What's your favourite cheap LEDE/OpenWrt device?

daiaji · February 19, 2018, 8:01pm

In fact I think you should not try any MT7620 solution for the router
2.4GWIFI of MT7620 scheme does not work normally from 2014 to present (for example, if you plan to use OPENWRT or LEDE, the router of MT7620 scheme does not work wirelessly)
Although the MT7620 is very cheap

Here's a detailed report
https://bugs.lede-project.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=896

I think ASUS RT-ACRH13 will be a better choice
LEDE works perfectly well on the ASUS RT-ACRH13 (there are even reports that the LEDE has a higher wireless rate than the official firmware's wireless rate)

valentt · March 18, 2018, 11:22am

@ghostry Can you share some links with details for youkuYK-l1? I couldn't find it anywhere... which webshop did you buy it from?

Magnets · March 18, 2018, 10:38pm

I guess they are a Chinese market device as I can only find them on Taobao for $10

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=551394042714

Youku YK-L1

Out of stock on ali and more like $20: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MT7620A-802-11n-300Mbps-Wireless-WiFi-Router-USB-Wi-Fi-Repeater-OPENWRT-DDWRT-Padavan-RT-N14U/32820902708.html

I found that link from here: http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=890458

ghostry · March 19, 2018, 2:51am

https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/youku/youku_yk1 It can be purchased on 2.taobao.com

dirlede · March 19, 2018, 9:44am

I don't know if it copy&paste gone wrong - but this one here is supposed to be a "Youku YK-L1C"

1x YK-L1C MT7620A 300Mbps WiFi Router (128MB RAM/16MB Flash)

Look's quite nice (with USB and microSD slot) shipped for US $18 from ali.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/MT7620A-802-11n-300Mbps-Wireless-Mini-WiFi-Router-WiFi-Repeater-OPENWRT-DDWRT-Padavan-RT-N14U-Firmware/1968690_32821778872.html

NOTE FROM THE SELLER: It have a CHINESE LOGO ON middle of ROUTER, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, PLEASE DON'T ORDER.

jeff · March 19, 2018, 2:43pm

So I guess the photos [on Taobao] aren't of the actual unit...

@dirlede pointed out that those above show the logo and Chinese characters

dirlede · March 19, 2018, 2:45pm

Check the photo directly under the text... It's from someone who bought the unit.. And there you can see (upside down) it's written:

Youku ###

Replace the ### with some Chinese characters

@jeff if you buy enough they can probably put jeff on it

Degenerate · March 28, 2018, 2:43pm

I've got 3 of these. Currently £10 GBP on Amazon:

They're pretty minimal OpenWRT devices with 8MB flash and 32MB RAM, but the plug-top form factor, ethernet, wifi and USB ports make them perfect for wifi enabling ethernet devices, or network-enabling USB peripherals of all varieties. Only one port carries the USB signal, the other is a high-current charging port, suitable for powering high drain USB peripherals that get power from two ports via a Y cable (eg hard drives). I have one running a printer, one running a hard drive, and one currently serving as a wifi repeater.

jeff · March 28, 2018, 3:58pm

Very cool, especially with a power port for Raspberry Pi, ODROID, or the like.

Does iw list indicate that the device and driver can support "mesh point"? Something along the lines of

	Supported interface modes:
		 * IBSS
		 * managed
		 * AP
		 * AP/VLAN
		 * monitor
		 * mesh point
		 * P2P-client
		 * P2P-GO
		 * outside context of a BSS

and

	valid interface combinations:
		 * #{ managed } <= 2048, #{ AP, mesh point } <= 8, #{ P2P-client, P2P-GO } <= 1, #{ IBSS } <= 1,
		   total <= 2048, #channels <= 1, STA/AP BI must match, radar detect widths: { 20 MHz (no HT), 20 MHz, 40 MHz }

Degenerate · March 29, 2018, 3:09am

Looks like it:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type             : Ralink RT5350 id:1 rev:3
machine                 : TRENDnet TEW714TRU
processor               : 0
cpu model               : MIPS 24KEc V4.12
BogoMIPS                : 239.61
wait instruction        : yes
microsecond timers      : yes
tlb_entries             : 32
extra interrupt vector  : yes
hardware watchpoint     : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0ffc, 0x0ffc, 0x0ffb, 0x0ffb]
isa                     : mips1 mips2 mips32r1 mips32r2
ASEs implemented        : mips16 dsp
shadow register sets    : 1
kscratch registers      : 0
package                 : 0
core                    : 0
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available

