Banana Pi BPI-R4 BPI-BE14 Wi-Fi7 NIC module

This sounds good!

Please take the time you need for a quality product :+1: .

PS: I have no problem to resolder or replace some resistors. But some people have issues with that! So, my support for a longer development you have :wink: .

Does code need to be changed compared to the be14 i have? Currently have firmware loading part (233 files) working so far,but cannot start interfaces. If it changes i do not need to put much work into it…

So,how about BE19, will it be produced?

Thanks!

The workload of wifi7 NIC is a bit heavy, including test equipment upgrade, calibration, RF matching, factory test program debugging, etc.

There is no need to change the software, we are just optimizing the hardware.

MT76 and MP3.1 are both OK, but they should be kernel 5.4, not the latest 6.1. Porting to 6.1 is really a lot of work. You can ask steven for help

BE19 is currently planned, but it will be after BE14 and OpenWRT One, so there is no specific MP time yet.

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Super news, there is new thing to blame - openwrt one nonsense slowing down the main profitable project…

As far as I know, the OpenWrt One PCB sample has just been received, and it’s taking a lot of time to verify it. BPI has dedicated their efforts to contributing to the community, and I believe we should encourage them for their hard work. :grinning:

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I also think that bpi helps openwrt team here…i’m not sure that this slows down anything for r4 or be14 here…be19 yes,but be thankful it gets produced again.

i’m focused on router boards with multiple interfaces and sfp for fibre support. So openwrt one is less interesting for me. But i appreciate the work that is done from bpi and openwrt guys for the community.

Btw. Because of openwrt one we have nvme support for filogic (r3,r3mini,r4). Without johns work we still don’t have this driver…

As said above there some work to do to get r4 and the wifi board(s) working. It will be great if some more people get a wifi board to help getting it running in mainline.

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If I can get one of those early 30-40 boards, I’m happy to help.

When you say mainline you mean Linux kernels 6.1 and 6.6, right? And porting the work from mediatek’s 5.4 kernel?

Mainline is currently 6.9-rcX :slight_smile:

I have been helping @frank-w with the wifi work, but I don’t have a wifi card. If I was given a wifi card, I think we would make more progress. If there are any wifi 7 cards going, please put me on the list.

Profitable for whom? (if I may ask)

If you want to fund work on the WiFi driver, it is likely there are people willing to work on it, given they are provided with documentation and a working reference implementation. Also note that 802.11be is not really ready for the show yet in hostapd/wpa_supplicant which barely support Wi-Fi 6E features at this point. So it’s a bit more than just the driver, because specification (and regulatory) demands for the 6 GHz spectrum can’t be met by just treating it the same as 5 GHz (sending beacons or probe-request is prohibited in 6 GHz band, it must be used as a side-band for an existing 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz AP. And that’s just one example…).

So if you want to volunteer to make things happen faster, please go ahead and work on cfg80211/mac80211 infrastructure support for MBO, or work on 11ax or 11be features in hostapd/wpa_supplicant.

Anyway, I’m mostly busy on other things (not related to the R4 WiFi module but not related to the OpenWrt One either).

There is a new info about the release of the board:

https://twitter.com/sinovoip/status/1790331961963401630

:face_with_monocle:

I wouldn’t say it is very informative … but better than nothing!

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Can we get some more information about tx power of this module?

I would rephrase: maybe there is at least some information about the module that a lot of people are waiting for?

Simply no.

We can just hope that maybe Simon finds some time to hand out more information once the card releases in public sale.

Though, once it is available, first-time buyers can and will probably share additional information, like power usage or the antennas they use.

I can hardly wait to get one of these modules. :slight_smile:

BPI-R4-NIC-BE14_report(20240613).pdf (273.8 KB)

There are some news about the WiFi board. I asked the devs to share the news on forum but they were very nervous about it because they can’t promise the release any time soon. They have to send the first batch to MTK and other partners for testing. If things go smoothly they’ll probabily release for purchase in early August.

The price of BE14 is probabily gonna be around 504RMB ($70), with 6 antennas (SMA150mm *3,SMA 230mm *3).

These are just rumors. Nothing can be confirmed yet. I’m just another customer eager to buy their products :grinning:. Hope the devs won’t get mad at me for posting here :rofl:.

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Hopefully they will not sell it with antennas - I plan to install external antennas for dump aps in special outdoor enclosures so this is a waste of material in my case… Thanks for sharing!