Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?

I'd love that!

> When I asked an AI how I would go about judging interest, building, raising funds, and manufacturing, it seems doable but expensive

Just a thought: make a small business out of setting up people's home networks and small business networks. The cost is negligible, you will learn about unmet demand, and you will be able to reach people who aren't technical in the process. It will cost you some money, in the sense that your service fees would almost certainly be less than your day job. On the other hand, potential customers would be paying you for market research and product development. In some respects, the market research will be more valuable in the sense that you are working with potential customers.

I say potential customers because selling a kit will reach different people. On the otherhand, it will tell you what has to go into that kit. For example: I doubt that flashing DD-WRT to existing hardware will suffice. There will be some people interested in that (someone else does the research, fear of bricking), but would those people commit to buying and setting up your product? Throw in a setup wizard that makes setting up ad blocking, VPN, or anything else that major vendors don't have much interest in simplifying, and you will likely have more success.

So for my part, I wouldn't fancy dd wrt but a good router with openwrt pre-flashed. Yes, I can flash it myself, but I am wealthy enough to pay the additional flash fee and rather save the time.

What I have in mind (if my dayjob fires me): open a shop for wealthy nerds, and sell all kind of pre-flashed devices, known to work well with open source firmware: power plugs, routers, thermostats,... The clientele would be very niche, but I think it might be enough for a small specialized shop.

99.99% of people don't even buy routers, they just use the free one that comes with the connection.

For people who do buy them, there's a number of good products out there already. Why would I trust a new product from a single person, which might drop out of support after 6 months?

My idea is one step further: selling the device with various ad-blocking and user-selectable tiers of security configuration included. Stop your devices spying on you, detect/notify if you have any infected devices on your network. That kind of thing.

Similarly though, there's limited appeal to those who aren't already capable of setting it up themselves.

I'm still slowly pursuing this because I believe in it, whether it's profitable or not.

Edited to add: Part of what I'm setting up: https://lists.uninvitedactivity.com/DNS/, a vague explainer here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49990394

Check out TekLager. They're Swedish, and I've bought a router from them before - excellent build quality. I think they make or made several themselves, possibly from pre-existing designs (unsure how open source the hardware is.) They can come pre-installed with various open source OSes.

https://teklager.se/en/

Not affiliated, just a happy customer. If you're thinking of getting in a similar business and are not a competitor in Sweden, drop them a line. When I spoke to them they were very friendly.

DD-wrt is not a free software, and they sell licenses on their website. Does its license allows redistribution and/or selling the routers?

While it is good to have choice in commercial routers I haven't used one for a long time, instead running a virtual router on the same machine (an ex-lease DL380 G7, these have 4 ethernet ports) which hosts all services. I use a number of commercial Wifi-equipped routers as access points, these all have OpenWRT installed and all routing functionality is disabled. There's a managed 24-port switch in between the DL380 and the outside world which gets fed VLANs and separated these out into individual ports for specific hardware - printers etc. - and some of the commercial Wifi-routers also split out VLANs to their switch ports which connect to specific devices like solar inverters etc. Everything is built around OpenWRT, this includes the virtual router which is based on an X64 OpenWRT image running under ProxMox. The whole setup has been running for about 7 years now without any significant problems.

I used to use dd-wrt, but I later settled on ASUS routers, and installing "ASUS Merlin" firmware on them.

I find ASUS hardware high quality in general. And using an open-source project like ASUS Merlin means the pain-points and limitations that I would face with stock firmware have been resolved to (at least to satisfactory extent) when I need reach for the hacker type configurations.

I'd like a reliable and inexpensive router with OpenWrt.

It's a difficult market though:

- Vast majority people use router provided by ISP. - Some unhappy with ISP hardware quality buy whatever they find online (in my country usually TP-Link devices) - Enthusiasts flash OpenWrt on cheap devices, home servers or buy MikroTik devices (or similar). - Non enthusiasts, but caring about quality and support still have some good (but more expensive) devices to pick from like Fritz!Box in Europe

People wanting pre-flashed OpenWrt will be fraction of a fraction of overall market, so you'd need to charge a lot, which puts you in direct competition with options above.

No, I want a router with OpenWrt pre-installed.

So I buy GL.iNet routers, which come with OpenWrt pre-installed.

I'd only be interested in a platform I could trust completely, with no proprietary firmware or software blobs required. Short of that, if I have to trust someone, I'm probably just going to trust Cisco or Ubiquiti given they're western and have been around for a while with a relatively good track record and a lot of money to lose if they're found to have been negligent or malicious.

I think there's a market there for a fully open platform, but it's probably not very easy to pull off given how secretive the chip vendors seem to be.

