Hi I havent used open wrt before but was looking into a new router for the home as my current ISP router gives a really spotty wifi signal. Its about 8yrs old. I started looking at OpenWRT to learn a bit more about networking and saw some of the xiaomi devices has some support.
I am obviously looking to future proof as much as possible and this router which has just gone on the shelves seemed good for the price at ~180USD
With 4x2.5 LAN, Tri Band wifi and future support for wifi 7 ( with i guess a firmware patch) seems like a good price for the hardware? So it should suit my needs for a long time.
Buy now or maybe wait for a the chinese Ministry of Tech to give full approval and wait for the "branded wifi support " xiaomi 7000 - xiaomi BE7000 which I guess will have the newer firmware.
Do people think this is a reasonable price for the hardware?
Do people think it will get any community support for OpenWRT?
a) still no 6 GHz support
b) new SOC, which is still only starting to get partial mainline support
c) too early to tell, expect years (plural) until it may get supported
d) don't expect 802.11be support to be retrofitted, even if that were possible (the standard is not final yet, so no way to tell), especially Xiaomi is extremely bad at keeping their firmware maintained for security issues - let alone adding new features (if the ax3600 is anything to go by).
e) 802.11be without 6 GHz support is a bit…
…pointless
If you're looking for a new device, get one that is supported in OpenWrt right now - if you're adventurous and willing to do some development yourself, at least a SOC that is already fully supported (there are ipq8074a based devices with 6 GHz radios[0], [1], not supported by OpenWrt yet, but reasonably supportable if someone with the hardware would work on it). It doesn't make sense to place any bets on new SOCs, until 'someone' has at least some kind of proof of concept OpenWrt port running (not QSDK, but a mostly clean OpenWrt'ish kernel).
Reminder: it took well over 4 years (from initial device availability), before ipq807x support could be merged into OpenWrt/master.
i doubt that this device will ever be wifi7 capable ... the xiaomi 10g for instance i understand doesn't have enough power on fem chips for wifi7 .... doesn't anyone remember how they branded the 9000 version ? the best wifi6 gamer router!!!
I got a couple of these routers on AliExpress. My notebook has an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i (411NGW) adapter.
This adapter comes with the Killer application that gives a few suggestions regarding the wireless network.
Before the upgrade, I was getting a recommendation to get an AX-Capable Router, because my network adapter supported it, but the router didn't.
Now, with the Xiaomi Router 7000, I'm getting a recommendation to get a new Network Adapter, because my Router is BE-Capable, but my adapter isn't.
Despite the admin page for the Router being in Chinese and I can't read that, my google translator says that I have 2 networks, one in 2.4Ghz and another in 5Ghz. This is confirmed by my network adapter, that doesn't see any 6Ghz networks around.
Clearly my adapter is getting some information from the router stating that it is BE-Capable, despite the admin page having no information for that network.
Also, I got to say that I'm loving this router. Configuring a Mesh was EASY, the coverage is awesome, and I didn't have a single problem with it.
My network adapter is capable of Dual Connect, so I have 5Ghz running at 2402 Mbps and 2.4Ghz running at 574 Mbps.
I have the same router, you need to have one network to connect to both - 2.4GHz and 5GHz or in three ranges - 2.4GHz, 5GHz, 5.8GHz.
Is your Samba password working for you? Login: guest, password: - it doesn't work. The drive is visible from the phone, but not from the computer.
It is indeed true that the hardware has WiFi 7 features (MLO without having 2 different IPs, puncture)
But it absolutely won't have 6GHz. The hardware filters for the 5ghz FEM limit the broadcast to between 5ghz to 5.8ghz band because it can split up the 4 streams into 2x2 for 5 and 5.8 making it a tri band
But, of course WiFi 7 is going to be largely useless from this if it ever gets full support because no 6ghz, thus no good MLO or 320mhz.
And China still hasn't approved 6ghz either so there's no reason for them to sell 6ghz or WiFi 7
