I did a bit of digging around and found that there is quite a bit of used Teltonika stuff being sold where I'm from. So I might just get a cheap used LTE router, play with OpenWRT and OpenWISP a bit and see how far I get.
In the meantime does anyone have experience with good commercial solutions, where we can lean back and let support take care of it? So that we can make an informed decision on what to choose later on. (But maybe I have to ask such a question in a more solar centered forum as @LilRedDog suggested.)
Yeah I've came across that one as well. I think I will first play around a bit with used Teltonika equipment because it seems a lot more available where I'm from. But I will keep gl inet in mind.
I suggested you go there but I should have said start.
I think it highly likely there is a different or newer way to accomplish your goals and they would know.
Then you are welcome back to get it configured safely.
Yes. According to README I also have the recommended host OS (ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS) . After install of a bunch of packages, recommended in README, still errors. Thus, may be an issue because of building for RUT955, or having older ubuntu. But no serious problem, because having org openwrt image. Giving up.
Yeah seems to be, I think I will look around a bit more, but will keep in mind that we also can have the easy method with OpenWISP. For now it seems to be that OpenWISP is a bit too much for just 2-4 devices. But maybe we'll already send an inquiry to learn a bit about pricing so we can switch to commercial support when we have enough devices to justify a OpenWISP instance.
On another note, i found another manufacturer for LTE Routers which seems to use OpenWRT in it's software. They are called NetModule. They are quite a bit more expensive than Teltonika but there are also quite a few used Routers for sale. At least in my area. So might be worth checking them out.
Just a few cents: Old, but proven policy is, first to define the software requirements, and then to look for matching harware. In case, of simple routing tasks or LTE connectivity or VPN setup, off-the-shelf devices like from MT, Teltonika, or netmodule will be OK. Different story, in case special customization required, i.e. ModBus connection to sensors, web connection to AWS, queuing of data because of lost LTE, pre-processing of data, i.e. sending alarms in case of special signal combos, permanent MQTT connection because of speed ...
The more customization required, the more problematic usage of pre-built devices. And you are bound to one supplier.
That's a good sidenote, we might indeed be wanting to use data queuing in the future. Because currently we are pulling data through a central server, with unreachable clients that would lead to data loss, while the data is not that important we might nevertheless want to use a caching/queuing solution in the future.
How easy is it to use Python scripts on OpenWRT, should be manageable right? (As long as there is enough storage)