First Router Designed Specifically For OpenWrt Released

The New OpenWrt One on sale now for $89 — Ultimate Gift for Right-To-Repair Enthusiasts

November 29, 2024

Today, we at SFC, along with our OpenWrt member project, announce the production release of the OpenWrt One. This is the first wireless Internet router designed and built with your software freedom and right to repair in mind. The OpenWrt One will never be locked down and is forever unbrickable. This device services your needs as its owner and user. Everyone deserves control of their computing. The OpenWrt One takes a great first step toward bringing software rights to your home: you can control your own network with the software of your choice, and ensure your right to change, modify, and repair it as you like.

The OpenWrt One demonstrates what's possible when hardware designers and manufacturers prioritize your software right to repair; OpenWrt One exuberantly follows these requirements of the copyleft licenses of Linux and other GPL'd programs. This device provides the fully copyleft-compliant source code release from the start. Device owners have all the rights as intended on Day 1; device owners are encouraged to take full advantage of these rights to improve and repair the software on their OpenWrt One.

Priced at US$89 for a complete OpenWrt One with case, currently available from unofficial resellers until it is restocked in January, it's ready for a wide variety of use cases. Manufactured in collaboration with Banana Pi, the OpenWrt One uses the MediaTek MT7981B SoC, with MT7976C wifi, 1 GiB DDR4 RAM, 128 MiB SPI NAND + 4 MiB SPI NOR flash, two Ethernet ports (2.5 GbE and 1 GbE), a USB host port, M.2 2042 for NVMe SSD or similar devices, and mikroBUS expansion header. The OpenWrt offers both PoE (Power over Ethernet) via the 2.5 GbE port , or direct power via the USB-C power port with 12V USB-PD. A convenient USB serial interface is built into the other USB-C port: expert users won't miss any boot messages! This hacker-friendly device is unbrickable, providing a switch to separately flash the NOR and NAND portions of the flash memory.

This new product has completed full FCC compliance tests; it's confirmed that OpenWrt met all of the FCC compliance requirements. Industry “conventional wisdom” often argues that FCC requirements somehow conflict with the software right to repair. SFC has long argued that's pure FUD. We at SFC and OpenWrt have now proved copyleft compliance, the software right to repair, and FCC requirements are all attainable in one product!

You can order an OpenWrt One now! Since today is the traditional day in the USA when folks buy gifts for love ones, we urge you to invest in a wireless router that can last! We do expect that for orders placed today, sellers will deliver by December 22 in most countries.

Everyone can purchase a complete OpenWrt One with case (from unofficial resellers) via those links and other sale outlets, too. Regardless of where you buy from, for every purchase of a new OpenWrt One, a US$10 donation will go to the OpenWrt earmarked fund at Software Freedom Conservancy. Your purchase not only improves your software right to repair, but also helps OpenWrt and SFC continue to improve the important software and software freedom on which we all rely!