OpenWrt One - celebrating 20 years of OpenWrt

[Piotr Dymacz]

Hi Enrico,

On 9.01.2024 13:55, Enrico Mioso wrote:
> Hello!!
> 
> First of all, let me thank You all for this great project.
> I wll do my best to buy some units - even tough I am not contributing by any mean to OpenWrt in terms of code, or very little, I am very passionate about this project and the overall router freedom.
> 
> As most of you know by now, I am a blind person and OpenWrt has always been a great opportunity for accessibility as well. The OpenWrt design itself helps accessibility, and the fact you can use it entirely with no web interface is really a plus for me.
> It would be great if the hardware could be easily operable - and the exposed consoly and flashy plastic case. Would have loved to 
see that happen, but the lead time for mould casting is insane as well
as the cost, specifically for small production runs. hence the choice
for re-using something that already exists.e port is - indeed - an 
enormous plus for me.
> So, here are my probably unpopular opinions:
> 1 - I would like for the device to come pre-mounted with a case: having different cases with different designs is not great. And finding someone to help me mount one and/or shipping the device might not be as easy.
> Some great friends here do help me, but I think it would be a better experience to have a ready-to-use device from the beginning.
> 2 - Switches for booting could be exposed and easily operable without removing the case: having to open the device case could make it easier to damage the device, the case or both. :)

This hasn't been decided yet but we were discussing about offering the 
device in just two versions: bare PCB and fully-assembled.

Plan for the boot select mechanical switch is to make it available from 
outside, without the need to open the case.

> As for the Wi-Fi, I would omit itentirely - leaving the device as it is for the rest of the specs.
> I know the motto has been - for years - Wireless Freedom... but, personally, I am under the impression Wi-Fi is a fast moving targets these days, so packing Wi-Fi on the device wouldnt make so much sense here, to have it "deprecated" in months.
> You get a robust router device that you can plug in your setup.
> Hey - I told you this wasn't popular. :)

We are heading to Wi-Fi 7 but my guess is that even the Wi-Fi 6 hasn't 
become the dominant standard and most people are (still?) using Wi-Fi 5 
(or even 4!) in their daily usage scenarios.

It will be always a personal choice but having a modern, open, stable 
and widely available Wi-Fi 6 platform with a great community driven 
support is a key here.

> As for the NVME storage - it would be great if there was an easy way to install / change the NVME card as well, but here I know I am asking too much.
> It could be enough it there was an option to purchase a device with NVME pre-installed. This would really help for me.

IMHO, limited number of available "bundles" would make things easier. 
But I can imagine resellers offering extra versions for some additional 
cost (like the unofficial bundles for Raspberry Pi offered by numbers of 
different online shops).

-- 
Cheers,
Piotr