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OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

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231–240 of 338 posts

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#231
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got the Flint 3 because I wanted 6E for my Quest 3. It’s not bad, but still doesn’t reach enough through the walls. What I like about GL.Inet UI is that it’s very easy to set up WireGuard /OpenVPN profiles per MAC, and you can drop into LuCi for more advanced stuff.

Doesn't the Flint 3 require a binary blob to run the broadcom chip? If so you'll always have a locked down black box inside your "open" system. I got the Flint 2 to avoid that, and I'm really happy with it for the reasons you mentioned.

It's not Broadcom so it is supportable by OpenWrt. It runs Qualcomm IPQ5332 SoC which recently got supported in upstream linux ath12k drivers... There are a few patches to make it work and the only blocking issue is with the Realtek switch connected to the LAN ports.

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#232
post #222

What I want is a cheap, brainless wifi 6 or 7 device, that's easy to mesh and extend. I currently have Orbis that are Wifi-5, and I'm sick of the general untrustworthiness. The thing is, like my WRT54G from back in the day, they just work in all situations. It's amazing how stable this kit has been for 7 years. I'm not in the US. I can't Amazon. I don't want to spend the equivalent of 1k USD just to get 3 devices in…

WRT54G was so good

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they always have to look like some unholy blend of a cybernetic spider and a Knight Rider? What happened to a plain unassuming looking piece of industrial hardware...

> unholy blend of a cybernetic spider and a Knight Rider I love the phrasing, we usually call this design language as transformers mating.

It looks like the deceptikon logo from above thou xD

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#236

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.

The planned specs are here, they say it will be made by GL.iNet: https://openwrt.org/voting/2025-02-12-openwrt-two Otherwise this router from GL.iNet has OpenWRT preinstalled, Wifi 7, 5x2.5G: http://www.gl-inet.com/en-gb/products/gl-be9300

Hey, I think this is important, Flint 3 relies on a Qualcomm chipset, so, at least some weeks ago, no vanilla OpenWRT was available for it (Qualcomm kernel).

On the other hand, if you can live with Wifi 6 and only 2x2.5Gbps ports (and 4x1Gbps), Flint 2 is powered with a Mediatek chipset, that runs a 100% vanilla OpenWRT.

Both are 1GB RAM, 8GB emmc little beasts that can even run some docker containers. IMHO Flint2 is in the top 5 for SOHO OpenWRT supported routers

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#237

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.

OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware) to prevent ISPs selling your browsing data to the advertisers. Although by now most ISPs are probably doing packet inspection.

It's easy to customize, I have a script to notify me when a new device connects to my router[1] and I also have a script to notify me when someone logins into my router[2].

Earlier I used to connect my openwrt router directly to the ISP's switch but now a days they've started to force their 'AI powered' router which is centrally managed. I now have to usee OpenWrt to defend against the ISP's router first and then the broader public network.

[1] https://abishekmuthian.com/openwrt-new-devices-connection-al...

[2] https://abishekmuthian.com/openwrt-login-alert/

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#238
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many blocklists does one need to have in order for them to use >900 megabytes of RAM?

I mean, there is a lot of spam on the internet. But pihole asks for a pi with 512gb ram. Add openwrt’s 100mb, now your ram budget for running something else (file server, pairdrop, irc, tailscale, etc) is <400mb. One nodejs app could use all of that.

pihole is based on glibc, uses GNU utils and being based in Debian probably it's not compiled to optimize space. OpenWRT is based on musl, uses busybox, it is space contrained and size matters.

Motorbike analogy, it's like comparing a RS125 with a Tmax/Burgman maxiscooter...

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#239
> Note that recent (2025-10) batches of the OpenWrt One have an M.2 slot with a detached post at the 2230 position and the shipped product contains no way to attach the post.

The implications of this are going over my head (and TFA should explain it better). I gather that 2230 is a form factor 22x30mm and there's also a 2280 M.2 SSD form factor.

Is this just saying that there's a missing mounting post? So it wobbles? You can't use a certain form factor?

Re: OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router

#240

Next step: open source hardware ASIC for the open router ?

An open hardware network-focused ASIC would be cool, but cost and long development times would likely be limiting factors. If you wanted to explore this further, starting with FPGA-based router components would be a good starting point. For example:

https://github.com/open-sdr/openwifi

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