What's your favorite enthusiast LEDE/OpenWrt device?

This seems like a good x86 based OpenWrt router.

3x 2.5Gbps
Wifi 6E

Did you get yours? I ordered mine the other day, and the PayPal payment was made to a person with a gmail account. My order didn’t show up in my profile on the FeiendlyElec web site where I ordered it from. Looks a little like a two-person (best case scenario) operation to me.

I already have my R6S sitting at home, just hoping to see a better OpenWrt image soon.

Meraki MR33's all the way. They are an awesome device for AP's.

The latest builds seem to be rock solid.

Cheers
Spart

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I am currently very satisfied with my Banana BPI-R3 used with a 2.5Gbs FTTH/FTTS internet connection through a Huawei MA5671A Mini ONT SFP. Very fast with HW offloading over both Ethernet and wireless.

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Guessing you aren't using SQM, but I've been trying to find out what speed the BPI-R3 can handle SQM at.

As a consumer to keep the hair on my head, OpenWrt + proprietary mix like GL.iNet and Xiaomi models with unaltered portion of LuCI/ubus (qcom), as for development they're the complete opposite, I'd stick with Mediatek only which is somewhat balanced.

Ill echo the support for the Linksys E8450. Ive bought 3 of these for myself, a work testing wifi network, and my home network as well as for my parents.

The driver support for the wifi network is fantastic and the storage is more than enough for a feature rich router platform. I know the usb2.0 is disappointing, but i just want a router to be a router, and ill use a computer for storage, etc...

Ive been worried about the dual core performance, but i seem to get full speed on a wireguard tunnel with SQM on a 120Mb starlink/cellular failover connection.

If i were to re-do everything from scratch, i would use a rpi cm4 in a re router from seeed and a zyxel wifi 6 AP, both running openwrt.

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Which model would you consider?

I have experience with the E8450, I have 3 set up as dumb access points, 2 of them in WDS to a third one, with a seperate router, have had no problems whatsoever. When these go on sale at $50, its a good buy.

But as an enthusiast device, I recently got a Dynalink WRX-36, and it blows the e8450s away. Much better processor, will handle a 1gb connection better than the e8450. Much better range, i could replace my 3 e8450 with 2 of the dynalinks. Plus if my opnsense router ever went down the dynalink would provide an adequate spare if put back into service in router mode. The only caveat is its only in snapshot and is a bit tricky to get openwrt installed.

Both the DL-WRX36 and the E8450 as a WDS access point system, beats my previous Asus AImesh system hands down.

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I use this in my overlanding truck network with an RPI

ZyXEL NWA55AXE

I can't speak to the performance yet, but it's fully supported and if you add the beamforming settings listed in the linksys e8450 docs, it seems to be equal in signal coverage to my e8450

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Nice! I have 4x RT3200s, but only use 3 of them for dumb APs presently. I love the MT76/79 chipsets and the great work going on with the firmware and drivers.

But I have also had my eye on that WRX-36. It does look powerful, no doubt. Have you done any wireless AX max throughput testing? Would love to see some of the numbers around that, whether here or PM. :slight_smile:

There are some iperf tests posted in the WRX-36 thread.

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I have not done any max throughput tests What i have done are tests at distance, and the dl-wrx36 wins here. I have also looked at wireless signal and the Dynaink is more powerful.
I think its because the e8450 max signal is 27dbm, where the Dynalink at the US defaults to 29dbm and can be set at 30dbm.

Very nice! So in doing more research around the DL-WRX36, I also just learned of the Netgear WAX206 with the same wireless chipsets as the RT3200. I'm equally intrigued by it now, as well. :face_with_monocle:

Someone posted the WAX having better antennas than the RT, it was probably in the big WAX thread.

Indeed--it does appear the WAX antenna layout would lend itself to better functionality.

RT3200 Antennas:

WAX206 Antennas:

Still curious what would be the group's preference between these two:

  • Dynalink DL-WRX36
  • Netgear WAX206
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You mean the latest snapshots? A while ago they soft-bricked the device, that's why I'm curious.

Unfortunately there is no Dynalink in my country, WAX206 is the only choice for me.

you can't get it from Amazon.com ? i live in France, it is not available here but i can order it from amazon.com, looks like they deliver outside US.