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.
BTW none of the links to online on the OpenWrt pages currently work; everything goes 404 for me.
The only working online store that agrees to sell the device to me is an AliExpress shop I found via shopping.google.com, and its list price is $116. (Now marvel at Walmart's pricing power.)
I've been living with the same router/modem combo (Fritzbox) for around 11 years, and I don't plan to replace it before I get FTTH. (Otherwise I would have.)
Nothing against OpenWRT, I have used it in the past, but I doubt I would have switched routers more often if I was still using it...
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.
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.
Yes, I know. This was like in ~2016 and even at that time you would need to build a custom image to fit OpenWRT in 4MB of Flash (I could fit LuCI and a few packages at the time, but I messed a lot with OpenWRT settings and every change I would have 1 in 4 chances of passing the 4MB limit and you would only discover this after building).
32MB is more reasonable, but even then I remember that it caused some issues with the bufferbloat scripts at the time, one of the reasons I went through the Gargoyle FW instead of vanilla OpenWRT.
> 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.
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.
It's designed to be a wireless router without a lot of extra fluff. If more lan ports are needed, add a switch behind it (though it'd probably be better to have the switch elsewhere unless it's a really simple network). The USB looks like it's used for admin tasks like updating firmware, so I don't see why they'd need to add more than USB2.0.
USB 3.1 brings this new connector, usb-c. Many newer devices use that connector these days and customers may wish for a port with that connector. If you have a laptop with such a port, you'd be able to use a usb-c to usb-c cable to connect it to the router, perhaps for debugging, without needing a usb-c to Ethernet dongle, plus Ethernet cable. Plus not needing to disconnect the single LAN port.
USB-C Serial console != USB 3.1 port. Nor does a usb-c power supply port count either.
No need to get defensive, I wasn't the one asking if there was a use for USB > 2.0. If you didn't know before, now you know. If you did already then at most you read a sentence full of information you already knew. Hardly a terrible offense. Other readers who might not have known also now know. :)
I wasn't asking if there was a use for USB 3.1, I am already aware of how it's commonly used on routers (apart from the LTE fallback the other commenter mentioned. That's pretty cool). But even so, your comment didn't list a use for it. You listed uses for usb-c, most of which it seems that it's already capable of. It's not a big deal really, just clarifying.
It's supposed to be a router, not a NAS or switch (bring your own). The LAN port being only 1 gigabit (especially with a 2.5G WAN) makes it a pass for me.
Do you need more than 1 Gbps from your wired network to your internet connection?
Otherwise you may have 2.5G or 10G LAN, or even fiber inside home like some [1], and only have to use the slow 1G to hit the internet from that. (Another 1.5G of bandwidth is available over WiFi.)
If I decide to get 2 gigabit internet, yes (and my local phone and cable companies both offer it). I also run a server in my basement (on ethernet), so not being able to get the entire bandwidth on it would be disappointing.
While it's cool that OpenWRT has their own routers, I feel that this one is not for me.
It has single USB2/3 port, but the SSUSB pins are shared with PCIe port, so you can't get USB3 and PCIe at the same time (if I'm reading the datasheet right).
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