I have a pair of Ubiquity NBE-M5-16 devices (aka “NanoBeam M5”) which like all network gear I checked for OpenWrt compatibility before obtaining. Checked at least in the casual sense; neither the wiki nor these forums mention this particular model but my impression is that all the XW devices basically run the same firmware.
Anyway, as I dabble with the OEM web interface for the first time with this brand, and look into how to flash them over to OpenWrt, I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it.
Obviously the advantages of OpenWrt would be:
- consistent admin with nearly all my other network gear
- open source and in many ways more trusted firmware
- avoid sending traffic over a device with a “Privacy Policy”
But given that it’s a small journey to get around the signed bootloader on these, and especially since these would be for providing a point-to-point bridge link anyway (i.e. not an access point or something I’d want to get real fancy with the network-level configuration anyway) leaves me maybe with cold feet.
With OpenWrt I would gain some control over routing and if I wanted to install random other utilities/packages, but otoh would I lose all the proprietary configuration stuff that would be more helpful for a long-distance point-to-point link? The airOS firmware has:
- some sort of airView spectrum analyzer (for which I’ve found an open source Python client!)
- an “airMAX” proprietary TDMA thingy and “Long Range PtP Link Mode” options
- control over the physical link distance setting which iiuc optimizes some of the timing handling
- including an “Auto Adjust” option that’s on by default for this setting
Maybe some other interesting settings I’m overlooking too, but I’m wondering — how much do fellow OpenWrt fans trust the Ubiquity corporation and their firmware? I’ve heard of them but haven’t really been tracking their brand reputation: who owns them, which stage of the “platform decay” lifecycle they’re heading for next, who their “trusted data marketplace partners” are, that sort of thing. And in some ways more practically, does the OpenWrt firmware build support any/all of the proprietary features that come with the original airOS firmware, or at least the settings I’d need to get an equally good backhaul at the same long ranges?
[meant to add: I did read through the Should I stick with UniFi or use OpenWRT? thread which was interesting. it’s a few years old now at this part as far as the company/brand goes, and also is about UniFi rather than NanoBeam devices — i.e. it’s more about the access point tradeoffs where here I’m wondering about the point-to-point bridge tradeoffs.]