OpenWrt One - celebrating 20 years of OpenWrt

[John Crispin]

Additional FAQ for OpenWrt One

This is a summary of some further questions regarding the OpenWrt One 
project gathered so far. After OpenWrt voted to move forward, it will be 
converted into a page within the OpenWrt wiki as a place for collecting 
the latest information.

Q: Will the various hardware buttons and switches be fully exposed on 
the outside?
A: The latest iteration of the design will fully expose all buttons and 
switches.

Q: Will there be an option to purchase preassembled kits?
A: We're considering that option but still need to explore possibilities 
with the manufacturer.

Q: When do you expect general availability?
A: Once we vote to move forward, it will take around 45 days until the 
first PCBA engineering samples get shipped. These will be passed on to 
developers for testing. Once they are verified it will probably take 
another 30-45 days until they can be ordered. So we are looking at April 
timeframe.

Q: What kind of power supply is needed?
A: While the initial announcement imprecisely referred to the power 
supply as "USB-PD 12V" the PCB will draw its required power from a USB-C 
PD 3.0/2.0 source.

Q: Why does the current design not feature any USB 3.0 connectivity?
A: USB 3.0 always has the risk of interference with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. We 
would like to reduce risk as much as possible. Interference proofing the 
board would add considerable complexity and costs.

Q: Why did you implement a M.2 slot?
A: After careful consideration we came to the conclusion that directly 
exposing a PCIe 1x lane in the form of an M.2 slot provides the most 
flexibility for potential expansions. It can be used for NVMe storage 
(up to 2242 when using an enclosure), e.g. to host containers or media 
files. It also enables the simple use of other, non-OpenWrt 
distributions with larger storage footprints.

Q: Why is there no consideration for Wi-Fi 6E/7 (6GHz / Tri-Band)?
A: Neither is the mac80211 upstream support for Wi-Fi 7 complete, nor is 
there a fully integrated tri-band SoC solution available right now, let 
alone fully or partially supported upstream. Supporting Wi-Fi 7 would 
drastically increase the overall costs and make it impossible to deliver 
sufficient software support in the foreseeable future.

Q: Why are there only two ethernet ports?
A: We didn't want to impose additional complexity and costs by including 
an external managed switch IC. One port is 1GBit/s capable, while the 
other features a speed up to 2.5GBit/s. This is a limitation of the 
chosen SoC.

Q: Why should I get the One? There are more capable, more featured 
devices available!
A: The OpenWrt One is intended to serve as a robust and simple 
educational platform for OpenWrt enthusiasts, it is neither intended to 
be a competitor to off the shelf SOHO routers nor do we aim for the 
largest possible amount of features. It also serves as a donation 
vehicle for the OpenWrt project.

Q: Does that mean that OpenWrt will stop supporting other hardware?
A: There is no intention at all to change the way OpenWrt operates or 
how it implements and supports current and future hardware. The OpenWrt 
One device will be supported as one device among many others and receive 
the same level of support.

Q: Doesn't this draw attention away from properly supporting existing 
devices?
A: The OpenWrt One project is a privately led initiative by a few 
enthusiasts, there is no intent to change the focus of the OpenWrt 
project in any way.