Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hardware for OpenWrt

wrtnode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 61 posts

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#11

Post by hoggle »

morley wrote: post #8

Is OpenWRT safe to use? The latest release, at least according to https://openwrt.org , was in April 2013. I'm not intimately familiar with what software packages it uses, but it seems like it could, at the very least, be vulnerable to Heartbleed.

OpenWRT has a pretty decent developer base and in general has always been very stable for me (I've been using many WRT54GLs and Foneras over the years). That said it seems off that they wouldn't have fixed heartbleed by now, it would be significant for the web administration interface - especially for people who make it accessible externally via the Internet.

If anybody wishes to contribute to OpenWRT, this talk from 30c3 should give you a good overview on the "current" state of the project (hint: apart from system programmers, web developers are also very much welcome/needed):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OlUxeS57E

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#12

Post by mschuster91 »

I'm sorry to bust the fun on this, but I would never rebuild this device (or anything other with radio capability)... simply because of the costs of certification which is mandatory for any RF transmitter.

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#13

Post by Sanddancer »

azdle wrote: post #7
adultSwim wrote: post #6

Would this be a good router?

Probably not. It doesn't seem to have any Ethernet ports for a start. I think it's aimed more at being a wifi-enabled device that can do somewhat more complicated things locally.

The board has an ethernet switch built in, with all the pins for it broken out. You're going to have to supply your own magnetics and jacks for it though. The chip in it [1] is very much built around routing lots and lots of packets. I kinda wish they'd have released a board based on its bigger sibling with PCIe, though.

[1] http://www.anz.ru/files/mediatek/MT7620_Datasheet.pdf

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#14

Post by lucaspiller »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12

I'm sorry to bust the fun on this, but I would never rebuild this device (or anything other with radio capability)... simply because of the costs of certification which is mandatory for any RF transmitter.

What are the costs exactly? Wifi operates in the 2.4Ghz band which is license free worldwide.

(As I understand in some countries you need to get a license to sell wifi devices - some Arduino's have issues with this - but not to use or build them).

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#15

Post by fidotron »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12

I'm sorry to bust the fun on this, but I would never rebuild this device (or anything other with radio capability)... simply because of the costs of certification which is mandatory for any RF transmitter.

I don't think that's the point.

The problem with a lot of home automation and internet-of-things stuff is proprietary lock in, either from new young companies that could be dead in 18 months or established monsters looking to slurp your data. Having an open source foundation is the only viable long term approach to something that needs to live as long as your home infrastructure. If this lot cease being able to make the boards then at least, in principle, you can. (Or more likely someone else can pick up the ball without any license cost). If you've built around a Nest and that stops being made then you're screwed.

I have to admit I don't think either in extreme is going to work. You need the combination of standardisation with non-cloud dependency but also commercial viability. i.e. an Android of Internet-of-Things without Googly influence is needed, but without a rich backer it's hard to see where it will come from.

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#16

Post by bcl »

lucaspiller wrote: post #14
mschuster91 wrote: post #12

I'm sorry to bust the fun on this, but I would never rebuild this device (or anything other with radio capability)... simply because of the costs of certification which is mandatory for any RF transmitter.

What are the costs exactly? Wifi operates in the 2.4Ghz band which is license free worldwide. (As I understand in some countries you need to get a license to sell wifi devices - some Arduino's have issues with this - but not to use or build them).

You still need to meet the FCC specs for not causing interference (in the US at least), which can be costly. And you can be sure that a bare board with no shielding around the RF sections is going to be pretty noisy.

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#17

Post by magila »

morley wrote: post #8

Is OpenWRT safe to use? The latest release, at least according to https://openwrt.org , was in April 2013. I'm not intimately familiar with what software packages it uses, but it seems like it could, at the very least, be vulnerable to Heartbleed.

OpenWRT's OpenSSL package has been updated to 1.0.1g, so it's not vulnerable to Heartbleed. The default install doesn't use OpenSSL so there is no need to update the install images.

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#18

Post by Sanddancer »

lucaspiller wrote: post #14
mschuster91 wrote: post #12

I'm sorry to bust the fun on this, but I would never rebuild this device (or anything other with radio capability)... simply because of the costs of certification which is mandatory for any RF transmitter.

What are the costs exactly? Wifi operates in the 2.4Ghz band which is license free worldwide. (As I understand in some countries you need to get a license to sell wifi devices - some Arduino's have issues with this - but not to use or build them).

I think the OP's talking about those who want to implement the boards on their own, where you do have to worry about all those certification costs.

Re: Hardware for OpenWrt

#20

Post by taylorbuley »

Kliment wrote: post #3
tonypace wrote: post #2

This looks very useful, but price, RAM and flash sizes are not readily apparent. Am I missing something?

Can't find price but http://wrtnode.com/tech-specs.html says 512M RAM and 128M flash

The price is $24.80

https://twitter.com/WRTnode/status/483611574796447744

In the it's about $20 so I'm guessing $25 includes a VAT tax or something: PREORDER WRTnode for $19.99 now | WRTnode

Post reply on HN