OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#41

Post by stoltzmann » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:19 PM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #22

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…

>OpenWRT is very good, but the installation and upgrades are not easy.

The solution is to use image-builder and bake your config into the image.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#42

Post by petee » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #16

drdaeman wrote: post #6

Just two Ethernet ports (1+2.5GbE), and it’s dual-band (no 6GHz)… I’m not sure who’s the target audience or what’s the use case.

A 5 port 2.5GbE switch would upgrade this to 5 total ports (4x 2.5GbE), and costs less than $100. If you only need 1GbE then it's even cheaper. Outside of home-labs, it's rare for me to see any devices connected to the LAN side of a wireless router these days, and more than 1 (i.e. the non-portable device that is closest to the router) is exceedingly rare.

2.5 is the WAN, so your lan is only getting 1g anyway

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#43

Post by naturalmovement » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

topspin wrote: post #36

naturalmovement wrote: post #4

[flagged]

> This thing has no practical purpose. This is wrong. OpenWRT is fostering several manufacturers that are using OpenWRT as the factory platform for their products. This is a reference design (one of several, this particular one from 2024 is now dated and newer designs are available,) provided by OpenWRT, and they've thoughtfully made it available to anyone that might want one: you can just go buy some with no NDA bul…

This sources PoE using a third-party daughter board which is mechanically way too big to package into any production access point. So no, that part of a reference design would never be used.

> get your developers moving in your lab or doing UI development or whatever

This is what the industry has been clamoring for among a sea of existing hardware: More garbage UIs glued atop of copy-pasted forgotten hardware.

I am an engineering manager. My job is to poke holes in money-burning projects.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#44

Post by pid-1 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #23

As someone who knows very little about WiFi, I always thought it sucked that if you wanted to go from 802.11this to 802.11that, it always requires brand new hardware with a different WiFi chip that implemented the new standard. Is there a good reason that software-defined 802.11 doesn't exist and that every new standard requires a different radio+SoC?

Radio modulation / coding (at least for 802.11) benefits greatly from paralelism (lots of matrix multiplication etc).

I imagine that using an ASIC is way more cost efficient vs using a CPU.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#45

Post by EvanAnderson » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

boobsbr wrote: post #21

baggachipz wrote: post #13

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.

I still have a WRT54GL sitting in a box somewhere.

The best model of the WRT54G line. I would snag them at thrift stores for cheap to use for silly utility functions. I always referred to that particular model as "The highly-coveted WRT54GL."

I used a pair to provide Internet access at a Customer's construction site back in 2010. Cell phone hotspot wasn't a thing for me yet. We took a pair of WRT54Gs, configured one as a WiFi client, the other as a bog-standard router/AP, connected the LAN from the client to the WAN on the router/AP, pur a directional antenna onto the "client", and pointed it down the road toward a big business who offered free WiFi for Customers. We leeched off that until the real Internet service got installed. (It was a restaurant and we ate there at least once so we were Customers, right? >smile<)

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#46

Post by pseudosavant » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

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.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#47

Post by williadc » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #11

williadc wrote: post #5

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.

Does it have parental controls natively or did you have to install something extra? I would love to be able to whitelist which devices are allowed to access the internet during night time hours.

I do it the opposite way, disable my kids' devices at night, but I suspect your desired method would also be supported using native features. I have found LLMs to be very helpful in providing the right settings.

There is a plugin marketplace that provides more features, like ad-blocking. I haven't played with those yet, so I cannot vouch for them.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#48

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

routelastresort wrote: post #28

PaulKeeble wrote: post #17

They are working on an OpenWRT Two at the moment which will be Wifi 7. OpenWRT runs on a lot of hardware and its a great way to extend the life of a router past the manufacturers patches as well as gain a lot of capabilities. I wouldn't buy a commercial router that wasn't supported by OpenWRT now.

Hopefully, dual 2.5gbe too?

I'm hoping for one with at least two 10Gbps ethernet ports (one for upstream, one for downstream). Ideally more, but two would be great.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#49

Post by drnick1 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

naturalmovement wrote: post #4

[flagged]

> Inexplicably can be powered via PoE, makes no sense if its purpose is to hang off your ISP's gateway

No, this is supposed to replace the ISP-provided junk entirely. It will save you money and close a nasty backdoor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069).

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#50

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

philamonster wrote: post #32

baggachipz wrote: post #13

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.

Recycled 4 or so WRT54G variants a couple years ago I ran Tomato on for friend's small businesses and my home in early 2000's.

I miss the Tomato UI/UX... I don't care for LUCU or OpnSense's UI by comparison...

Been using OpnSense for about 8 years now though... it's just been the best option for me, I use separate commercial AP.