Definitive list of supported wifi chipsets for ap mode

[actionhank]

Looking at the docs I see mention that there are specific chipsets supported by freebsd, elsewhere online I’ve seen mention that not all those same chips supported upstream will work on OPNsense.

What are some reliably supported wifi chipsets that I can use in ap mode?

For context I intend to build out a low power fw with battery backup and fallback wifi in case of power outage.

[lilsense]

Here's a link: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/hardware/

[actionhank]

Thanks! Are you saying all the devices listed are also supported by OPNsense? None of them stripped out?

[zz00mm]

WIFI cards have 2 different modes: Infrastructure and Ad-Hoc. You want Infrastructure mode and not all drivers support it.

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/interface_wireless_internal.html

FreeBSD supports wireless adapters in access point (infrastructure) mode, but this functionality is limited to some drivers and there may be some, which do not support all options available via the web interface. Please make sure that you buy a wireless card that is supported to avoid these problems.

From my experience I ditched the wifi card out of my FW. Use an external solution to achieve my goal. My biggest roadblock if I remember correctly was I wanted 3+ SSIDs and could only get 2. This is the short list of headaches. If you search the forum you'll probably find most say do it with an external AP.

[actionhank]

Thank you, this is good to know.

So I already have unifi APs in place, but want fallback wifi for when the power goes out.

Can I go by the list posted by lilsense for supported infrastructure mode chipsets?

[lilsense]

yeah or if you have a card that's supported by OpenWRT you can follow the below guide to set it up.

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=34034.0

But if you want to do this as an alternative, I recommend putting the unifi on an UPS.