$ iw list
Wiphy phy0
        max # scan SSIDs: 4
        max scan IEs length: 2257 bytes
        max # sched scan SSIDs: 0
        max # match sets: 0
        max # scan plans: 1
        max scan plan interval: -1
        max scan plan iterations: 0
        Retry short long limit: 2
        Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m)
        Available Antennas: TX 0 RX 0
        Supported interface modes:
                 * IBSS
                 * managed
                 * AP
                 * AP/VLAN
                 * monitor
                 * mesh point
        Band 1:
                Capabilities: 0x17e
                        HT20/HT40
                        SM Power Save disabled
                        RX Greenfield
                        RX HT20 SGI
                        RX HT40 SGI
                        RX STBC 1-stream
                        Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes
                        No DSSS/CCK HT40
                Maximum RX AMPDU length 32767 bytes (exponent: 0x002)
                Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 2 usec (0x04)
                HT TX/RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-7, 32
                Frequencies:
                        * 2412 MHz [1] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2417 MHz [2] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2422 MHz [3] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2427 MHz [4] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2432 MHz [5] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2437 MHz [6] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2442 MHz [7] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2447 MHz [8] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2452 MHz [9] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2457 MHz [10] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2462 MHz [11] (20.0 dBm)
                        * 2467 MHz [12] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
                        * 2472 MHz [13] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
                        * 2484 MHz [14] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
        valid interface combinations:
                 * #{ managed, AP, mesh point } <= 8,
                   total <= 8, #channels <= 1
        HT Capability overrides:
                 * MCS: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
                 * maximum A-MSDU length
                 * supported channel width
                 * short GI for 40 MHz
                 * max A-MPDU length exponent
                 * min MPDU start spacing

RangerZ · March 30, 2018, 3:53pm

GL.inet is Celebrating Easter
$15.99 for the MT300N-V2
$20.99 for the AR-150
$17.49 for the AR-300M-Lite

xenek · April 1, 2018, 10:58pm

Low cost, cheap, but not 'next to zero cost' - It's the RPi3b I think.

I wanted LEDE on an odroid XU4 because I want real grunt, but I can't get a VMM KVM QEMU VM of LEDE working on Mate today so i'm running Lede Reset direct on Raspberry Pi 3 hardware. One day I'll get it running in an Odroid VM using VMM on Mate.

On the Pi I've two usb3 gigabit Ethernet adaptors, and a Kingston 8Gb USB2 disk.
I have a guest system on one of the USBeths, and my main secured lan on another. These gigabit eths benchmark much faster than the onboard usb2 eth the RPi has.

I've a PPPoE session using a Draytek Vigour 130 which is connected to the onboard usb2. My Connection is Australian NBN FTTN (VDSL2) and it's about 50/20. I get speedtest 47 down, and about 19 up, with the pi running at about .1 cpu. If I monitor 3x live LEDE graphs, and check out YAMon, with about 10 users, pi cpu usage sits at .9 - only just powerful enough.

Using cake and YAMon, I can track my family usage, and the free public usage on the open hotspot. I disable the RPi wlan, and use a TP link 12db high gain Omni antenna so neighbours (who have no cash for internet connections - I live in a poorish area) can tap in. Usually seem to have a couple of smart TVs on Netflix etc. Typical number of simultaneous devices is about 15, and I seem to hit a minimum of 700 GB a month usage.

For my secured LAN I use an asus router just as a 5g wifi AP It used to crash all the time when routing but is rock solid just as a wifi hotspot hanging off LEDE.

It's not a LEDE thing, but I also hang a koalasafe off the secured LAN the core LEDE router provides so I get phone app control over the children's internet & automatic securing of websites & youtube, along with time controls.

What I really like is that I can do stuff to the core LEDE raspberry Pi 3 router, and reset it, and it takes about 10-15 seconds to reset and reconnect the PPPoE session. Because the VDSL modem is separate, and the 3 Wifi systems are separate, no one is kicked off, and most of the time I can reboot and no one even knows.

If the Pi fails, I have a spare Pi I can swap it out with, and they are readily available with overnight shipping, so it's not like a budget dedicated router from china that takes a month to arrive if something breaks..

That's a real router, if you ask me. Easy hardware replacement, fast boot, reboot without disruption, reliable.

I spent ages trying to find PF sense or similar for the odroid/pi, and gave up, and ended up using LEDE. It's been nearly two weeks of pain but it's finally coming together.

