GL.iNET Flint 3 (GL-BE9300) discussions

Flint 3 is coming soon!!!
I didn’t expect it anytime soon but we know the reason :wink:

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I also see Slate 7 listed in GL.iNet's website.

Is it mentioned anywhere if Flint 3 (GL-BE9300) and Slate 7 (GL-BE3600) use Mediatek (mt76) chipset or Qualcomm (ath12k) chipset?

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As far as I know, no. We just have a teaser with barely information. I hope they both use MediaTek because I’d like to see them supported officially. MediaTek is my guess

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Close:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/gl-inet-flint-2-gl-mt6000-discussions/173524/2186?u=darksky

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Woa nice, hopefully they picked a well supported SoC. Filogic 880 would be ideal methinks.

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I'd expect it to cost a fair bit more than the Flint 2 and I'm curious to see if it'll have full OpenWrt support.

Personally, I probably won't pick up a WiFi 7 router until I know that the open-source drivers are in a good state and I've got more than 1 device that supports WiFi 7. But by the time that happens there might be a Flint 4 :sweat_smile:

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I checked from FCC website, and there is not yet any acceptance files there (device list at the bottom of https://fccid.io/2AFIW), so it will likely still take some time.

(Just for comparison: Application for MT-6000 was in Dec 2023, when they were already taking pre-orders, and they started to deliver directly from Asia to Europe later in December, I think. I got mine on 5 Jan 2024)

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I hope they go with the MediaTek Filogic 880, at least 2GB of RAM, and passive cooling just like in the Flint 2, it will probably be bigger

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I have a feeling both "Flint 3" and "Slate 7" are going to be using Qualcomm chipset based on my observations.

Model Number Model Name WiFi Generation SoC / Chipset WiFi Driver Observations
GL-AX1800 Flint WiFi 6 (802.11ax) Qualcomm IPQ6000 ath11k
GL-MT6000 Flint 2 WiFi 6 (802.11ax) Mediatek MT7986A mt76 Model Number has "MT", most likely meaning "Mediatek".
GL-BE9300 Flint 3 WiFi 7 (802.11be) ? ? Guessing "Qualcomm" (ath12k) since Model Number does not contain "MT".
GL-AR750S-Ext Slate WiFi 5 (802.11ac) Qualcomm QCA9563 ath10k
GL-AXT1800 Slate AX WiFi 6 (802.11ax) Qualcomm IPQ6000 ath11k
GL-BE3600 Slate 7 WiFi 7 (802.11be) ? ? Guessing "Qualcomm" (ath12k) since Model Number does not contain "MT". Also based on naming convention, "Slate" models seem to be using "Qualcomm" while "Beryl" models seem to be using "Mediatek".
GL-MT1300 Beryl WiFi 5 (802.11ac) Mediatek MT7621A mt76 Model Number has "MT", most likely meaning "Mediatek".
GL-MT3000 Beryl AX WiFi 6 (802.11ax) Mediatek MT7981B mt76 Model Number has "MT", most likely meaning "Mediatek".
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It makes sense, but if they use MediaTek it would be better for the development, it would be easier for them to work with the SDK.

Some of the last models are getting synchronized updates and they are all based on MediaTek, these ones:
Beryl AX (GL-MT3000), Brume 2 (GL-MT2500), Flint 2 (GL-MT6000).

And the Marble 2 (GL-B3000) (newer than the ones I mentioned) is using Qualcomm but that model is getting slower updates and if I’m not wrong is running on OpenWrt 19. I really think the Flint 3 will have a MediaTek SoC, and maybe their new Slate 7

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I think 'BE' is just because it's Wi-Fi 7 - IEEE 802.11be

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They can't possibly be that short-sighted, can they?

Surely they understand their most technologically savvy customers want as close to open source as possible, and that staying with MediaTek will aid them with development and ongoing maintenance.

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it is possible they look into this openwifi fork, they did this before with the Flint 1 and before it was qsdk, but yea... if they gonna depend on qualcomm and qsdk its not the perfect platform if consumers want a high version of openwrt.

Even speaking about wifi 7 alone will take long to mature and be stable both for mtk and qsdk, still think mtk would be a better choice.

But based on the naming conventions, it looks idd like qualcomm since other names start either with gl-sfxxxx for siflower, and gl-mtxxxx for mtk, so the only naming type what is left points to qualcomm for me.

Often other brand routers show similar namings :+1:

Edit:

I got my suspicioun it might be the Qualcomm Network Pro 620 soc, when i compare the cpu with more routers against BE9300 as keyword i see commonalities, but not 100% sure of course it's more a guess, found it on the Deco BE65 and Archer BE550😋

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@ka2107 has made excellent guesswork based on GL.iNet's existing naming conventions and chip usage; it'd be strange if they decided to break that now. I'm venting a bit of shock and sadness... I'd been anticipating this product for a long time and based on the success of their immediately preceding WiFi 6 product using MediaTek, I assumed they'd stay the course for WiFi 7.

(I didn't look into any of their other products and what's inside, compiled in the wonderful table above. That might have set my expectations better. The Linksys MX4300 [Qualcomm IPQ8174] I got for $15 has been working great with unofficial firmware running the very latest SNAPSHOT, but I had hoped to return to MediaTek with GL.iNET's WiFi 7 router.)

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For table you need to thank @ka2107 :+1:, i think he is very right.

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I probably missed it, but what reason are you referring to?

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I'll pass on this one if it's QCA which it probably is. Just too many issues and too little open source support with QCA.

Are there other targets currently using QCA that show these issues you're referencing?

I own an AX3600 IPQ807x for 4 years and while I don't regret having bought it as there was not really anything else available WiFi 6 at that time and the platform is generally potent, I think the Flint 2 is much better. The situation with ath11k is really bad regarding bugs and firmware releases and getting stuff to work properly on mainline kernel and I doubt it'll be any better with ath12k

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…and that particular aspect is actually even the least bad issue with it (at least on ipq807x, ipq60xx/ ipq50xx ath11k firmware releases are another -worse- story…), the bigger elephant in the room are the problems with their wired ethernet/ switch drivers (which are exclusively built around NSS (which is unsupportable and will never make it mainline) and lack even the most basic checksum offloading without it, leading to bad performance and weird bugs).

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