Hmm, Belkin is a US company owned by Foxconn. I didn't realize that before. Some might recognize Foxconn as the manufacturer behind Apple. That might be a narrative that would gain some acceptance.
The flashing process on that particular router isn't great at all though. Fortunately we don't care about wireless and just need a IP router that also runs OpenVPN so I will take a look at the rest of their products.
Consider some mini PCs. My guess is you could get something made in Taiwan or Thailand or such rather than mainland china, you aren't likely to get anything made in USA or Europe though
I hadn't considered that but it would be great for flexibility. I have concerns about getting cost down under $100 and maybe stretch to $150. At those costs I was thinking we would have to deal with these routers and the SoC they are based on.
MikroTik was considered early on before I even heard about OpenWRT. We rejected them because the UI is just awful, setting up any in quantity would take too long.
Same story with loading OpenWRT on MikroTik, from what I'm reading it is a painful process. Fine for a hobbyist but not for scale.
maybe friendlyarm/elec instead then?
i have their Nano R4s but it is made in china.
however this is a pure router and you'd need a wifi AP to bundle with it.
(i personally use a AC-Lite as its miles better than my old SOC all in one router)
Its snapshot for OpenWrt atm but will be fully supported Soon (tm)
Is it possible to stretch the functionality to incorporate something else you were planning to buy as a separate component? I agree mini-pc at $100 to $150 is probably hard, but at say $200 it's probably doable, and maybe there was $50 to $100 worth of other stuff you wouldn't have to buy if you had one. Also the speed at which your VPN will operate will be MUCH higher with a mini-pc than with most consumer $100 stuff.
Now that's interesting! I knew there had to be some Pi like board out there with multiple network ports. Flash process isn't bad. Will do some reading on these guys.
i edited my post. theres a link to the openwrt status for it whilch has some benchmarks. I'm running it for master router for my lan (have a switch everything else is plugged into and a POE adaptor for the AC-Lite)
I love it. and with it being SDCard for setup? its set them up and copy the cards (you might need some sort of base script to give them unique id's / logins thou.
Not really possible in this case. These are PLC modules and the VPN features we want are not built in so we have to supply a router to do it. Not to mention we don't want to put these modules on the internet with no firewall.
Perhaps something like the gl-inet devices would be good for this application.
^this... sooooo this. Lock those down hard. or they will be the next bots for DDOSing or being hostile hosts for whatever bad actors are playing silly fools on the internet today.
I though this was about Made in America GAO stuff, not just any cheap made in China stuff...
Maybe you you retitle this thread to "Cheap made in China router wanted !"...
Comparing Apple to Belkin is quite insulting to the Billions of USD really Made in America R&D and Design Apple spends yearly and the tens of thousand employed by Apple in America, compared to the paltry Belkin US shell, employing 4 in America (yes, I am exaggerating, but you get the gist) used by Foxconn.
There's something I am really failing to understand about this thread here !!!
take a good look at your stuff in your house. See how much electronics say made in china. At most you might find a few little bits that say Assembled in vietnam/taiwan but the main parts are sourced from china.
It is somewhat laughable that they want a GAO buy american thing going, because with the slide of manufacturing and outsourcing, most of your electronics are made in china.
However things based on ARM chips are designed outside of china and just fabbed in china.
That's my point:
Made in China or Made in America, you can't have both.
With respect to Arm, they power EVERYTHING, so I still don't get the point here...
And yes, I do own a boat load of made in China stuff, basically EVERTHING running on electricity/electronics...
My point is this thread should be closed as the answers are already posted elsewhere or a thread properly Titled about the real issue should be started...
None of this GAO or Made in America BS...
I feel it is worth pointing out that The Buy American Act literally dates back to the Hoover administration and is exclusively aimed at federal agencies, very few of which would have been buying networking equipment back then I reckon.
Another aspect is that parts can be made overseas, and then assembled in the U.S.
Those can then be labeled "Made in the U.S."
Like Apples classic “Designes in California” and “Assambled in Malaysia” on the back of every device
These are my current favorite. Very easy to work with, small size, cost is very low, in stock in quantity. I got some grumbling feedback the Mango MT300N didn't look like a professional product and would arouse suspicion. I'm switching to the Creta AR750 with the included power supply and second LAN port is a win, but it also looks a little more "professional".
But if anyone starts sniffing around Gl.Inet they will stumble on good cloud and that's going to raise serious concerns. Obviously my defense here is these aren't running the stock OS as they are on OpenWRT but I'd prefer to avoid the encounter completely.
The PLC vendor we work with does this and it completely meets Buy American. Buy American isn't hard and fast and there are exceptions for something that is simply unavailable or just costs too much to comply.
What I was trying to do here is find something that comes as close as I can. Some good leads and good discussion.