I'm a noob. I tried reading the docs, but it's very overwhelming and consuming a lot of my time.
I would like a router with these options:
6Ghz (Wifi 6E)
Long term OpenWRT support (ideally I can make a purchase good for 5 to 10 years)
3 eth ports or more
Less than $500
If it can later be upgraded to Wifi 7, then that would be a Plus. But I don't really want a DIY project. Any help is much appreciated.
EDIT Sept 10:
Wow! All such fantastic replies here. This is the best forum I've ever seen! So, given the answers here, I should probably be less ambitious about my long term plans (or perhaps I can buy a preassembled DIY router somewhere like eBay). Since WiFi 7 is around the corner, I (falsely) assumed that WiFi 6E routers would be more prevalent. It's unfortunate that so much E-Waste is regularly generated from throw away devices.
Given the situation, perhaps I could get a 6Ghz device with a minimum 4 years support? The longer, the better. Off the shelf device or pre-assembled DIY solution, either would be fine.
Well, if we look back 10years and see what is still around that survive an installation today mostly based on flash size, ram size and working stable and evolving linux drivers.
The only target I see with some kind of guarantee's with your other specs is really the x86 hardware.
Maybe something called “pi” but they haven’t really been around a full stable 10years to begin with, they had a hard time even surviving the pandemic.
But this all mean you need a dumb access point to solve the wifi requirement over time…
It is so unbelievable small changes that is required in the upstream linux drivers that can result in a single SoC family to be completely wiped out over a single night and dropped for ever from OpenWrt. I have seen this so many times over the five last years so the only thing that is to say is that no small plastic router will ever be a safe longterm bet for ten years.
Don't plan too far ahead, it will go wrong - and you will pay a premium ahead.
Right now, there are less than a handful of supported devices with 6 GHz support, pick among them. The filogic 830 based ones should be relatively safe, if the vendor didn't skimp on flash/ RAM. In terms of performance and fitness for purpose, it makes more sense to buy two 150 buck devices (one now, one in 3-5 years when the first one starts to feel dated), than to spend 500 bucks on an overkill device now, which will feel sluggish in five years' time.
With today's 1+ GBit/s wan speeds, a wired-only x86_64 system (e.g. aldelake-n/ n100, for ~120-230 EUR delivered) combined with 1-2 cheaper APs (and a wired backhaul) does make sense.
The BPi-r4 is a tempting device, but more for tinkerers - it's a bit of build your own, and buying the bits and pieces individually, which tends to end up more expensive, requires quite some fiddling on hard- and software - and patience, as driver support for the wifi7 cards isn't quite finished, yet.
Look at the 10 years supported router - tplink 1043 . It was low cost gigabit router, costing under $100 back then. You would be much better off buying something every other year to keep up with the time. Buy something filogic 2.5Gbit <200$ now and other 10Gbps <200$ in 5 years.
wifi6e routers exist, but they are relatively high-priced (they need a third radio, more pigtails/ antennas (12!), more precise components) - their high prices also mean that fewer of them have gotten into the hands of OpenWrt contributors. Every developer or drive-by contributor buys their own device with their own money, so devices with only regional availability or very high prices are less likely to get attention. Currently three or four wifi6e routers (and one of them with only very limited regional availability) are supported by OpenWrt at this time, roughly a dozen further devices could probably be supported relatively easily (mostly ipq8074a based with qcn9074) - but with prices north of 500 bucks...
Intel ax210/ ax211/ ax410/ ax411/ be200 is very common, mediatek mt7921k (AMD rz608) isn't rare either - older or entry level phones may not support 6 GHz yet, but the latest iPhone/ Samsung crowd will have that covered as well. The client side is easier and cheaper to provide with 6 GHz, than the APs needed to serve them.
I think it is more about usability in 5..10 year perspective, yes 2.5Gbps + 6GHz makes it still good for clients after 5 years, but in 10 years it will be one minute to useless.
I still have 802.11g clients in use (ar5001x, ar5212, bcm4306/3 and a few more down to 802.11b in cold storage), as well as two ax210, one be200 and for a (too-) short while an mt7921k/ rz608 (great WLAN card, drivers hard to get, sadly the mainboard it was part of had to go the RMA route for unrelated reasons). 6 GHz isn't a revolution, practical performance isn't that different than 5 GHz, but in very densely populated areas (read apartment complexes, highrises, etc.) it might give you the edge over your neighbours. So there is no problem with 6 GHz from the technology side of it, it's just 'new' - and with that kept for the high-end prosumer crowd and expensive devices - as a result we only have few OpenWrt supported routers/ APs with 6 GHz capabilities so far; we can only hope that 6 GHz will become more prevalent == cheaper with wifi7. As mentioned, the client side is not an issue - 6 GHz capable ax210 or mt7921au/ mt7921k/ mt7922 client WLAN cards sell for around 15 bucks a pop; the also 6 GHz capable be200 (wifi7) for around 20-30 bucks.
6 GHz is part of the wifi 7 standard, not mandatory, but hopefully a bit more common (=cheaper) than it was for wifi6.