OpenWrt has released its own router for $89 with “eternal” support, Wi-Fi 6 and an SSD slot

The OpenWrt One wireless router has gone on sale and is priced at $89, said the non-profit organization Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) responsible for the project. The device runs on the OpenWRT open platform. This means that the owner of the router will not depend on the willingness or unwillingness of the manufacturer to provide support.

Image source: SFC

OpenWrt One is positioned as a “hacker-friendly device” that is not dependent on the timing of updates from private companies, which means there is no threat of discontinuation of support. The release of the router was entrusted to the manufacturer of single-board computers Banana Pi, which this year introduced a similar device BPI-WIFI6, also running OpenWRT, and after it the board that served as its basis went on sale separately. The board from OpenWrt One also ships separately for $68.42.

The router has a switch that allows you to separately flash NOR (4 MB) and NAND (128 MB) flash memory modules, which means it is not easy to damage. The OpenWrt One board has a slot for an M.2 SSD with PCIe. Otherwise, this is a standard router, operating in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and supporting Wi-Fi 6. Power is supplied via the USB Type-C port on the rear panel or via 2.5GbE with PoE support, there are also 1 GbE and USB 2.0 Type ports -A. The amount of RAM is 1 GB; MIMO 3 × 3 is supported in the 5 GHz band, which allows you to maintain high throughput when connecting a large number of devices.