I wanted to grab another, and unfortunately the unit I purchased last time was out of stock with my vendor, but I found an alternative on the same SOC. I thought that sticking to the same SOC (MT7628NN) should be a fairly solid choice, and I found a router that has a slightly more desirable style, at a better price.
The process for updating the firmware seems to be identical - hold the reset button, connect power, navigate to 192.168.1.1 (set static IP on PC beforehand of course). I am greeted, and am still greeted by a MT76x8 Firmware Update page, but after updating the firmware, I am no longer able to get my router to respond. I tried a factory reset and multiple browsers, and the device just stops responding about a second after I ask it to update the firmware. All I can access is this firmware update page.
I have a second ZBT WE1688 on stock firmware, but am now scared to try that one. What would be next step in getting this device running on OpenWRT? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated
Thanks - too busy myself to do something like that right now, the virus means I am working 24/7, gonna just buy something else for now but will hang onto it. Might ask the Aliexpress vendor for the stock firmware. Might use the other one as a Wi-Fi access point. If anyone has this hardware and wants some specific information that isn't too complicated to gather, please let me know.
Thank you - I will give it a try when I get a spare moment and report back. Thankfully it's quite easy and seemingly safe to flash with the dedicated flash UI...!
I'm pleased to announce that the suggestion that @jeperez offered works a treat! It's a shame that we have to stick to this older version though, but I planned to just use this as a Wi-Fi bridge so I'm not particularily upset.
oh well...