Get Ready for the OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY: An Upcoming Router Board Jointly Crafted by OpenWrt and Banana Pi

OpenWrt developers have kicked off the journey to create the "OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY" router board. This board is based on the MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic 820) SoC and the MediaTek MT7976C dual-band WiFi 6 chipset. The collaboration extends to Banana Pi, who will handle both manufacturing and distribution of the router board.

As of the OpenWrt 23.05 release, almost 1,800 routers and various devices officially support the lightweight embedded Linux operating system. Many others claim to run OpenWrt through a fork of the OS, but none are crafted by the OpenWrt developers themselves. Now, they've decided to craft their own router board in collaboration with Banana Pi, drawing on their expertise in creating boards like the BPI-R4 WiFi 7 router SBC.

Preliminary specifications for the OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY include:

• SoC – MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic 820) dual-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.3 GHz
• System Memory – 1GB DDR4
• Storage
  • 128 MB SPI NAND flash for U-boot and Linux
  • 4 MB SPI NOR flash for a write-protected (by default) recovery bootloader
  • M.2 2042 socket for NVMe SSD (PCIe gen 2 x1)
• Networking
  • 2.5GbE RJ45 port
  • Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port
  • Dual-band WiFI 6 via MediaTek MT7976C
• USB
  • 1x USB 2.0 Type-A host port
  • USB Type-C (device, console) port
• Expansion – MikroBUS socket for expansion modules
• Debugging – Console via USB-C port, 10-pin JTAG/SWD header for the main SoC
• Dimensions – 148 x 100.5 mm compatible with Banana Pi BPI-R4 case design
• Certifications – FCC/EC/RoHS compliance

To keep the price under $100, certain interfaces like USB 2.0 are chosen over USB 3.0 due to the constraints in the Filogic 820 SoC. The schematics will be made publicly available under an open-source license, though the specific license is yet to be determined. GPL compliance will be upheld with a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code.

Banana Pi was chosen as the collaborator because their existing boards align closely with features desired by OpenWrt developers. The company has gained popularity within the OpenWrt community, and many features are already supported in upstream/mainline U-Boot and Linux.

The OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY router aims not only to benefit the project but also to generate income. This income can cover hosting costs and support OpenWrt conferences. Banana Pi will sell the board through their distribution network, with a donation to the Software Freedom Conservancy (SDC) for every device sold, earmarked for OpenWrt. The launch is anticipated in 2024, but there's no confirmed ETA for the project. Further details can be found in the announcement.

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