Hi guys, the TP-Link Archer AX1500 was announced a couple of months ago and is available at Walmart for just $70: https://www.walmart.com/ip/TP-Link-Archer-AX1500-Wi-Fi-6-Dual-Band-Router-Up-to-1-5-Gbps-Speeds-1-5-GHz-Tri-Core-CPU/584566855
Here are the specs: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-ax1500/
I was wondering is there anyone working on adding support for this router as it is by far the cheapest 802.11ax router on the market.
At least for me, "I love all the little antennas you can point different ways to help to get connected." characterizes the target market perfectly.
TP-Link? Cheap TP-Link? -- Between the admissions in the FCC consent decree and the decade-old 4/32 crap they continue to pump into the market, no thanks at any price.
What is this?
Found some detailed specs, it uses Broadcom BCM6750 chipset (3 x cortex a7 cpu cores), 16MB Flash, 256MB ram: http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/TP-LINK_Archer_AX1500
TL-WR841 (US$18) and a several more -- worse in other countries. I believe it was in Brazil that they were not only charging a crazy-high price, but deceptively advertising them as "32 mb" storage (bits) rather than the reality that they are effectively unusable 4 MByte devices.
Broadcom's long history of lack of support for open-source development isn't going to be very attractive.
Currently there are zero devices with this SoC listed as supported by OpenWrt.
Some Broadcom SoCs are supported, but you can be pretty sure there's Broadcom wireless connected (or in it) as well - and that's what you need to support. Don't expect much from Broadcom wireless when it comes to Linux.
Qualcomm/Atheros and Mediatek are still the better choices if you want OpenWrt support and reasonable 802.11an/ac wireless drivers. Ath11k (for 802.11ax) is said to be in the works, no idea if Mediatek has a 802.11ax solution ready (and is willing to open source that driver).
As far as OpenWrt support is concerned, the device you're looking at is dead in the water.
lkml.kernel.org/r/1573810153-29623-1-git-send-email-kvalo@codeaurora.org
Not quite sure if it will make the cut for kernel 5.5, but it's at least on its way (and has been available publicly for almost a year by now)
I was just looking at this device.
Knowing what I know, I think it's unlikely we will ever see OpenWRT support for this. Broadcom doesn't get any love from OpenWRT because the OSS community gets no love from Broadcom.
My recommendation is don't-buy if you ever want OpenWRT support on this device.
Yeah, i'll end up getting a qualcomm based router, will wait until those come down in price though which could take quite a while.
We may want to keep an eye on the TP-Link Archer AX3000 which is $129 at Walmart and seems to be Intel-based.
It is an interesting model.
you can't read or what?
Guys, as you can see, if you extract archer ax10 firmware you will find out that in fact ax10 uses by default a custom build of openwrt made by tp link. sooo any dev here able to make a openwrt release?
There's only tons of OEMs using old OpenWrt SDKs. You'll still need to find someone willing to tinker with the device (or allow access to yours if you find someone willing to invest time in it).
Try grabbing the FOSS tarball TP-Link offers, if you manage to get a hold of it you'll see there's tons of essential stuff (binary blobs) missing.
If it were as easy as 'Oh this device has OpenWrt from five years ago on it' then OpenWrt itself would support lots and lots more devices than it does now.
The source code for the TP link routers are here https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/gpl-code/
Does it not include the drivers?
Same story as the TP-Link C2300v1. An old but quite capable router that TP-Link abandoned. It also runs an old version of OpenWRT and the source code provided by TP-Links is missing a lot of binary and closed source files. See Support for TP-link Archer C2300 - #19 by dsouza more details...
I am starting some work on this. I'm learning has I go so bare with me. I have root tty access and am starting to pock around. If anyone is interested in helping let me know.
it does use openwrt 12.09
DISTRIB_ID="OpenWrt"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="Attitude Adjustment"
DISTRIB_REVISION="unknown"
DISTRIB_CODENAME="attitude_adjustment"
DISTRIB_TARGET="model_brcm_bcm490x/generic"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="OpenWrt Attitude Adjustment 12.09-rc1"
I am working on some wiki stuff.
No, it does not - its vendor SDK just uses parts of an ancient OpenWrt base, all the important bits and pieces (kernel+drivers, config backing store, webinterface and much more) have been ripped out and replaced with semi-proprietary components. Chances for getting wireless support for broadcom chipsets is close to zero, so even if you do get your device 'working', it will remain rather useless without its wireless (particularly under the topic of " …802.11AX router support").
Hey, I'm interested too. I'm starting too, so I don't have much knowledge.
Where are yours wiki stuff? Have you made some progress? I'm thinking to use the kernel+modules from TP-Link's firmware in combination with OpenWrt.
As far as I know, this is somewhere between "impossible", and "extremely_difficult (except maybe, if you write kernel shim modules for a living)".
