Happy New Year to our Asuswrt-Merlin Addon Community! RTRHTR v1.5 RELEASE CELEBRATION!

[Viktor Jaep]

Wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY 2026, and hope you all have a great NEW YEAR'S celebration!! We know it's cold and chilly out there! So to ring in this New Year, @Tech9 and I wanted to share the latest results of the RTRHTR project script we've been working so hard on these last few years. Through a lot of trial and error, and many, many routers later, including several total losses of @Tech9's aircraft with integrated RTRHTR avionics, we think we've finally come up with a solution that will work for all routers. That's right... RTRHTR is no longer geared just for the ailing RT-BE92U (which truthfully is about to light itself on fire anyways, RTRHTR not required!). Enjoy the new release!

RTRHTR v1.5 (Released: December 31, 2025)

What's new!?
MAJOR: AiProtect Core Reactor Meltdown Optimization -- We’ve finally bypassed the hardware thermal throttle not only on the RT-BE92U, but all routers. The CPU no longer requests cooling as we simply deleted its understanding of what cool means. It just wants it hot. In fact, the hotter the better. We are seeing sustained temperatures of 4,000° Kelvin.
MINOR: IoT Integration -- Added support for Philips Hue by hacking @JGrana's Huetil script. Your lights will now automatically turn deep red and pulse in sync with the router's structural integrity failure.
MINOR: Nest Protect Override -- The script now aggressively jams the WiFi signal of nearby smoke detectors, ensuring your cozy fire isn't ruined by blaring alarms or the fire department.
MINOR: New "Avionics" Mode (In honor of @Tech9) -- By over-volting the cooling fans to 50,000 RPM before abruptly seizing the bearings, the router now generates enough momentary thrust to simulate a stall-spin accident. We tip our hats to those aviation enthusiasts out there who were looking forward to this feature.
MINOR: Scent-Based Notifications -- Why check logs? We’ve mapped specific burn smells to system events: (1) Burning Ozone: WAN Connected, (2) Melting ABS Plastic: 5GHz Band Active, (3) The Smell of Burning Cat Hair: Your very, very last MerlinAU Firmware Update Completed Successfully (Huge thanks to @ExtremeFiretop and @Martinski for dedicating the time to integrate this important feature with MerlinAU).
MINOR: Experimental Feature: WiFi 7 "Microwave" Beamforming -- We’ve retuned the 6GHz antennas, even if you don't have them. In fact, we'll turn your 5GHz antennas into 6GHz antennas to make this functionality work. Instead of transmitting data, they now transmit pure concentrated microwave heat radiation. You can now reheat a frozen burrito in record time by simply placing it on top of the unit and trying to stream a 4K youtube video.
FIXED: Addressed a critical bug where the router would occasionally route a packet successfully. We are sorry for this inconvenience. This has been patched. 100% of CPU cycles are now dedicated to providing you that much-needed heat.
FIXED: Resolved an issue where the "Emergency Shutdown" feature actually incorrectly shut down the router. It now simply issues a lockdown command to your smart home locks to keep that cold air out of your home.

Download Link: [LINK REMOVED BY SNBFORUMS.COM AND THE GENEVA CONVENTION]

Alternate Link: curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/RTRHTR/main/rtrhtr.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/rtrhtr.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/rtrhtr.sh"

Significant Screenshots:

Sadly, I kept my laptop too close to the router... maybe next time I can capture a screenshot before the keys start sticking together.

Script History
RTRHTR v1.2 -- Released : September 5, 2023
Now featuring the ability to excessively overclock not only the CPU, but the DRAM, NVRAM and attached flashdrive as well in order to create an even more efficient heat source during extreme cold spells. Instructions are now also included on how to attach a small metal grate to the antennas in order to BBQ the meat(s) of your choice directly over your router! The dripping fats actually help ignite further heat within your routers' enclosure to keep you and your family warm during the coldest cold snaps! Enjoy!

RTRHTR v1.0 -- Released: December 23, 2022
Introducing RTRHTR v1.0 -- An Asus-Merlin Script that is designed to push your routers' CPU to the limits using several undocumented overclocking techniques to double or even triple your CPU BTU output, in order to create as much heat as possible so you and your family may stay warm during these awful cold snaps.

