I’ve noticed there is a page at Banana Pi | Hack GPON but it really does not say if it will work or not.
Follow up questions:
Do I need to open up the board to connect to UART on the “BPI-R4 4GB or 8GB”? I notice there is a USB-C port that acts as the debug/UART console port on the “BPI-R4 PRO 4E” or “BPI-R4 Pro 8X”. Is it possible to do the same thing with the USB-C port on the “BPI-R4 4GB or 8GB”? I really don’t want to open up the case just to access UART.
Does anyone know of a supplier that will ship to the UK who are offering reasonable prices for the “BPI-R4 4GB or 8GB”?
Does anyone have experience with the Turris Omnia NG - About - Turris Documentation. WiFi 7 chipset: Noni 56M2-B based on the QCN-6274 (Qualcomm)? How would you rate that against the “BPI-R4 4GB or 8GB”?
Many thanks,
- Bana (Please reach out to me directly at [email protected] if you work with Banana PI)
the most important part on all bpi devices is wifi: how important is it. what do you exactly need. i live in a 2 room flat, i have no problems with wifi7 on my r4. but many others do, because they have walls etc.
if wifi is important and you want to cover a wider area or have obstacles in the way, dont go with bpi.
i dont know your requirements, so i can not recommend anything.
just because a card is bigger/has more antennas, doesnt mean its better. compare it to a car: just coz its bigger/more cylinders, doesnt mean its better.
i used the omnia for my study only (automated desaster recovery).
the r4 is a nice device when it comes to routing only. if wifi7 is required, i would probably check if an ubiquity AP works on it. i assume the software should run on the r4. unfortunately, no PoE on the r4 nor on the new pro’s. if its for a small room/flat, it should be enough with the r4 and be14
There are hardware limitations with the WiFi NIC for the regular BPI-R4 that can cause issues, from what I understand. I don’t know if they released an updated one or not. I suggest reading the threads about it on here.
As a wired router with hardware offloading enabled, it’s a very competent little unit. I’ve used a BPI-R4 8 GB as my main 10 Gbit/s router for quite a while now and it has been solid (first running OpenWrt and then VyOS). I actually bought a spare one before the price shot up, just in case.
OpenWrt uses very little RAM unless you fill it up with RAM hungry packages. Even on VyOS I could’ve easily gotten by with 4 GB RAM when used as a home router.
Both the R4 and R4Pro have PoE functionality, but you’ll need to consult BPI. The PoE function seems to be on the WAN port; standard boards don’t have it, but soldering a PoE module will allow it to function normally.
they have PoE IN, not PoE OUT. I guess, 99% of users that want PoE functionality mean “PoE OUT”, to provide clients (e.g. a connected VoIP phone station, access point etc.) with power. Those 1% that mean PoE IN probably are using the BPI R4 in a lab. Otherwise, if one requires such functionality, the setup is probably that advanced, they would not even think of BPI R4 to use it in production with all that flaws.