I got two GL.Inet devices:

- Flint 2: very happy with this. I can do any kind of OpenWRT setting I want

- Flint 3: super unhappy!! changing VLAN settings breaks the entire router.

Why? Flint 3 uses a chip with encrypted vendor blob (Qualcomm) and Gl.inet just hacked the drivers in a way is not compatible with OpenWRT.

But maybe I should let an agent reverse engineer the driver and add correct support myself?

Edit: i haven't checked the status in a while, but seems like last months support for this device changed a lot.

Wouldn’t trust it at this point … but what I would trust is a blank router that has a GitHub repo with a containerized build that I could run on my own machine and something ai ish that lets me flash it :)

Would be legit to be able to have an Llm do a source audit before installing …. Not perfect but damn sure better than nothing

I don't think it will work as a business. The people who want dd-wrt will just install it themselves, not pay additional for it to already be installed. However, I do think you may be able to sell an ad-blocking router with ad-blocking already installed. I think people may consider that enough of a feature to pay for.

Happy OPNsense user here, with no current plans to change. Ruckus unleashed + brocade ICX treat me very well. The all-in-one router indeed are only access points to me, and I don't exactly wish 'only having an AIO router' on people.

> So, do you actually want a router that you can buy with DD-WRT pre-installed?

No, I'd rather flash it myself and use OpenWrt instead of DD-WRT.

I want it, in the same way I want a laptop with Linux. I can install it myself, and I already have done, but I wish the option was viable for most others, so that more of the market is open source.

For routers, the only realistic way that can happen is by getting some big vendor to adopt ddwrt or openwrt to offload (some of) the job of writing the firmware. And even then, most people use their ISP provided router. A niche vendor supplying preflashed routers isn't going to make a dent.

Well, I just bought a:

https://www.gl-inet.com/en-de/products/gl-be14000

so.. yes? I haven't gotten around to flashing stock openwrt on it - but I probably will at some point - seems to be supported now?

https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/flint-4-openwrt-vanilla/71383/10

I think it would be difficult to compete with existing offerings - even though they are quite few.

There are some Chinese companies making more open router dev boards like Banana Pi R4. You can install openwrt out of the box. But generally, the SoCs that power the current generation of routers are locked down / highly proprietary (and always have been). It's the chips, not the boards, which matter most.

I just bought a used Extreme Networks AP that shipped with OpenWRT installed. I appreciated the convenience of something that was partly done before I got it.

It's currently serving as a wireless bridge client for a network of 10 IP cameras.

You need to remind yourself that the overwhelming majority of populace are not HN users. Most just want a cheap "internet box" that gives them WiFi. If any had interest in going deeper into networking, they would build a router themselves. But if you had some extra unique features on top of DD-WRT, that might turn a few heads. I do recall Tomaz Zaman on Youtube building their own router completely from scratch - not saying it's 100% what you plan on doing, just a reference point for you to look at.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I think that routers are a pretty geeky thing that most people don't want to hear about. I had offered to buy and set up a pfsense router for my parents for a few years ago and they were decidedly not interested, even after I tried explaining the merits of it. Pretty much anyone who is going to be interested in DD-WRT is going to be someone who can set it up themselves.

pfsense can sell for a relatively high price, I think, because they market themselves more towards businesses and big corporations.

> Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?

No, not really. I build my own routers using commodity hardware and Debian. If I had to go back to consumer hardware, I would get a GL.Inet or other off-the-shelf router that supports OpenWrt and flash it.

The OpenWrt One is really not a great piece of hardware. No 6GHz, and only two Ethernet ports, one of which is only 1Gbit. The latest GL.iNet products are apparently better, but also apparently don't run stock OpenWrt, only a fork of it. In other words, there's still plenty of room in the market for good routers with open-source firmware.

DD-WRT isn't open-source though. OpenWRT is.

Interesting related question -- I recently inherited several WiFI AP/Routers that are openwrt or DDWRT compatible. Are there any packages that folks are working on, or know of that can centrally manage a fleet of them?

If there wasn't, I was going to use this as a project to explore vibecoding...

The openwrt ones are usually better.

Glinet routers are already this.

Buy https://www.gl-inet.com/en-us/products/gl-mt3600be and move on with your life.

Alternately, what's the problem you're trying to solve? Who are your potential customers? Why do existing options in the market not address their needs?

Many stock Firmware is just OpenWRT with fancy interface. I remember Asus being one.

Wow, the timing of this question is eerie. Just last week, I got tired of talking about segmenting my network but never doing it. So I did some research, asked some friends, and settled on the following:

* An Opnsense firewall (purchased from Deciso; ie: "official" hardware)

* An OpenWRT One (ie: "official" hardware) to be used as an access point

* A Microtik switch (SW OS, not Router OS)

My plan is to create multiple SSIDs, have each one on a different vlan, and then control services provided to that vlan. For example, I'll dump all IOT crap onto a vlan that doesn't have internet access.

