This $89 Wi-Fi router is designed to let you run whatever firmware you want

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) announced past week that the OpenWrt One, a Wi-Fi router created with open-source bundle successful mind, is now disposable to buy for $89 connected AliExpress. The SFC says the router “will ne'er beryllium locked down” and gives its owners the “right to change, modify, and repair” arsenic they like.

The OpenWrt One is aimed astatine giving owners a “hacker-friendly device” that doesn’t trust connected backstage companies’ update schedules and won’t suffer enactment implicit time. That the OpenWrt One uses open-source bundle — it comes with OpenWRT pre-installed — means, successful theory, you tin support it up-to-date for arsenic agelong arsenic you attraction to usage it.

The SFC collaborated with single-board machine shaper Banana Pi — which released its ain OpenWRT router called the BPI-WIFI6 earlier this twelvemonth — to manufacture the OpenWrt One. The router besides comes arsenic a standalone logic board for $68.42, though arsenic Tom’s Hardware notes, that doesn’t look to beryllium disposable successful the US conscionable yet. The router has a power that lets you separately flash the NOR and NAND parts of its flash representation — which makes it “almost unbrickable,” according to its AliExpress listing. The committee besides features an M.2 enlargement slot.

Otherwise, the OpenWrt One is simply a simple, dual-band matter that uses the Wi-Fi 6 modular connected the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. It tin beryllium powered done either a USB-C larboard connected the backmost oregon the 2.5GbE ethernet larboard adjacent to it, utilizing powerfulness implicit ethernet. It besides has a gigabit ethernet LAN port, and it sports some a USB-A and USB-C larboard connected the front.

Compared to Banana Pi’s cheaper $30 router, this exemplary has doubly the RAM astatine 1GB, and though it lone has 2 ethernet ports compared with the BPI-WIFI6’s four, it has PoE enactment done its 2.5GbE port, wherever the BPI-WIFI6 router is each modular gigabit. The caller router besides has 3 x 3 MIMO enactment connected the 5GHz band, truthful should proviso much information throughput to much devices. It’s inactive not a wireless networking powerhouse — but with the deficiency of flexibility galore mass-market alternatives offer, being purpose-built for open-source bundle is worthy celebrating.