Does anyone want to share their experience / recommendation for a router with 4G / LTE SIM card slot?
I think I'm going to be needing one soon.
Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
41–50 of 123 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#42Are there any efforts to test the long-term stability of the open router distros on specific hardware? I'd give money to a legit 'OSS router lab'.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#43It's not exactly what OP asked for but some readers may find it worthwile:
The Raspberry Pi is well supported. If you happen to have one that's collecting dust and want to have a look at OpenWRT. Or to try things without fear of bricking the main router. I use a spare v1 for "traveling". Add a cheap Wifi dongle, an LTE dongle and one of those portable USB batteries and you have something to play with.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#44I bought the Buffalo N300 not long ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IB8IVDQ/ref=oh_aui_deta... I've been extremely happy with this purchase, admittedly I'm a bit of a high-demand user (I host a number of minor services for myself and friends including TeamSpeak, minecraft, as well as operating two Xbox Ones) so I needed something with good port forwarding support and UPNP. Rock solid, straight DD-WRT interfa…
I've stuck with buffalo for the last ... 6-8 years, and I have yet to see any of my buffalo routers need a restart, let alone die permanently. Coming with (a customized) DD-WRT out of the box is just a bonus, at that point.
They may not have the greatest wifi range in the world, but I haven't found a router to beat them at stability.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#45It's not exactly what OP asked for but some readers may find it worthwile: The Raspberry Pi is well supported. If you happen to have one that's collecting dust and want to have a look at OpenWRT. Or to try things without fear of bricking the main router. I use a spare v1 for "traveling". Add a cheap Wifi dongle, an LTE dongle and one of those portable USB batteries and you have something to play with.
This isn't a good recommendation as anything other than a toy. The RPi doesn't have enough processing power to handle adequate speeds.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#46I recommend a custom built PC and pfsense.
pfSense for the routing part (and many other features not found in consumer Wi-fi routers) is very good, but is using it for Wi-Fi such a good idea ? The mantra in the pfSense forums is not to hassle with Wi-Fi, as it is a big pita.
Moreover, are there any AC cards supported? Based on the list provided by them[0] and info on the forums there aren't?
[0] - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11cF4UoNL68Me5ZC6qhjF...
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#47It's not exactly what OP asked for but some readers may find it worthwile: The Raspberry Pi is well supported. If you happen to have one that's collecting dust and want to have a look at OpenWRT. Or to try things without fear of bricking the main router. I use a spare v1 for "traveling". Add a cheap Wifi dongle, an LTE dongle and one of those portable USB batteries and you have something to play with.
This isn't a good recommendation as anything other than a toy. The RPi doesn't have enough processing power to handle adequate speeds.
The Pi 2 should have enough power, the Pi 3 has more than enough.
What they don't have is good I/O. USB 2.0 only. And the 100mbps Ethernet is attached through it.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#48I have the Asus RT-AC68U/TM-AC1900. I bought it from T-Mobile for $60 and flashed it to stock and then put Asuswrt-Merlin on it (but you can use Tomato or DD-WRT). It does take a little work to flash it to stock (like Telnet'ing into the router), but it wasn't bad and for $60 I ended up with a wonderful router. There are guides online for flashing it back to stock. If you're looking for information, I suggest SmallNe…
I'm on the Asus RT-N56U with Padavan firmware. It's bliss. I'd recommend the entire RT-N*U line, as a friend picked another model up on my recommendation and is equally as impressed. A bit more on the expensive side, but worth it (especially for that juicy hardware NAT). Only tested in the home, I have no idea how they would fare in an office.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#49In the past two years, I've bought...
- TP-Link Archer C7. This supports our office of ~30 ppl and has been bullet-proof since day 1.
- TP-Link N600. Cheaper but still 5GHz. Also super stable, I use it as a wifi bridge daily.
- I just bought a Netgear R6300v2 which will go in my home. Have not used it much yet but for the price it's an ARM core with a lot of Flash & RAM so I'm excited.
Caveats: I don't know if in practical terms new-ish TP-Links (later than Q2 '16) are harder to flash due to them supposedly cracking down on third-party firmware. At the time they were super easy, I just downloaded the latest from ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/ and followed standard instructions.
Caveat #2: For Broadcom/ARM builds you probably don't want to use builds from ftp.dd-wrt. Intead you want KONG's build, see: http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt-ren/K3-AC-Arm/Readme and search the forums for latest KONG builds.
Finally, reading Amazon reviews for any supported model helps as well, you'll find a few ppl who relate their experience putting ddwrt on it.
EDIT: if your budget is $100+ I've also read good things about the Netgear R6400 and ASUS AC66 and AC68 but don't have any direct experience there.
Re: Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are 3 links that might be usefull: http://rooftopbazaar.com/routerfirmware/ https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/423rn6/best_2015_o... https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/36s530/better_ac_r... Initially I was also planning to buy the Archer C7 but it seems OpenWRT is not flawless on it. This is unfortunate since that appears to be the recommended router for OpenWRT, so there is nothing on which OpenWR…
I am running an Archer C7 v2 on OpenWRT. Works flawlessly. Some notes though: - 5ghz only worked after manually inserting the latest firmware blob for the qca9880 chip and setup only works via shell for it, setting any options for it from the web interface breaks stuff - it's fast enough... I'm running a freeradius2 server on it, SMB shares on two 32gb USB pendrives, miniDLNA, DHCP for ~50 physical and virtual client…
I didn't even have to install any blobs, 5GHz just worked. I think mine is a v2 as well.