Disclaimer: This script will burn your router to the ground, but that's the point, right?

</tongue-in-cheek>

 

[visortgw]

What have you been drinking already tonight, @Viktor Jaep?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

What have you been drinking already tonight, @Viktor Jaep?

Can confirm that I may or may not have perhaps or not with some uncertainty that I could have had a beverage of unknown contents or not.

 

[dave14305]

Happy New Year, fellow nerds!

 

[jksmurf]

Absolutely brilliant, love all the new features, especially the Burrito Warmer. That's a winner.
But now, I think we need RTRHTRMON ...

 

[bennor]

 

[thelonelycoder]

The answer to life, Asuswrt-Merlin Addons and the Merlin Community is RTRHTR.

 

[maghuro]

Installed RTRHTR v1.5 on an RT-AX class unit for testing.

Script executed cleanly, no syntax errors. CPU immediately locked at 100%, which I assume means initialization was successful.

However, I believe I may have found a minor logic issue in the thermal control loop.

During execution, this section appears to run indefinitely:

while true; do

    echo "OPTIMIZING THERMAL OUTPUT..."

    cat /dev/urandom > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space

done

After ~90 seconds, the router began emitting a high-pitched whine, followed by a deep humming noise and a noticeable rise in ambient room temperature.

I added the following workaround to stabilize things:

# Prevent unintentional lift-off
echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/avionics_mode

# Cap reactor temperature at safe levels
echo 3999 > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

This helped briefly, but enabling WiFi 7 "Microwave" Beamforming caused my frozen pizza to reach critical temperature before the SSH session timed out.

Additional observation:

dmesg | tail

kernel: RTRHTR: thermal governor set to "HELL"
kernel: fan0: RPM overflow detected (value capped at 50000)
kernel: warning: router has entered phase change

Question for the devs:
Is it expected that /jffs becomes molten during normal operation, or should that only occur when Avionics Mode and Hue Integration are enabled simultaneously?

Other than that, excellent release.
Heat output exceeds my space heater by approximately 300%.

One last question for the roadmap:

Any plans for AMTM integration, or is the expected behavior that the console framebuffer melts before amtm.sh can render its menu?

Asking for capacity planning purposes.

Will continue testing once I replace the desk.

By the way, Happy New Year

 

[thelonelycoder]

Installed RTRHTR v1.5 on an RT-AX class unit for testing.

Script executed cleanly, no syntax errors. CPU immediately locked at 100%, which I assume means initialization was successful.

However, I believe I may have found a minor logic issue in the thermal control loop.

During execution, this section appears to run indefinitely:

while true; do

    echo "OPTIMIZING THERMAL OUTPUT..."

    cat /dev/urandom > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space

done

After ~90 seconds, the router began emitting a high-pitched whine, followed by a deep humming noise and a noticeable rise in ambient room temperature.

I added the following workaround to stabilize things:

# Prevent unintentional lift-off
echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/avionics_mode

# Cap reactor temperature at safe levels
echo 3999 > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

This helped briefly, but enabling WiFi 7 "Microwave" Beamforming caused my frozen pizza to reach critical temperature before the SSH session timed out.

Additional observation:

dmesg | tail

kernel: RTRHTR: thermal governor set to "HELL"
kernel: fan0: RPM overflow detected (value capped at 50000)
kernel: warning: router has entered phase change

Question for the devs:
Is it expected that /jffs becomes molten during normal operation, or should that only occur when Avionics Mode and Hue Integration are enabled simultaneously?

Other than that, excellent release.
Heat output exceeds my space heater by approximately 300%.

One last question for the roadmap:

Any plans for AMTM integration, or is the expected behavior that the console framebuffer melts before amtm.sh can render its menu?

Asking for capacity planning purposes.

Will continue testing once I replace the desk.

By the way, Happy New Year

RTRHTR is already integrated into amtm. The command is rn
Happy meltdown.

 

[maghuro]

RTRHTR is already integrated into amtm. The command is rn
Happy meltdown.

Perfect!
Didn't know that amtm had a "Clean uptime" command Great job!

 

[Tech9]

Morning... Happy New Year!

I can only appreciate DRINKMON add-on at this point. Will review RTRHTR installation instructions later...