I'm wondering why?

Posted Nov 7, 2024 9:55 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033)
Parent article: The OpenWrt One system

What are the advantages of this device, over the flood of mini-PCs obtainable from China for the price of a router? They usually have 2 x 2.5Gbps Ethernet, those sold for routing (usually with PFsense preloaded) have four or even more. CPUs are anything from a J1900 to N300, usually 8Gb RAM, usually 128Gb NVME, and plenty of USB 2 and 3 ports. A power brick is normally included. I can't think of any reason they can't run OpenWRT.

Why am I wrong to think this may be too little too late?

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I'm wondering why?

Posted Nov 7, 2024 12:15 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> What are the advantages of this device, over the flood of mini-PCs obtainable from China for the price of a router?

Fully integrated and ready to go?

Much lower power consumption?

Wifi that doesn't suck?

Actual support?

> They usually have 2 x 2.5Gbps Ethernet,

Details matter; I have one of these mini PCs that has 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports on PCIe links that max out at 2Gbps (according to Linux's kernel output)

I'm wondering why?

Posted Nov 7, 2024 18:26 UTC (Thu) by rknight (subscriber, #26792) [Link] (1 responses)

>> What are the advantages of this device, over the flood of mini-PCs obtainable from China for the price of a router?
>Fully integrated and ready to go?

>Much lower power consumption?

>Wifi that doesn't suck?

>Actual support?

Not to mention both Packet Switch Engine and Packet Process Engine integrated into the SoC which most of those cheap mini-PCs are missing.

I'm wondering why?

Posted Nov 8, 2024 10:55 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

There are many routers based on the same MediaTek MT7981B SoC on aliexpress. Many of which ship with OpenWRT. Including the OpenWRT One box.

If you don't like the physical design of the OpenWRT One box, you could buy one of those others - and just make a donation to OpenWRT.