Hello pals,
As in the title, is there any opensource or friendly open Wireless Access Point? or DIY solution ? I don’t ask for easy one, as long as it is performant.
I have actually two UniFi AP but these cloudy devices are getting on my nerve and honestly.
Here you go
Openwrt is really cool. I was the lead engineer on a router that was essentially a fork of openwrt. If you’re willing to learn Lua and figure out how it all works despite their nearly non-existent documentation, you can customize the UI, add new UI elements, or even add whole new UI pages. For example, on our router, we added an IPsec package, so I had to make a UI page for it.
The whole gimmick of our router was that it could be configured by the smart home controller that the company was already selling. So I designed and implemented a whole REST API in Lua on it.
It was a really fun project. But then a mega corporation bought us, so I bailed because they sucked.
Almond?
To add to that, it’s very likely OPs Ubiquiti devices are supported!
They are. I get dozens of them to refurb and they always get bought on eBay for this.
How do you manage to flash them, as OpenWRT states that of 2018 they aren’t supported anymore. (Ubi decided to sign the firmware)
You have to do some digging to get downgrade firmware. This site has a working link to v3.2 https://www.kiwivoip.co.nz/support/unifi-uap-lr-old-firmware-upgrade/
I’ve never actually done the process tbh. All I know is I keep cleaning them up and people keep buying them in packs of 3 🤷
I refuse to install Unifi equipment nowadays. They’ve alienated professional installers over the years in favour of targeting prosumers.
Ah, ok. That’s for the old ones. I’m using the nanoHD and a gifted AC lite. The devices work nicely, the software however, I’m not liking it a lot. As long as they work they can stay, but already I’m battling to keep their software running, as I’m running Debian trixie and unifi wants a mongodb install that isn’t available anymore.
This is the way. Been using oWRT APs (routers in dumb AP mode) for more as 10 years.
How much wifi and open-source do you really want?
If you are willing to go with commercial hardware + open source firmware (OpenWRT) you might want to check the table of hardware of OpenWrt at https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi and https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864_ac-wifi. One solid pick for the future might be the Netgear WAX2* line. One of those models is now fully supported the others are on the way. If you don’t mind having older wifi a Netgear R7800 is solid.
If you want full open-source hardware and software you need a more exotic brand like this https://www.banana-pi.org/en/bananapi-router/.
Both solutions will lead to OpenWRT when it comes to software, it is better than any commercial firmware but there’s a catch about open-source wifi. The best performing wifi chips are Broadcom and those don’t usually see open-source software support**. MediaTek is the open-source alternative and while they work fine they can’t, unfortunately, beat Broadcom. As most hardware is Broadcom they have hacks that go behind the published wifi standards and get it go a few megabytes/second faster and/or improve the range a bit.
** DD-WRT is another “open-source” firmware that has a specific agreement with Broadcom to allow them to use their proprietary drivers and distribute them as blob with their firmware. While it works don’t expect compatibility with newer hardware nor a bug free solution like OpenWRT is.
I would have expected something with Atheros, they were known to be FOSS friendly. but yeah, I didn’t encounter such chip for a while now. I don’t mind too much the drivers are closed sources - even though Broadcom is known to be a pain in the ass - as long as the “OS” and control software are opensource.
Okay, at the end of the day: DD-WRT does bad job even with Broadcom drivers (lack of recent device and wifi 6 support) + bugs and OpenWRT does a very good job software wise but it doesn’t support Broadcom at all.
There’s support coming for wifi 6 Qualcomm Atheros chips. The images are still in the snapshot/release candidate stage, so not a full release yet, but they are working.
many thanks all and especially @[email protected] I didn’t know that Ubiquiti APs could be “jailbroken”. Hopefully, I have never upgraded those :)
Not what you asked, but I’ve been very happy with my TPLink EAP WAP. You dont need to use a cloud account with it if you dont want to. Nice management interface that’s doing it’s best UniFi impression.
I didn’t realise I could do this with unifi APs. Looks like a good option for out of support ubiquity APs.
Is there a reason you don’t run your own unifi control software?
Not opensource, I don’t want to install their stuff on my smartphone (bluetooth and position required) or need a VM. I am not fond of leaving such blackbox devices on my network which needs cloud! EDIT: OH and I remember the issue with the control software due to MangoDB drama.
It is used for now on guest only network, sure I use Wireguard on top but still, find it annoying. And tbh, it has been suggested and the to-go solution but I notice that people are just blindly recommending what they read chatty techie’s blogs.
thanks @Palitu!
There’s another WAP you might be interested in if you web search it /s
