supported hardware that has great images/packages for it. Routing speeds/buffer/latency are great, everything just works, price is very reasonable.

I don't use it for my APs, but that is mostly because I already had 3 TP-Link routers setup as dumb APs using OpenWrt that have been working great. If I did it again, I'd buy OpenWrt Ones though. Although Deco mesh kits I've used have worked exceptionally well, and have become my recommendation for friends/family that don't want to do things like run arbitrary packages on their router/APs.

I've recently been test driving SPR[1] which is a security-oriented distro for Wi-Fi routers. The team behind it are serious about Wi-Fi security and have a research lab[2] that has been credited with several CVEs in the likes of Apple's network stack. The headline feature is strong device isolation for semi-trusted guest and home automation devices, and the software stack is based around containerized and audited Go daemons.

It ran pretty well for me as a travel router I cobbled together from a Raspberry Pi and Netgear A7500 USB dongle for a stay in a short-term rental where the infrastructure network was shared with other units. More recently I have been trialing their CM5-based model with Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5GbE PoE for use as primary home Wi-Fi.

1: https://www.supernetworks.org

2: https://www.supernetworks.org/security-labs.html

I switched from a Google Wifi to this and found it to be just as stable, but with better range/signal strength, and easier to apply the parental controls I want.