I'm still not 100% sure it will work (the hardware still hasn't arrived). But finally, to answer your question: "Yes!"

Holy crap, give me official hardware. I installed DD-WRT on my linsys router. It's been so long that I don't remember exact details, but the process was INTIMIDATING. I felt like I had to download a blob from a website that wasn't the official website (ie: I seem to recall different people building DD-WRT for different hardware). I also recall some features not being available on some hardware.

Give me the hardware that is sold by the people that work on the project!

I want some reassurance that I have the "most supported hardware", so I don't have to go through huge feature matrices to see if my hardware supports feature X.

I want headroom to install new packages. I don't want to have so little space that I need to remove one package to install another.

And finally, I want the people writing the software to GET PAID, because I want it to still be around... and being actively developed 10 years from now.

PS:

I initially wanted to get a consumer grade switch, but my network operator friends told me that was a terrible idea... and that I should get a use Cisco switch on Ebay. Cisco is probably great and network operators love it... but holy crap... trying to figure out what switch to buy is an enormous pain in the a$$. I pushed my friends, they relented and said: "Mikrotik is also great". I went to their website. 1000 times better than Cisco's; their switches were cheaper. I didn't have to "call for a quote" or scour Ebay. I haven't turned it on yet, but the buying experience was so much better.

maybe preinstalled but easily able to overwrite with a downloaded version from dd-wrt as no one should trust preinstalled firmware on these devices.

IMHO, those who want a router with open-source firmware are going to have the technical knowledge to do the finding and flashing themselves, by virtue of being embedded in tech deeply enough to recognize the value of an open-source firmware in the first place.

Those who look at you blankly when you mention open-source router firmware aren’t likely going to become customers.

I got this idea too. To sell the openwrt preinstalled routers.

How does DD-WRT compare to RouterOS?

Yes, or open Wrt

I used to use pfsense and openwrt and stuff but now with Claude I just use a custom Linux distribution running on a dell 2u. That being said I have 25 gbps of internet across 5 internet providers (puerto Rico) and that plugs into my internal home network running at 2x 25 gbps . So for savings it’s like two quad 10 gbps cards. I’ve found substantial speed advantages via consumer hardware considering the cross sectional bandwidth is like 70 gbps

Thinkpenguin used to sell Rosewill routers that came with a particular Linux installed, but their value add was no proprietary blobs, everything open source and FSF certified IIRC.

I used to use DD-WRT, and Tomato, and Shibby's mod of Tomato, and Advanced Tomato, and other stuff. Somewhere, I'm sure I still have a WRT54GS that I hacked ~20 years ago to accept SD cards. It was a fun time in using inexpensive hardware in unintended ways.

At one point, and I don't remember exactly when, I just started using OpenWRT instead. It wasn't always the case, but it presents a very usable GUI straight away these days and it has a ton of flexibility for getting creative later.

At home I run it on a Pi4 that I bought for the purpose. It keeps up with my 500/20Mbps DOCSIS internet very well indeed. I've used it with a USB NIC to get dedicated ports, and also with VLANs and a managed switch instead. I just download and flash the card, plug stuff in, and configure it. No real issues -- for years, now. (Wireless is provided by Mikrotik access points.)

When something faster happens in my neighborhood (which may be very soon; I had a very brief chat with a dude whose fiber splicing trailer was parked across the street just yesterday), I'll probably want to move to something more capable.

That could be in the form of faster Pi, or an old PC running OPNsense -- or even stick with OpenWRT. No big deal.

If I really wanted a tidier package for light-weight travel or something, then I guess I'd pick something appropriate from glinet and put an official OpenWRT image on it.

For heavier-travel, I've got a kit with a Pi4, a managed PoE switch, and a backup Mikrotik box (that can be a switch or a router; it runs OpenWRT as well and the normal config is that it just provides more switch ports), and all this stuff is mounted onto a 1U rack shelf that is in-turn inside of a road case. It's meant to be physically durable and to include enough gear that if any part of it dies then I can replace that functionality Right Now without spending time finding parts in the middle of nowhere.

So, no: I would not buy one that was prefabulated. It wouldn't scratch my itch.

---

For everyone else? Honestly, the regular folks I know who ask me questions about networking aren't into that stuff at all or they wouldn't be asking. They don't care about ultimate speeds, or latency under load, or any of those things. They don't care about running Internet services from their network, or services on their local network, and probably don't even have a printer to abuse if something goes awry. They're also not interested in exploring the bowels of their home to install cabling for PoE access points.

