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OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

openwrt.org

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Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#111
post #57

Gigabit / 2.5 Gbit connectivity is already obsolete. Any modern product must have 10gbe WAN with the hardware to back up NAT at that throughput.

For a home network 2.5 is plenty.

https://frontier.com/shop/internet/fiber-internet/7-gig

7gig WAN is widely available residentially at a reasonable cost.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#112

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…

In case it is not, an old PC with a dual port Intel NIC running OPNSense is so far the best router I have ever used. I mean rock solid performance with near zero maintenance beyond adjusting VLANs and setting up a 6in4 tunnel over the past 5 years solid. My home network is larger, more diverse, and more complex than what I suspect most people have, with several hundred devices and yet I log into the OPNSense UI maybe twice a year and usually just out of curiosity.

The learning curve is a little steeper than more consumer stuff but it is by no means beyond a person who is capable of using OpenWRT and the docs and forum support are better than 99.9% of open source projects I have seen over the past 25 years.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#113
I use opnsense with an aliexpress n100 router. It works very well and I enjoy it. But upgrades scare the crap out of me. I've only had 1 upgrade where things went bad. I have zfs snapshots and everything, but just because its a headless unit, I get super anxiety upgrading the system waiting for the beeps for it to come back online.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#114
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.

All of that is a nope. The solution is that a router should have a standard unattended upgrade system built into it that is on by default and pulls from the stable release stream, preserves your configuration automatically with a 100% guarantee of it working, automatically falls back to the last known working image if the update fails, and has a way to notify you of what’s going on with it. This must work out of the box with the first install without you having to do anything at all or even be aware of it except perhaps setting the time of day and day of week/month when the router is allowed to reboot itself for the upgrades (but the default should be set automatically by the system). Anything less than that is simply broken for anything that is considered production quality. Words like “image builder” and “config baked into the image” are for those developing the system, not end users.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#115

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…

In case it is not, an old PC with a dual port Intel NIC running OPNSense is so far the best router I have ever used. I mean rock solid performance with near zero maintenance beyond adjusting VLANs and setting up a 6in4 tunnel over the past 5 years solid. My home network is larger, more diverse, and more complex than what I suspect most people have, with several hundred devices and yet I log into the OPNSense UI maybe…

I don't disagree, however using an old PC as a router almost certainly wastes an enormous among of power. An old non-gaming PC could use 70kWh of power a month if running continuously (as a router would), which is around 11 a month and almost 140 a year. At that price you could just buy a nice router, or an OpenWrt One which will possibly also have newer, faster WiFi standards (WiFi 6)

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#116

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 rout…

It's got only one LAN ethernet port. Do you use only wifi or did you add a switch between the router and your devices?

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#117

I use opnsense with an aliexpress n100 router. It works very well and I enjoy it. But upgrades scare the crap out of me. I've only had 1 upgrade where things went bad. I have zfs snapshots and everything, but just because its a headless unit, I get super anxiety upgrading the system waiting for the beeps for it to come back online.

How much did you pay for it?

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#118

I use opnsense with an aliexpress n100 router. It works very well and I enjoy it. But upgrades scare the crap out of me. I've only had 1 upgrade where things went bad. I have zfs snapshots and everything, but just because its a headless unit, I get super anxiety upgrading the system waiting for the beeps for it to come back online.

How much did you pay for it?

$200.93 shipped in April 2024 with a wall bracket. No storage or ram though, but it was cheap at the time.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#119

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 rout…

I have 4 OpenWRT Ones and they are good.

If you just want a good WiFi router or access point, unless you need something cannot do (e.g. WiFi 7 or 10 Gbit/s Ethernet), and if want to spend minimal time messing around with routers today and in the future, just get this one.

After getting this, I see no reason to ever buy any closed-source router again.

No need to learn/remember any other Router config either. It's just all OpenWRT, always looks the same, always works the same. Setting up a new one takes me 2 minutes max.

The recent OpenWRT update also brought the one feature the project was most sorely missing: A simple "Download and install latest firmware" button in the device UI.

Now they just need to add an unattended-upgrades option and I never have to log in again after initial setup.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it is not, an old PC with a dual port Intel NIC running OPNSense is so far the best router I have ever used. I mean rock solid performance with near zero maintenance beyond adjusting VLANs and setting up a 6in4 tunnel over the past 5 years solid. My home network is larger, more diverse, and more complex than what I suspect most people have, with several hundred devices and yet I log into the OPNSense UI maybe…

I don't disagree, however using an old PC as a router almost certainly wastes an enormous among of power. An old non-gaming PC could use 70kWh of power a month if running continuously (as a router would), which is around 11 a month and almost 140 a year. At that price you could just buy a nice router, or an OpenWrt One which will possibly also have newer, faster WiFi standards (WiFi 6)

I use an m920q as my router and it idles around 5W.
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