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.
Choose the 4GB version because OpenWRT doesn’t recognize the 8GB version—it only recognizes half of it—and it’s a hassle to have to get it to detect all the RAM on the 8GB version.
