Looking for a decent USB 3.0 Wifi adapter for OpenWrt

[HexQauntum]

Hi guys,

I am looking for a USB 3.0 Wifi adapter that is supported by OpenWRT, I don't mind if it is just AC or dual-band. What would you recommend?

[slh]

The short story, there are none, there will 'never' be any - better to get a cheap OpenWrt supported wireless router instead and use that as AP.

Making RBpi 3B as Wi-Fi 6 router for home

It's not. the RPi3 still uses USB 2.0 as system bus for basically everything (including onboard ethernet, shared with all USB ports), performance of this device would not be good. You want an RPi4 with PCIe and USB3 for good (wired) performance, it's still inadequate for wireless uses. the onboard wireless is bad, not even good enough for 2.4 GHz 1x1 very slow tiny antennas --> low range there are no good 802.11ac USB wireless cards, let alone 802.11ax 2x2 at 'best' tiny antennas --> low…

[ThiloteE]

Adding to that, if you INSIST on it having to be a USB (3.0) wifi adapter, check out morrownr's github page: https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi

It has nice recommendations and explanations.

In particular, it is easiest to procure a device with driver and firmware that is already in the Linux kernel. As long as the driver/firmware is in the kernel, the adapter should work out of the box. This will particularly come in handy, if you plan to use this device on your laptop or PC to connect to your local network as a simple wifi client. At least, if you use this device on a Linux operating system. No need for OpenWRT specifically (which is also based on the Linux kernel), unless you seek very advanced features.

If you plan to use an USB adapter on your router or as part of an access point (AP), you may appreciate the information that there is a reason why USB adapters are not well supported in OpenWrt. From a technical point of view, adapters that utilize PCIe or M.2 are prefered over ones that utilize USB, as USB in general induces a tiny amount of additional latency. Furthermore, USB 3.0 in particular (just like bluetooth by the way) causes interference with the 2.4 GHz band. This interference can be mitigated by designing and shielding the adapter properly, but not all manufacturers may succeed at such. Looking back, USB adapters of similar capability also tend to come out months or 1-2 years later than PCIe adapters, so they tend to slightly lagg behind. If you have special hardware requirements or if you value the ease with which USB adapters can be plugged and unplugged and you are content with not being able to minimize latency, sure go for it

[LilRedDog]

@ThiloteE

Furthermore, USB 3.0 in particular (just like bluetooth by the way) causes interference with the 2.4 GHz band.

That lacks important information:
USB 3.x interference with 2.4GHz is local to the USB port. It is not a problem farther than a few inches with USB 2.x using 2.4GHz peripherals.
It is mitigated by as little as 2", or less, using anything to just get it away from the 3.x port.

Just a clarification that USB 3.x is not going to affect WiFi.

Yeah, this is a 2 year old post/thread but you bumped it. This post is more up-to-date.