Does anyone sell OpenWrt-specific hardware?

Strange question, perhaps, but here goes:

Does anyone know of a company selling routers and/or WiFi gear and using OpenWRT - and advertising that as a feature?

I have a recollection of Buffalo using DD-WRT in at least some models of their routers, and Engenius (Senao) uses OpenWRT in their outdoor WiFi devices, although they hide it behind a custom web UI and CLI, don't provide root access, and don't seem to contribute patches to support their hardware. They certainly don't advertise the fact they are using OpenWRT.

Years back I bought a Kasda router on Ebay that was advertised specifically as using OpenWRT, There are also some "DIY" devices (e.g. Arduino Yun, VoCore, Onion Omega, OOlite) that openly use OpenWRT, but they are marketed toward "makers" and developers, not "end users."

If you're reading this, you have probably already flashed OpenWRT onto some brand of router (and/or other things). So it may seem trivial to you, but I think that having a line of hardware out there that runs OpenWRT "openly" - and promotes it - would be good for the overall OpenWRT community.

Does anyone know of anyone selling "OpenWRT-specific" hardware? If not, does anyone know why not?

-Bill

There are some that are sold with OpenWRT pre-loaded...

https://www.google.com/search?q=openwrt+pre+loaded&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

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I'd be extremely wary of buying any KuWFi products as they're from China. There's numerous products, including the recently discovered popular gaming keyboard and DJI drones, known to have hidden malware that sends data back to China.

There's no reason to buy products with OpenWrt pre-installed, as one simply needs to buy a product that is OpenWrt supported.

  • The only thing one would gain would be dedicated tech support, however it's likely the user would be able to troubleshoot their own issues far easier and faster via google and the LEDE/OpenWrt forums.

  • If looking for more options than the standard consumer grade router offers, check out SBCs from companies like SolidRun's ClearFog.

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GL.inet products come with OpenWrt installed and a GL.iNet proprietary GUI on top of it. While their GUI is pretty easy to use and solves a few issues, you can still get to OpenWrt through the advanced menu.

Most of their products are now in LEDE and you can flash a sysupgrade to them like any other openwrt device.

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Turris Omnia is another (high end) device that does not come from china that has OpenWRT preloaded.

But afaik none really ships upstream Openwrt, everyone ships their own fork of OpenWRT with driver blobs and/or whatever else, and they rarely upstream their work so it's not guaranteed to be actually supported by OpenWRT.

In most cases you'll still never see more than 1-2 firmware updates in the device lifetime, and the only real advantage is that the firmware itself lacks most of the braindead lockdowns that are worked around in factory installation images.

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If you are looking to recommend a router for non-techie friends, I can speak highly of the IQrouter from Evenroute. It's about $150 on Amazon.

They designed it to get rid of bufferbloat - it automatically (and regularly) tests your line rate, and adjusts the SQM (codel/cake) parameters to minimize the latency induced in when there's traffic on the line.

Under the covers, it's full LEDE with a re-worked (simplified) GUI for most people. You can invoke the "Advanced GUI" if you need to get back to the full LuCI GUI. The hardware is an Archer C7 - so it's a modestly powerful router.

In my town, we can only get DSL. Dozens of people have purchased it with a great effect on their speeds and latency. (The latency from bufferbloat was killing their network performance, and the IQrouter made all the difference.)

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Oooh! I like that! Thanks!

Nice hardware, and they at least say it is "based on OpenWRT." But I'm really looking for folks who are using stock OpenWRT as a selling point.
Thanks!

Interesting, but the one review is not exactly encouraging...

JW, note that the options for buying devices NOT from China are... rather sparse. And the whole idea is to buy just the hardware and use software (OpenWRT) that YOU control so there is no opportunity for malware.

Thanks for the pointer to SolidRun - very cool stuff, but are you implying their stuff is not built in China? That would be very surprising.

Thanks!

Ranger - I had forgotten about the GL.inet products - good call!
Thanks,
Bill

Pretty much all consumer electronics are built in china. The issue is when the firmware also comes from China.

You misunderstood my post... It wasn't about products made in China, but about any Chinese router manufacturers due to the recent well documented malware that two Chinese companies implanted in their products

  • One was a major Chinese company than makes a popular gaming keyboard, of which had a keylogger that sends it's captured data back to China

  • The other is popular drone manufacturer DJI, of which has malware that sends photos captured by the drone back to China, attaching GPS coordinates to each, even if the user disables that functionality (specifically, the malware targets photos of U.S. infrastructure)

Hi Bill,
Our company sells the NM50 (for the industrial market):
NM50 - IOT & Gateway Computer or WLAN Access Point
Rugged Embedded Railway & Automotive Network Box
The NM50 is a fanless and maintenance-free mobile wireless access point with IP30 protection designed for use in rolling stock and automotive applications and harsh environmental conditions.
See https://www.men.de/products/switches-access-points/nm50/ for further details.

The device ships with installed OpenWrt frirmware, based on Chaos Calmer (r46822). Porting the current LEDE version is planned (started this year, but was then postponed to 2018). OpenWrt/LEDE is the only firmware available for the NM50.

Regards,
Dieter

@dpfeuffer Have you guys [NM50] done anything to actively maintain that firmware, as OpenWrt has been dead (there's been zero commits to the OpenWrt codebase) for a year, and Chaos Calmer hasn't received an update for just shy of two years.

  • This is why users have been told not to run OpenWrt [for example here, here, and here for the WRT AC Series, but this applies to all devices], as there's no way to guarantee the firmware is secure to utilize when there's no way to know if any code has become exploitable over the past year for trunk, and just shy of two years for CC.

Try VoCore :slight_smile:

@JW0914 I know that OpenWrt CC is outdated and I'm aware of the security risks. But unfortunately, it is not up to me to make product decissions, I tried to force the outstanding move to LEDE and an overdue FW update. And I hope I will get time to maintain the NM50 soon.

won't be a problem for long
LEDE as a standalone fork will die.
They are doing the merge back into OpenWRT right as we speak.
There is no dead-line but afaik all the details have already been discussed so it's only about doing the planned merge.
Announcements have been made at the beginning of 2017.
At the beginning of 2018 the merge should be done.
After that only the OpenWRT brand will survive.

This is factually inaccurate...

  1. The only thing from OpenWrt that's being kept is the name

    • OpenWrt has been dead for a year, which is why no one should be running OpenWrt if their device is available on LEDE.

      • OpenWrt's code base has not seen a single commit in 12 months

      • CC has not seen a single commit in 21 months

  2. The entire OpenWrt codebase is being replaced by LEDE

  3. OpenWrt is being kept in name only, mainly due to name recognition

This is the final agreed upon proposal of what will occur

of course, but from an outsiders perspective (men nm50) openwrt will get an update, so no choice will have to be made regarding switching to a differently named os, just: Should we update to the new version?

It's easier to convince them now? ^^