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 are a zoo of images for different hardware and installation options. It has to run on small devices, so there are limitations.
Off topic, but what amuses me about the "Wrt" name is that it was originally alternate firmware for the Linksys WRT54G router from 25 years ago. The name has stuck for whatever reason; I guess since only geeks use it and know what it is.
I'm pretty sure the software side of the project is a direct descendent from the WRT54G stack.
LinkSys got sued to release the firmware as it was GPL linked. This dump got modified to make the WRT54G way more powerful than LinkSys ever planned but they got to sell the hardware for years more than would have been expected at the time.
Yeah, I loved it because it allowed me to boost the signal above FCC-approved power requirements and saturate my house with that sweet 2.4GHz connection everywhere.
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.
I switched from a Google Wifi to this and found it to be just as stable, but with better range/signal strength, and easier to apply the parental controls I want.
As someone who knows very little about WiFi, I always thought it sucked that if you wanted to go from 802.11this to 802.11that, it always requires brand new hardware with a different WiFi chip that implemented the new standard. Is there a good reason that software-defined 802.11 doesn't exist and that every new standard requires a different radio+SoC?
One example is the introduction of MIMO, a technique to send multiple data streams in the same frequency band in parallel. This requires multiple antennas, i.e. hardware which wasn't there in the previous wifi version. Note this was 2009.
A 5 port 2.5GbE switch would upgrade this to 5 total ports (4x 2.5GbE), and costs less than $100. If you only need 1GbE then it's even cheaper.
Outside of home-labs, it's rare for me to see any devices connected to the LAN side of a wireless router these days, and more than 1 (i.e. the non-portable device that is closest to the router) is exceedingly rare.
There is definitely beauty in having a separate router device that chugs on just fine regardless what happens to the rest of your network. But I got bored with the constantly-churning embedded culture, bespoke OS's (sorry, OpenWRT), and VPNs generally want more CPU than what purpose-built "routers" have. So I just went back to the old way of using a plain Linux machine as the gateway (now virtualized and with NixOS) and couldn't be happier. When you learn nftables, that experience carries to wherever else you might go.
This thing has no practical purpose. The whole point of OpenWRT is to run it on cheap commodity hardware. This ticks none of those boxes.
It has two Ethernet ports, no switch. WHY?
Inexplicably can be powered via PoE, makes no sense if its purpose is to hang off your ISP's gateway (which almost certainly lacks PoE supply). PoE feature will never be used. You're not attaching this monstrosity to the ceiling.
It's utterly gigantic due to inefficient PCB layout.
Why is right to repair important for a throwaway router? Given what will usually fail are the hard to source ASICs.
There is so much better hardware out there manufactured in volume for cheaper.
It was likely a fun engineering project for someone but the business case isn't there.
But you can already do that with existing hardware that is 4x capable at the same price point, and runs OpenWRT.
A reference platform makes no sense for OpenWRT as by its nature it runs on dozens upon dozens of different hardware, all which are different and must be tested independently.
I think the purpose is to have a simple to hack on reference platform for developers. The problem with commodity hardware is the super short lifecycles (many of them stop selling before theres an OpenWRT port), they are locked down and the manufacturers will frequently make tons of internal revisions.
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 are a zoo of images for different hardware and installation options. It has to run on small devices, so there are limitations.
[delayed]
Off topic, but what amuses me about the "Wrt" name is that it was originally alternate firmware for the Linksys WRT54G router from 25 years ago. The name has stuck for whatever reason; I guess since only geeks use it and know what it is.
Recycled 4 or so WRT54G variants a couple years ago I ran Tomato on for friend's small businesses and my home in early 2000's.
I'm pretty sure the software side of the project is a direct descendent from the WRT54G stack.
LinkSys got sued to release the firmware as it was GPL linked. This dump got modified to make the WRT54G way more powerful than LinkSys ever planned but they got to sell the hardware for years more than would have been expected at the time.
Yeah, I loved it because it allowed me to boost the signal above FCC-approved power requirements and saturate my house with that sweet 2.4GHz connection everywhere.
I still have a WRT54GL sitting in a box somewhere.
Similar to XBMC at least for a long time.
$106usd or $84usd without a case and antennas. That’s a solid price. Wish it had more than 1gb ram - goddamn datacenters.
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.
Hopefully, dual 2.5gbe too?
I switched from a Google Wifi to this and found it to be just as stable, but with better range/signal strength, and easier to apply the parental controls I want.
Does it have parental controls natively or did you have to install something extra?
I would love to be able to whitelist which devices are allowed to access the internet during night time hours.
As someone who knows very little about WiFi, I always thought it sucked that if you wanted to go from 802.11this to 802.11that, it always requires brand new hardware with a different WiFi chip that implemented the new standard. Is there a good reason that software-defined 802.11 doesn't exist and that every new standard requires a different radio+SoC?
One example is the introduction of MIMO, a technique to send multiple data streams in the same frequency band in parallel. This requires multiple antennas, i.e. hardware which wasn't there in the previous wifi version. Note this was 2009.
Just two Ethernet ports (1+2.5GbE), and it’s dual-band (no 6GHz)… I’m not sure who’s the target audience or what’s the use case.
A 5 port 2.5GbE switch would upgrade this to 5 total ports (4x 2.5GbE), and costs less than $100. If you only need 1GbE then it's even cheaper.
Outside of home-labs, it's rare for me to see any devices connected to the LAN side of a wireless router these days, and more than 1 (i.e. the non-portable device that is closest to the router) is exceedingly rare.
>Outside of home-labs, it's rare for me to see any devices connected to the LAN side of a wireless router these days
I would assume every gaming desktop computer would be? I actually assumed every desktop would be...
Neither my parents nor my wife's parents have their desktop connected to their router. The cable modem isn't even in the same room as the desktop.
It’s for developers as far as I understand, it’s not meant to buy as a consumer router. There is far better hardware you can get that runs OpenWRT.
This is the official shop page afaict: https://www.bpi-shop.com/products/banana-pi-openwrt-one-rout...
There is definitely beauty in having a separate router device that chugs on just fine regardless what happens to the rest of your network. But I got bored with the constantly-churning embedded culture, bespoke OS's (sorry, OpenWRT), and VPNs generally want more CPU than what purpose-built "routers" have. So I just went back to the old way of using a plain Linux machine as the gateway (now virtualized and with NixOS) and couldn't be happier. When you learn nftables, that experience carries to wherever else you might go.
Some previous discussion around the launch in 2024:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285689
This thing has no practical purpose. The whole point of OpenWRT is to run it on cheap commodity hardware. This ticks none of those boxes.
It has two Ethernet ports, no switch. WHY?
Inexplicably can be powered via PoE, makes no sense if its purpose is to hang off your ISP's gateway (which almost certainly lacks PoE supply). PoE feature will never be used. You're not attaching this monstrosity to the ceiling.
It's utterly gigantic due to inefficient PCB layout.
Why is right to repair important for a throwaway router? Given what will usually fail are the hard to source ASICs.
There is so much better hardware out there manufactured in volume for cheaper.
It was likely a fun engineering project for someone but the business case isn't there.
Open hardware is nice. I love that you can take a commodity router and claw back some control, but why not start with that control in the first place?
But you can already do that with existing hardware that is 4x capable at the same price point, and runs OpenWRT.
A reference platform makes no sense for OpenWRT as by its nature it runs on dozens upon dozens of different hardware, all which are different and must be tested independently.
I think the purpose is to have a simple to hack on reference platform for developers. The problem with commodity hardware is the super short lifecycles (many of them stop selling before theres an OpenWRT port), they are locked down and the manufacturers will frequently make tons of internal revisions.