Any recommendation for Access point.

[lilsense]

The thing is that OpenWRT/DDWRT/Tomato are not being monitored externally. The user has full control of what's happening. I do agree that the consumer products are designed to die soon, specially they newer ones so that the consumer could buy new ones. This train of thought has been around for quite sometime which is sad.

[newsense]

I don't understand this viewpoint.  It's not like Unifi is the only prosumer AP out there.  Why would you buy a consumer router specifically to flash and use as an AP?

Here are a few examples of great HW running securely way past its vendor EoL dates  --> which 99% of the time is when they leave the assembly lines:

   - Linksys ACSv2 - bought sometime in the 2004-2008, running DDWRT ever since, biweekly or at the very least monthly updates. There's one WiFi6 router I'll consider if this one dies, but otherwise there's no justification for a change in that household.

    - APU3 - bought specifically to run OPNsense ~7 years ago . I'm expecting the msata drive to die eventually. I'll reinstall OPNsense and import the configuration.

    - Unifi ER-X router, long time unmaintained and eventually EoL device, found in a friends house a year ago, installed OpenWRT, adblock, DoH and chrony --- running great.

For better or worse, Unifi has weird patching cycles but their devices are supported for a long time, and a relatively friendly interface to configure it, so as long as you're not using any of their edge devices for security purposes the risks are mitigated so some extent. Also no cloud logins should be allowed on their controller.

Other copycats like TPLink and similar are also non-starters for a variety of (security) reasons - at the end of the day sticking with the ISP provided HW black box would be just as effective.


Running DDWRT/OpenWRT, even if one adopts a more conservative patching cycle like every 90/180 days, you'll still be in a much better posture than not

[rs87]

Otherwise go with OpenWRT and/or DDWRT, but it will be a much more involved experience finding the right router, flashing, configuring and upgrading it.

I don't understand this viewpoint.  It's not like Unifi is the only prosumer AP out there.  Why would you buy a consumer router specifically to flash and use as an AP?

I use a consumer router as an AP flashed with OpenWRT because I want my whole system to be running open source/free software.  The Unifi devices work very good and are very easy to setup and mange, but they are not open source/free.  Last time I used a Unifi Dream Machine it was pinging Google, Facebook and Twitter all day long to determine network latency and there was no way to turn that off.  It's these kind of things that lead me to PFSense and now OPNSense for my router. 

[tillsense]

hi all,

if you have a virtualization or a small standalone device with wireless hardware available/left over, try https://raspap.com/ (debian-based)

cheers
till

[Seimus]

hi all,

if you have a virtualization or a small standalone device with wireless hardware available/left over, try https://raspap.com/ (debian-based)

cheers
till

Wau this looks awesome. I am thinking to upgrade my AP as well, maybe will try it out. Thank you for this!

Regards,
S.

[catchyuser]

Thank you for the recommendation, I do have some old wireless routers like Synology RT2600AC and Netgear AX1800 but looking to upgrade to 6E AP along with Opnsense.

hi all,

if you have a virtualization or a small standalone device with wireless hardware available/left over, try https://raspap.com/ (debian-based)

cheers
till

Wau this looks awesome. I am thinking to upgrade my AP as well, maybe will try it out. Thank you for this!

Regards,
S.

[newsense]

There are a few WiFi6 OpenWRT routers out there but I don't think they do 6E -- which for now it appears to be a feature reserved or the highly coveted "INsecure By Default, DD/Openwrt not supported, subscription capable" routers flooding all markets out there. Hard to go wrong buying one of those having such raving reviews

[Seimus]

I think overall Wifi6 and beyond is not supported currently on OpenWRT nor DD-WRT. Maybe with time...but who knows. Personally I use OpenWRT and buy routers/APs that can run it, the reason is you can very very individually fine tune the OS and get extreme performances on it. Never had a problem playing online games or streaming over Wi-Fi on a OpenWRT capable device.

Also, yesterday I bought and implemented new device as Dump AP Archer c6 v3.20. Its has 4 processors well better to say 2c/4t. Performance with OpenWRT on it is SuperB. Currently still testing it but it runs currently 24h without any issues. Will see in long term.

Regards,
S.

[newsense]

Currently there are 39 devices fully or partially supported in OpenWRT that have WiFi6

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all?dataflt%5BWLAN+2.4GHz*%7E%5D=ax

[Seimus]

Currently there are 39 devices fully or partially supported in OpenWRT that have WiFi6

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all?dataflt%5BWLAN+2.4GHz*%7E%5D=ax

I was always obnoxious towards Wifi6 support on OpenWRT. But looks like they did a great job over the years on it. Saying that, I bought few days ago the Asus RT-AX53U and slapped OpenWRT on it. Router works perfectly and the WiFi6 is SuperB on it.

So far I am still testing it how it will perform long term at least non stop for 1 whole week. I run OpenWRT in a Dump AP mode, with 5+ VAPs and VLANs for each VAP and the management interface. Currently its running like this for 2 days, no problems.

@newsense Thanks for the OpenWRT WiFI6 hint, I was thinking to buy another WiFi5 only device, but after looking into OpenWRT and WiFI6 again I got the RT-AX53U which si damm good

P.S. I had to return the Archer c6 v3.20 previously mentioned, it had crazy issues on OEM as well OpenWRT. 5G WiFI was dropping on higher TX power within the allowed range and WiFi5 was causing for some reason 5s-10s packet loss after 2 days runtime.

Regards,
S.

[newsense]

It's one o the good ones on the EU markets, and far cheaper than the ones that don't work with Open or DDWRT

Have one running strong for almost a year, when OpenWRT support was barely added, all installed/managed remotely :)

Code Select Expand

Server:    https://sysupgrade.openwrt.org
Running:   23.05.0-rc2 r23228-cd17d8df2a on ramips/mt7621 (asus,rt-ax53u)

[Seimus]

Very nice you are already trying out RC2.

How is the performce for you? I have read on the OpenWRT forum some people had 50-75M performance hit on the WiFI. Also RC03 came out few days ago.

Are you running or tried the WiFi6 AX as well on 160Mhz? In the device page its mentioned it doesnt work so I didnt try it out. Currently running it in AX mode with 80Mhz and I can hit around 850Mbit with IPerf if the WiFi is Idle.

Glad to hear your feedback on this device, so far from what I tested I had absolutely no problems. And I tested the WiFi with Iperf3 while running a RTP traffic Voice/Video and streams. I must say the latency was faboulous IRQs were hold in check and overal User experience was phenomenal (it passed the so called GF test).


Regards,
S.

[newsense]

Strange...don't see RC3 anywhere yet, doesn't seem to be out.

There's no VHT160 on this one

ETH chip1: MediaTek MT7621AT
Switch: MediaTek MT7621AT
LAN speed: 1GbE
LAN ports: 3
WAN speed: 1GbE
WAN ports: 1

abgn+ac+ax

Stock bootloader: U-Boot

Stock FW OS: Linux

Flags: Wi-Fi 6, WPA3, 1024QAM, MU-MIMO, VHT80, HEW80, OFDMA, Parental control, AiProtection, 3G/4G Dongle

[Seimus]

Yes you are right, looks like was not yet compiled for that router.

Regards,
S.