Sitecom newest ac2600 with openWRT

[paraplu]

Sitecom jumped the bandwagon and introduced a new AC2600 router called Greyhound, with Qualcomm 9980 4*4 mu-mimo.
Interesting is that it comes pre-installed with OpenWRT (!) and has a wolfson audio DAC onboard. It's already available in some stores in EU for around 300 euros.

http://www.greyhoundrouter.com

 

[RMerlin]

On paper this looks like a really nice product. Quite pricey however.

 

[paraplu]

Indeed pricey.
Having an onboard audio DAC and -connections is a bit puzzling. Why would one use a router for audio pre-amp?

But interesting is that OpenWRT seems to be working on this chipset (still to be proven though), which opens up opportunities for similar routers of other brands e.g. Tplink and Linksys.

 

[RMerlin]

But interesting is that OpenWRT seems to be working on this chipset (still to be proven though), which opens up opportunities for similar routers of other brands e.g. Tplink and Linksys.

Unless the manufacturer is compiling his own drivers, then using them with OpenWRT. You can base your firmware on OpenWRT but still introduce closed source components in it, which means you still have to use the firmware provided by the manufacturer, you can't go straight with the open sourced OpenWRT development code. Smartifi's Almond for instance is also based on OpenWRT.

 

[ngerasimatos]

This looks like a very nice router in paper. Has anyone tested one of these or know someone whom has?

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

[paraplu]

This looks like a very nice router in paper. Has anyone tested one of these or know someone whom has?

They did a test on nl.hardware.info recently. As it seems: good wifi throughputs, but having software NAT and no CLI are real bummers.

 

[sfx2000]

Unless the manufacturer is compiling his own drivers, then using them with OpenWRT. You can base your firmware on OpenWRT but still introduce closed source components in it, which means you still have to use the firmware provided by the manufacturer, you can't go straight with the open sourced OpenWRT development code. Smartifi's Almond for instance is also based on OpenWRT.

Food for thought - Atheros is one of the more linux friendly chips out there - the ath9k is included with most distros, and I believe that ath10k is available as a package...

The QDSK is based on OpenWRT AA...

http://prplfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/OpenWrt-biz.pdf

ath10k is already available for the QCA998* series chips

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath10k/firmware

Not near as much of a mess as Marvell was...

 

[sm00thpapa]

This is a very good looking router. I may have to try and get my hands on one.

 

[System Error Message]

Seems to have audio which really puzzles me but it may mean you can make your own networked intercom system or lift music . Is this using MIPS or krait? It does offer more than the high end consumer routers such as 2x usb3 and SD card. I see many routers lacking SD card which is useful as you can now get 128GB SD cards that work better than thumbdrives and much smaller that it doesnt require cables or a mess or getting in the way of things.

It might also be able to become a platform to run the pineapple hak5 stuff. While it is nice that it has audio for networking reasons if you want to share speakers between systems but consoles use HDMI or optical and dont have networked based speakers option.

 

[connorm]

"Simply put, Greyhound is the most powerful router the world has ever seen."


LOL

 

[paraplu]

Got a hands-on with this device. Don't like it: no ssh access, CPU at 100% with 500/500mbps, max throughput capped at 390mbps, no DNS flexibility, etc. Poor thing.

 

[sfx2000]

Got a hands-on with this device. Don't like it: no ssh access, CPU at 100% with 500/500mbps, max throughput capped at 390mbps, no DNS flexibility, etc. Poor thing.

ROFLcopter anyone?

 

[pege63]

I like the FEATURES

 

[Nexus86]

Got a hands-on with this device. Don't like it: no ssh access, CPU at 100% with 500/500mbps, max throughput capped at 390mbps, no DNS flexibility, etc. Poor thing.

Sitecom released a new firmware (v1.1) the day before yesterday and it has SSH now so that's a start.
I'm in the middle of reviewing this device (I can keep it in exchange for a review ) and so far it's a mixed bag. The hardware has great potential but at the moment it's held back by the software it is running. The Greyhound has a custom OpenWRT firmware based on Attitude Adjustment (source-code is available here) with some patches from the QSDK to support the QCA hardware inside this device. The biggest issues for me are the numerous bugs in the custom skin and the limited selection of available packages (because it's using the IPQ806x architecture). I tried to install some packages from the snapshot repo but that didn't work out and I think I have to resort to building the desired packages myself .

Hardware-wise the Greyhound is pretty good. Sleek looking on the outside although it's a bit on the big side coming from a TP-Link WR1043ND v1. The audio ports are a gimmick but I have to admit the sound quality is great! (tested with Sennheiser HD555 and flac audio samples via DLNA). It's a shame I cannot place the router near my speakers so this feature isn't very useful to me, CC Audio would be a better option. WiFi performance is also great but that's not too difficult coming from an old 802.11N 2.4GHz-only router. WAN performance indeed is limited (no problem for me though) but I was under the assumption its more an OpenWRT issue and not so much a hardware limitation but I could be wrong.

I hope the Greyhound can benefit from the work that is going on in the trunk to support the TP-Link Archer 2600 and the Netgear R7500V2/D7800, three devices that are practically identical to the Greyhound. As far as I can see they all use the same SoC/architecture (IPQ8064), switch (QCA8337), radio's (2x QCA9980) and are all equipped with 512MB RAM. Comparing to either the Archer 2600 or the R7500 the Greyhound is too expensive. If you're looking for a future proof MU:MIMO router with OpenWRT support (somewhere in the near future?) I think that for now both the TP-Link or the Netgear are better options.

 

[paraplu]

I checked ssh access with firmware 1.1. Unfortunately it's not root access. Can't do anything with it.

 

[Nexus86]

I've added my public SSH key via the webinterface and have full root access when I'm logging in:

 

[System Error Message]

"Simply put, Greyhound is the most powerful router the world has ever seen."


LOL

There are many more routers that are way more powerful. The mikrotik CCR1072 for example, cisco equipment used in T1 and T2 ISPs, Cisco blade configuration routers, intel's 8x20 core xeon system, a GPU based router, Tilera's 288 core dev router. The CCR1009 is more powerful than this and is used at some homes too.

If they dont know this than i would be weary of them.

 

[paraplu]

I've added my public SSH key via the webinterface and have full root access when I'm logging in:

Did you already try to write something? When I try with ssh it doesnt work. Only gid=0 but uid is not. If I try the same through their web interface section (custom script) it works, after a reboot.

 

[paraplu]

There are many more routers that are way more powerful. The mikrotik CCR1072 for example, cisco equipment used in T1 and T2 ISPs, Cisco blade configuration routers, intel's 8x20 core xeon system, a GPU based router, Tilera's 288 core dev router. The CCR1009 is more powerful than this and is used at some homes too.

If they dont know this than i would be weary of them.

Fully agree that their marketing is way too bold. But yeah, marketing guys.... Asus also made some bold statements in the past (ac87u the first mu-mimo router on earth; October 2014). Silly consumers we are.