They just want decent-enough wifi coverage that they don't have to think about it, and then: They want to succeed at not thinking about it.

So for those folks, I've come to recommend proprietary multi-node mesh systems. It doesn't really matter to me which one it is, or how terrible some aspect or other is: They all tend to check the right boxes, they update themselves, and then: Nobody thinks about them.

Nope. I want one with OpenWRT

also

> 4. used terminal PC, they go for cheap. Just add ethernet usb card for second link

also

> 5. plenty of small form factor multiple ethernet boards you can get on ARM and even x86, tho gonna be more expensive than a dedicated router

50/50

This is not a new idea.

Several companies/single owner LLC's do this for a massively inflated price.

I understand why the inflated price, support and warranties, etc.

IT is not that hard for people who are technically inclined.

People who are not into it don't understand why.

If placement/marketing was for SMB that wanted to maximize dd-wrt usage and get a support contract in place I can see that

but outside of that, and a marketing youtube channel and being proactive on reddit, Idk how much can it scale and what point will you not get a cease and desist from vendors because I'm sure they have something nasty in their terms of service, which I think you may need to click through to enable the flash.

You've identified your market competiton price points, and all have deeper pockets than you, but do not offer free, open source software.

WRT3200ACM and the other previous model is a fab of mine to grab, it's been a year but I've collected 10+ and deploeyd them in strategic places for personal use,

You wouldn't need regulatory approval IMO. prototyping, what type? You'd follow the release schedule, get the best flavors/models and support those.

Overtime maybe you'd contribute back to the project, especially during hardware revisions. But it is very different from buying used hardware from ebay and flashing it to resell vs buying new and selling it as a value add on.

1. Yes, proper hacker route.

2. Proper route to an extent, it legitmiazes support, warranty and security.

3. Expensive, time consuming but, doable but not likely.

Yeah, the dropbox comment is infamous, but that was about launching a new SAAS that has infinite potential scale and solved a problem no one really wanted to fix at the time outside of one drive (which sucked at the time, was called skydrive afaik) and usb sticks which are...great but USB3 was new, usb2 was there and people were arguing back and forth why usb3 wasn't working or such

so:

to answer your question you need to really figure out a basic marketing question of 3 P's.

Product Price Placement.

Product is DD-WRT. Price: It's free. Placement: People that know what it is but don't have free time to install it?

No, not quite right, right? Let's try again:

Product: DD-WRT routers preconfigured for enterprise support and SMB. Price: Retail price of router + $100 per sold, with 1 yr warranty, additional warranty and stuff available at x and y? Placement: People that know what it is about but don't have free time ot install it or want to offshore this for a price.

Slightly better, but still:

So do I want it? I welcome anything FOSS in general w/ GNU/Linux and its a much needed stepping stone to continue having a decentralized internet:

but if it was so easy, people would've done it already, and they do.

It also reminds me of fontana which is how I netted a free WRT54G for offering what exactly, I don't know, but boy did I flash DD-wrt on that badboy and link it to my neighbors WiFi for free roadrunner internet to get my anime fansubs. So while as much as I'd like for the idea to flourish/am surprised wardriving and torrenting anime was a vector for getting me into tech I don't see it much out of a hobby business

and that is 100% OK

If you throw $5-10k a year at it, I think you can corner the niche, use AI automaiton for marketing campaigns, target tech conventions/festivals (like VCF) and youtube to build a audience it can scale.

but 125k? wow, no way - you ccan really do this for much less.

back to the scope of a opensource router: same as above, but if you really want, you need to find a manufacturer that already has a pre built configuration that at minimum supports the newest radio and minimum gigabit ethernet. GLI has theirs at $169, and hardware is a miminmal markup business, you can really find something similar to that and do a proper hardware cycle with a manufacturer and somewhat a contract but thats 50K including FCC licensing (if you know what to do, and you do the licensing yoruself, as well as Electrek/uL to cover CSPC. But hey, in todays world, everyone (well for past 30 years too) just makes it up and folds thier llc when caught.

For more business minded ideas, heres one about MSO/s and GLP1 from a Ycombinator 3x foudner and I comment with the same dissent:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49543849

So tl;dr why not pitch it for ycombinator winter, I think it's still open for submissions.

Add AI (why not, right?) and you can have a walking talking configuratuion wizard guide you to addung ublock,adblock, pihole, etc instead of the broken ecosystem we have today within dd-wrt because while I clearly can spot the pain points and issues, I lack the ability to turn them into viable selling points for investors to give me money and I should fix that someday :(

[dead]

Ddwrt is a joke today. I would pay to have it go away forever or finally become mature and not be forever in beta.