Banana Pi BPI-R1 Open Source Smart Router

What really puts the final nail in the coffin as a serious router, is that the onboard Enet hub defaults to being wide-open, everything talking to everything, until the CPU finishes booting and gets around to configuring it. This means that YOUR LOCAL NETWORK IS DIRECTLY ON THE INTERNET WITH NO PROTECTION WHATSOEVER during that time. An actual router doesn't do that. Plus, the onboard WiFi chip is the absolute dirt cheapest speck of sand they could get their hands on. It does NOT make a hotspot very well at all. It does work well as a client to an already-existing WiFi network, but that's not what a WiFi router does. So if you want to use it as advertised, you're going to be sorely disappointed at the results, and there's a good chance of getting hacked too. --- I use it as sort of a "reverse router". That is, it connects to the WiFi that my ISP's modem gives me so that I don't have to run that wire, and then everything else on my desk wires into the BPI-R1. Local wired network with everything trusted, so I don't have to worry about the massive security hole when it first starts, and a wireless connection across the house to where the internet plug is. The ISP's combined modem and WiFi router is actually a for-real router, and so that's my required hardware firewall, NOT the BPI-R1. It does need to reboot every so often to avoid a crash (maybe something about the specialized Debian fork for this particular hardware?), but I've got a cron job for that. Scheduled for when I won't be using it anyway, and as far as I know otherwise, it's rock-solid. --- Again, IT IS NOT A ROUTER! It's just a Linux PC with a cheap WiFi chip and an onboard Enet hub. As far as it's concerned, it's just hanging out on the ISP's WiFi network just like any other computer would, and sharing that connection to this other network that it's set up to be a DHCP server for.

Interesting piece of hardware. Never was able to get the Android image from the manufacturer's website to work, but it runs linux and OpenWRT just fine. A piece of advice, though. Grab a USB to Serial cable like https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QT7LQ88 if you're going to run something other than linux. You'll need the serial console for anything that doesn't support the HDMI output. The only real drawback is the distinct lack of case options. You basically have 1 choice unless you have access to a decent sized 3d printer.

The hardware is great, but the OpenWRT Images builded by Banana Pi is terrible. The 4.0 Version works great for WIFI(both bands), LAN is not working(MAC is set to all 0, DHCP not working.) The 3.0 Version's web interface is not working, only the SSH is working. Finally I found this in the forum "openwrt-V1.0-stable-sunxi-Lamobo_R1-sdcard-vfat-ext4.img" And that finally works. except the 5Ghz WIFI (I'm not using wifi anyway)

This now runs my home network. Love it.