from Hacker News

OpenWrt One

by kristianpaul on 11/4/24, 4:35 PM with 31 comments

  • by manifoldgeo on 11/4/24, 5:13 PM

    It's exciting to see a an OpenWRT router where compatibility is guaranteed! I've been running OpenWRT at home for years, and whenever it comes time to upgrade, it's always a deep dive into their Table of Hardware [1]. Many of the newest routers with an absurd number of antennae that you might see at big-box stores like Costco have incompatible chipsets, so usually I have to buy something a bit older.

    Most recently I bought a couple of Belkin AX3200 routers because they support WiFi6 and are only about $50 USD. The annoying part is that they're a Walmart exclusive, but they have worked flawlessly so far. Still, I'd rather have the new, officially-endorsed one.

    References: 1: https://openwrt.org/toh/start

  • by blisstonia on 11/4/24, 5:34 PM

    If you live in the UK and have recently got FTTP, this box is capable of giving you pretty much close to the ISP advertised speeds (with SQM enabled in OpenWRT). It should be good for symmetric gigabit connections, which is very cool!

    Imagine running PiHole and WireGuard on your router… exceptional stuff.

  • by kokada on 11/4/24, 5:17 PM

    This would be a dream a few years ago. I remember setting up a GargoyleFW[1] (a custom firmware based in OpenWRT) when I lived in a shared house and people would use the Wi-Fi to streaming/torrent and make the whole Internet sucks for everyone else. Setting up a few smart QoS rules made the internet feel fast even when someone was using most of the bandwidth, the average latency in those situations decreased from 2s+ to around ~50ms.

    The issue at the time was this router was really low-end and had only 4MB of Flash/32MB of RAM, so using vanilla OpenWRT needed lots of customization and even (I think it was a TP-Link TL-WR841, but not sure). I always though how nice would be to have a proper device with lots of Flash and memory so I could play without being constrained by the device limitations.

    [1]: https://www.gargoyle-router.com/

  • by nine_k on 11/4/24, 5:41 PM

    I'd say that https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/OpenWRT-One/BananaPi_OpenWRT-O..., linked from the current page (https://openwrt.org/toh/openwrt/one), is more informative, and also loads faster, likely because it does (fewer / no) database hits.

  • by dsissitka on 11/4/24, 4:56 PM

    It doesn't look like that page is going to load. From https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/10/02/buy-openwrt-one-wifi...:

    > The “OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY” is a Filogic 820-based WiFi 6 router board manufactured by Banana Pi whose software is directly managed by OpenWrt developers with assistance from MediaTek.

  • by blihp on 11/4/24, 5:04 PM

    Nice to see a (presumably) simple to setup OpenWrt device at a reasonable price. It would be really great to see a future device with a switched fabric (5-ports minimum, more ports better). Already having an older device with a hackable switched fabric has me spoiled and I want my next one to have it as well.

  • by bigbones on 11/4/24, 6:04 PM

    Not a great spec compared to the very well supported Gl.inet Flint 2

  • by matcha-video on 11/4/24, 5:01 PM

    I'm not knowledgeable about networking - what's the benefit of having a 1gb lan and a 2.5gb wan? Why not have them both be the same?

  • by dzhiurgis on 11/4/24, 8:50 PM

    Unsure if me or being hugged by HN, but here's mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20241104185938/https://openwrt.o...

  • by mtron_ on 11/4/24, 5:04 PM

    Only 1 lan port and only usb2 is not great...