[Battlemesh] What hardware still works?

Christopher Van Oort CVanOort at thinix.com
Wed Feb 24 17:32:42 CET 2016


I've been following your mailing list for updates on the TP-Link firmware lockdown situation and I'm joining now to share some information.

We've been using TP-Link WR710N's (US version) as off-the-shelf hardware that we flash with our build of OpenWRT that then go get dropped in at locations as cheap IoT devices. Unfortunately, this firmware lockdown has really left us hanging because we're not selling enough volume to OEM our own hardware.

We can confirm that we are able to flash the locked down firmware version onto a WR710N and then revert to a custom OpenWRT via TFTP recovery mode, but it does require serial access and soldering to the UART pins.

TP-Link sales has informed us that we can still purchase non-firmware locked hardware versions (sold outside the US and in Canada), but the minimum order quantity is 2000 units. This would represent a significant financial investment for anyone and isn't really an option for us.

So we've been searching for alternatives and I thought I'd share back what we've found. At this point we've ordered some of these and are waiting on them to arrive, but they do appear to have OpenWRT support.

GL-AR150: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/gl-inet/gl-ar150
http://www.gl-inet.com/ar-specifications/

It's very similar to the TL-WR710N and relatively comparable in cost. GLi also has multiple store options to make it easy to buy.

HooToo HT-TM02: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hootoo/tripmate-nano
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZWOQZ6/

Cheap, and very small it looks like.

Best,
Chris

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