RangerZ · April 2, 2018, 12:56am

While the Pi itself is in the $30 range, adding the 2 USB NICs, case, power supply and card probably brings this up to a number higher than most reading this post would consider cheap (not saying this is or is not a good value). The OPs first post was talking about $10-15 dollar devices.

Your config is however admirable and probably worthy of a how to post on it's own.

cbz · April 6, 2018, 10:52am

Archer C5/C7 seem to be fairly cheap around here as long as you stick to the second hand market. Similarly the BT Home Hub is a good integrated device for those that want OpenWRT+ADSL/VDSL.

maurer · April 7, 2018, 3:33pm

bt hh5a it's not that great as requires soldering to flash LEDE/openwrt (I know there is also a solderless version but it's not easy either)

defdefred · April 11, 2018, 6:51am

Nexx WT3020 is my favorite cheap aliexpress router !

Despite is 8MB flash (mods exist to upgrade to 16MB), this little guy is able to:

NAT+ Firewall for all the family behind my internet box (8Mbit internet) and with a classical tp-link switch.
Hourly RSYNC/SSH my downloads from a seedbox
Serve the downloads as a little NFS USB NAS to my LibreElec mediaplayer

Next step is now to add a secondary 64G usb flash key using mdamd with raid0 (but It seems that I have problem with CONFIG_KERNEL_DIRECT_IO missing from my kernel).

Next2 step is to add a LORA receiver+Arduino Nano to centralize data from my DIY IOT toys.

Next3 step could be to upgrade the flash to 16M because 8M is not enough for all the things this miracle could handle

cbz · April 11, 2018, 3:17pm

At least in the UK they are available already modified by folk on ebay for around 20-25 £

ahmar16 · April 17, 2018, 11:01am

I have a suggestion for this topic here. Would it not be better if all of the mentioned devices here were listed in a single thread for easy finding? I mean for a noob like me and some other people who might wanna find a good device, reading a lot of posts wouldn't exactly be an interesting thing. I understand that knowledge of the device will be a better thing but finding devices that someone might be interested in should be in a single post for better comparing and search. It can also save a lot of time for others.
I know the Openwrt's TOH is a good place to start but some of the devices are old and discontinued and there is no price comparison there. The discussion can go as long as it gets but there should be one post that is pinned to top and should be modified/updated regularly by someone to add/remove any devices or update info about them.

Maybe a page at openwrt.org website would be a better idea. As it can be updated/edited by anyone.

After all it's just a suggestion. Thanks

tmomas · April 17, 2018, 6:07pm

I was thinking the very same. Wading through 160 postings and searching for the "golden nuggets" hidden inside is no fun at all.

Having a summary of the discussion either at the top of the thread or on a wiki page would make it much easier to find the user-favoured devices.

I was also thinking about creating one topic like this per year, because new hardware appears on the horizon, and old hardware disappears.

Options we have

Create new topic, making post#1 the place where to find the essence of the topic, i.e. post#1 is continuously updated by a) the author of that posting or b) by everyone taking part in that discussion (we can make a posting "wiki" so everyone can contribute to it). List favoured devices in a table, or
We can create "polls" in forum postings (see e.g. [OpenWrt/LEDE merge] Which forum software do users want for the future?). Not sure though if those can be dynamically expanded (in December there will be more devices to vote for than in January -> devices need to be added to the poll during the year).
Create wiki page where user-favoured devices are listed in a table.
Create wiki page with a poll included. Polls are somewhat possible IIRC, but I would have to dig deeper into this again to judge if polls are really feasible in the wiki.
.... a rating system like on amazon comes to my mind, with stars and comments and such...

To make this summary or essence of the "favourite device" topic useful, we need to agree on what information is needed.

Example for a listing in post#1 of a new "favourite device" topic:

Model	is my favourite because...	Price
DIR-505	small formfactor, directly pluggable into wall outlet, no cables; sufficient flash/ram (8/64) for my usecase	999,-€
TL-MR3020	small formfactor, low power consumption	888,-$
$yourmodel	$your_reason_for_favouring_this_device	777,-¥

Is that all we need? Anything to add?

Sidenote: Anything more than the above in a table would probably make it more a candidate for the wiki, since in the forum we are quite width restricted.

Any other proposals on how to condense the information of a long topic into a nice list?

ahmar16 · April 17, 2018, 6:15pm

I think this 3 column table suggested by @tmomas would be fine because most of us will always be looking for brief information about devices on the go and if someone needs more info they can always find the device in the wiki or we can just link the wiki page within the list with the device info.