I live in Brazil and some routers that people usually get is only available in North America or in Europe, which makes the whole process of buying them kind hard and expensive.
We usually get things from AliExpress, so I was wondering what is the best device available there with good user experience (no wifi drops, good performance over Wifi 2.4GHz/5GHz, gigabit connection, and so on).
I know there're some Xiaomi Routers available there with OpenWrt compatibility, but I don't know if they're the best ones in 2020.
There's also some Xiaomi/Redmi/Huawei devices with Wifi 6, but they aren't supported yet by OpenWrt.
So, what do you guys suggest?
My needs:
My internet connection speed today is 300 mbps;
I need Wifi in both bands (2.4GHz/5GHz). Wifi 6 is a plus, but I think there's no OpenWRT compatibility yet;
I need Gigabit Ethernet;
USB Ports are not needed, but they are welcome.
This will be used in a business environment, so at least 10 devices will be using this router;
Today I'm running RaspBX and some containers (like PiHole) in a Raspberry Pi 3, but it will be soon upgraded to a device which can handle gigabit ethernet for Samba file sharing use;
Price Range: Up to ~50 dollars. Not greater than 60 dollars.
From initially 406 devices filtered down to 125 devices with AC wifi, Gbit Eth, some kind of USB port (you realize that you want one when you realize that you don't have one).
You can further filter yourself for number of Gbit ports, kind of USB (2.0 or 3.0; nowadays I guess 3.0 should be the one to go with) and possibly if you prefer stable release (19.07.4) or snapshot. Be aware of the peculiarities of snapshots.
Please mind also the column "Unsupported Functions".
That's way over my budget
Do you have any suggestion for devices below 60$?
The cheapest GL-iNet B-1300 in AliExpress costs around 85$ + 15$ shipping for my country.
Usually I have no Import Tax + IPI depending in which freight company I select, and the dimensions / weight of the package.
So that's not actually something I'm worried.
I can see many citizens from my country leaving reviews in some routers saying they didn't get taxed. And I'm used to import stuff, so I kind know the risks I'm taking
Between those two models, the 1300 has a lot more capability. 300 Mb is going to be a little beyond what a MT7621 can handle readily. I haven't seen ARM based units in the $60 price class yet.
I've had a good experience with the ZBT-WE3625 (512MB) on a 300Mbps cable line. It handles Cake for QoS. It is an MT7621A, which as noted by mk24, is at the edge of capacity on 300.
The challenge is WiFi, it seems to be improved in 19.07.4, as in 07.3 it had issues. But then, a lot of affordable devices seem to have experienced poor wifi support in the 18.x and 19.x releases.
MT7621 will not be enough to handle 300 Mb. When you say this, is it for the whole package? I mean, both wired and wireless connection, MT7621 won't be able to delivery all the 300 mbps?
So basically, for 300 mbps and beyond, I'll probably need to invest more in a better equipment to have the full 300+ mbps?
My main use is Wireless, so I really need good 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
If that's the case I will wait a couple months until the Chinese Black Friday and get that GL-iNet B-1300 then. But will it be able to delivery the full 300 mbps over Wifi (5GHz)?
I'm just worried because it has only 3 ethernet ports. That's exactly how many slots I have occupied right now (ISP cable, Raspberry, VoIP ATA), so that basically mean if I need more devices wired connected I will need an external switch =/.
Considering Qualcomm is well supported, do you guys think AX1800 (or even AX6) will soon have openwrt support? It's cheaper, new into the market, easily available in AliExpress and provide new technologies (Wifi 6, WPA3, etc). And it seems to be almost bypassed to run custom firmwares
No, and exactly that is the problem. It's newer than ipq807x, a lot more work will have to go into supporting this, than what has already been done for ipq807x (and even that isn't in a functional state yet).
While it's likely that ipq60xx (and probably even ipq50xx) will be supported as well in the future, its development is still in very early stages, with lots of the basic SOC support still in the process of being merged mainline (ipq807x has made that step almost two years ago) and rather fluid at this point, ipq50xx has just started the process this week. Judging from the ax3600/ ipq8071a development, ipq807x support isn't that far away ("months", not years), but although ipq60xx and ipq50xx are very likely to follow (and they will profit from the work that has already gone into ipq807x), no one has even started looking at OpenWrt support for those, yet; it will take considerably longer to get them supported.
The Xiaomi AX3600 will probably be among the the first supported 802.11ax devices, given that its pricing has gathered quite some interest among (potential) developers (and aside from the PCIe initialization for the third 802.11ac "AIoT" radio, it seems to be basically functional already). Hopefully some other ipq807x (and ipq8074 in particular) devices will follow as well.
Have you considered a setup with 2 devices? I'm using a NanoPi R2S and an Archer C6. You can replace the Nano Pi with a old PC if you don't mind the energy costs. I bought the Archer from Kabum with the purpose of using OpenWrt with it but I will wait the Wifi issue to be solved. So far no issues from this setup besides the fact that NanoPi support is something new, but there is not much option of SBCs with 2 gigabit ports. Specs wise the Pi should handle the fairly easily I suppose and you can replace or add more APs latter. Sorry for my bad english.
Archer C6 is too expensive for the hardware itself. Besides that I can get more bang for the buck if I import any hardware from AliExpress. C6 is pretty much 60 dollars here....
False, mt7621 should be able to handle 300 mbit/s even with SQM and WiFi, but it will be at its limits. Without SQM it can even go all the way to the full 1gbit/s with HW NAT enabled.
