So I want to take ownership of my home network and get a router with OpenWrt on it. Currently I have ISP-provided Connect Box CH7465LG which is quite terrible - I'm losing internet couple times a day, and speed test shows around 350 Mb/s (but this might not be an issue with the router itself). I wonder what device should I pick to have best experience and not waste money,
My setup:
600 Mb/s internet plan
Main laptop on which I work, with support for Wi-Fi 6E, 802.11ax, used only wirelessly
One more person in a household with a laptop
6 wifi smart plugs
Small one floor apartment
I plan to:
Setup a home server with Home Assistant and possibly Immich on an old laptop
Transition into using Zigbee for the smart plugs and add couple new devices
Maaybe setup a VPN at some point
So given my current setup and plans I was looking for a rather cheap router with specs that would match or a bit exceed recommended OpenWrt specs. I've found Asus RT-AX52, which seems should be enough for my current internet speed, and should be more stable than the connect box I got from the ISP. According to the documentation it should be possible to also use some OpenWrt addons, but I guess not all of them, since Flash is still quite small. Where I live I ordered it for around 44 USD from Amazon (central europe).
But while waiting for the delivery I started to wonder if it is really a right choice and if it will be enough. Maybe I should spend a bit more money on a decent router? Something like GL.iNet GL-MT6000 for 180 USD? It is 4x more expensive, but if it is really worth I'm willing to pay. Will I be able to utilize its potential? Or maybe it I should already start looking at Wifi 7 to be more future proof, since I will anyway overpay?
It is hard for me to judge, since I don't really have much experience comparing routers. Previously for maany years I had TP-Link TL-WR1043ND v1 and I was almost delusional enough to think I could use it instead, but I noticed it is not supported any more
So please tell me - Am I naive and this Asus will be way too weak for my needs, or I would just waste money for no reason buying something more expensive like Flint 2.
RT-AX52 will cover 600Mbps just like any other filogic router already mentioned and lots more of them https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi
wifi7 is a pipe dream with few routers supported, and wifi6e never got a spin to materialize in more than dozen products, just put them on pause.
Buy 1st router that you find cheap now (RT-AX52 is a good choice, note that 1201Mbps in 5GHz band is halved for each transfer direction, so it is slightly slower than 600Mbps internet), Use this to prove the concept you can reach 600Mbps - usually there is some service guarantee that 50 or 20% of bw is guaranteed at any given moment if there is such promise at all....
Better use something else then laptop. You know that it has to run 24/7? I have old comp with intel i3 cpu 2en gen and it is working perfectly fine for years now.
Beside coordinator that you will need for zigbee better go for outlets then plugs. No paticular reason but it just look better and it behave like a normal outlet, just this is a smart one with usually power monitoring built in.
I have flint 2 so I can suggest you to go with that. It is supported with vanilla openwrt. It comes with it’s own ui and have some android app. Can be used with android app over the cloud like many commercial routers if you want it like that
But I found it’s ui buggy, maybe they updated it in the mean time, so i went with vannila openwrt. Plenty of lan ports, radios can be crancked up to 30 db of power and it is not that common.
But it only have 2 radios so if you plan on using batman-adv mesh over wifi count on that.
Doesn't OpenWRT allow you to unlock the 160 MHz width? (Because its PRO version is plus 160 MHz at the stock firmware level, unlike the non-PRO one, where this width was cut in stock WRT)
He meant to say that manufactures with their stock firmware on purpose dosen’t include all devices capabilities and firmware is more then often crippled and doesn’t unlock full device potential.
And this is all probably marketing strategy on selling basically the same devices with the same capabilities with but different firmware options for higher prices as some of them are “pro” what ever than mean.
Well, few times fully functional extra antenna is disabled in cheaper devices in same series, like in some HP access points, but it is not general occurence even less reliable assumption.
I have maybe different experience. I bought some asus router pro version because it was advertised that is vlan capable. As i never before was using vlans and didn’t know much about it. i took that one so i could easily learn more about it using gui and user friendly interface.
Oh boy was I wrong.
Long story short, i ended using hack that some guy made for asus routers because a lot of things were locked down or inaccessible in stock firmware, merlin wasn’t helpful either. You coudn’t enabled mdns in gui on that router although it has mdns capabilities. You coudn’t add your custom firewall rules or modify it in any way although it have firewall. But firewall rules you can add or modify in gui are so simple that this is laughable. It ended its life as giveaway as i moved to opnsense for gateway.
The point is that you have fully functional device with manufacturer firmware that lacks or have disabled functionalities. The only way to use it for your purpose is to hack into it and write your custom rules and command as you will not be able to adopt it to your needs and network will not work.
There is no problem except one small thing. Laptops as devices are not designed nor build to run 24/7 and serve as servers. Just that. But you can use it if you wish.
But as you said you would like to go with ha and build gradually a smart home, then it would be smarter to start with something that will work for years. Thats why i told you better use old pc, nothing fancy. Something that you can get free or dirt cheap, stuck ddr2 ram on it and ssd. And those old comps are pretty reliable. I got mine from my company for free as they wanted to throw it away.
This router greatly improved coverage replacing previous 3x tplink w 2 serving as extenders in far corners so that robot vacuum does not stop beeping loudly in last room
Not yet, but since I want to get router with openwrt anyway I figured that I will just try it and then I will have more info when taking to the ISP.
Yes, there are couple of Illegal - Dropped INPUT packet or No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out.
Is there a possibility that ISP will replace the modem to a different model entirely? I don't have high hopes where it comes to their customer support.
Anyway, this topic is not strictly about the issue with the current modern, rather about what router to pick.
As other suggested to you buy cheaper one, that asus. Install openwrt on it and see how it goes. If you don’t like it you could probably upload stock firmware back and resell it.
If you like openwrt you can always upgrade your network with flint 2 and use this as dumb ap.
