1llusion Posted August 22, 2018 Share Posted August 22, 2018 (edited) Hi, I have currently a Raspberry Pi 3B+ running as WiFi access point, hooked up to the router via Ethernet. This allows me to play around and redirect traffic via TOR or whatever I can think of on the Pi. It works quite well, but I actually think the PI is possibly a bit overpowered and too expensive. Can anyone suggest an SBC that can handle the task equally well (stable + good WiFi performance for a handful of clients with connection to 50MBit/s uplink) but is less expensive? I already had a look at the Orange Pi Zero Plus 2, which seems suitable in terms of specs. Thanks, 1llusion Edited August 22, 2018 by 1llusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chwe Posted August 22, 2018 Share Posted August 22, 2018 all those 1T1R wifi chips on 'cheap' SBCs won't perform that well when they should act as an AP. I use normal routers, SBCs only when they have to be host for 2-3 ESPs (IoT stuff).. I don't think that there's a board in the 'sub 35$ range' which will perform significantly better as an AP (maybe one with an external antenna?). Is the 5GHz performing well in AP mode? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1llusion Posted August 23, 2018 Author Share Posted August 23, 2018 I've tried 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz with the Pi, but at 5GHz the signal is not really that strong so I decided to go back to 2.4GHz--and that works quite well. Thanks, 1llusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjc Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 Seriously, you wouldn't get real "AP" performance in this price range. Even AP6356S on those RK3399 boards only perform around 80-100Mbps in AP mode, and the transfer rate drops to a very low value as you connect more clients. The cheapest Armbian-supported (true) AP with acceptable performance may be an ESPRESSObin with a 2x2 QCA AP card (e.g. QCA9888) attached, it could be around 500-600Mbps, and supporting multiple concurrent clients at an acceptable speed as well. This costs around $50 (ESPRESSObin 1GB) + $50 (Compex WLE650V5-18) = $100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrhum Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 For (very) small AP maybe onion omega2 (https://onion.io/omega2/) can be interesting. I don't know its performance for network handling with TOR and the hardware is light (580MHz MIPS CPU, 128MB, 2.4GHz b/g/n WiFi). The board itself is 13$, but you need ethernet and it's 12$ more for the expansion board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 38 minutes ago, hjc said: cheapest Armbian-supported (true) AP with acceptable performance I'll add 8814AU USB (USB3 or external powering might be needed) based wifi dongle with AP support here. Its performance is ofc worse than mPCI based Compex, but still, it performs reasonably well. You can't attach external antennas to this particular model (except if you DIY), but it cost only 23USD shipped. http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/EyrJ6ai (I got mine even for a few USD less than this). I haven't made a proper multiuser test, so I actually don't know how it performs with lots of clients. With a few, for SOHO usage, it works good enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjc Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 47 minutes ago, Igor said: I'll add 8814AU USB (USB3 or external powering might be needed) based wifi dongle with AP support here. Its performance is ofc worse than mPCI based Compex, but still, it performs reasonably well. You can't attach external antennas to this particular model (except if you DIY), but it cost only 23USD shipped. http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/EyrJ6ai (I got mine even for a few USD less than this). I haven't made a proper multiuser test, so I actually don't know how it performs with lots of clients. With a few, for SOHO usage, it works good enough. Interesting dongle. I read that rtl8814AU is capable of 5GHz AP, so it may be suitable for one of my side projects. Could you please share more info about its peak single user performance in a near distance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 1 hour ago, hjc said: Interesting dongle. I read that rtl8814AU is capable of 5GHz AP, so it may be suitable for one of my side projects. Could you please share more info about its peak single user performance in a near distance? The main client is a notebook with Intel AC 7265 wlp58s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"ARMBIAN" Mode:Managed Frequency:5.2 GHz Access Point: 40:A5:EF:D7:FC:DF Bit Rate=866.7 Mb/s Tx-Power=22 dBm Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:on Link Quality=56/70 Signal level=-54 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:20 Missed beacon:0 5m from AP Spoiler [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 31.6 MBytes 265 Mbits/sec 0 612 KBytes [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 30.0 MBytes 251 Mbits/sec 0 1022 KBytes [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 29.3 MBytes 246 Mbits/sec 0 1.10 MBytes [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 30.4 MBytes 255 Mbits/sec 0 1.29 MBytes [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 29.7 MBytes 249 Mbits/sec 0 1.36 MBytes [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 30.3 MBytes 255 Mbits/sec 0 1.51 MBytes [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 29.9 MBytes 251 Mbits/sec 0 1.97 MBytes [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 30.0 MBytes 252 Mbits/sec 0 2.07 MBytes [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 28.2 MBytes 236 Mbits/sec 0 2.29 MBytes [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 31.4 MBytes 264 Mbits/sec 0 2.67 MBytes Running speed test app on my phone (AC wireless) simultaneously. Spoiler [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 13.5 MBytes 113 Mbits/sec 0 468 KBytes [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 16.3 MBytes 137 Mbits/sec 0 711 KBytes [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 17.0 MBytes 142 Mbits/sec 0 1.16 MBytes [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 17.5 MBytes 147 Mbits/sec 0 1.61 MBytes [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 16.9 MBytes 142 Mbits/sec 0 1.85 MBytes [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 17.9 MBytes 150 Mbits/sec 0 2.05 MBytes [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 21.6 MBytes 181 Mbits/sec 0 2.58 MBytes [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 29.1 MBytes 244 Mbits/sec 0 2.58 MBytes [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 29.9 MBytes 251 Mbits/sec 0 3.01 MBytes [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 20.9 MBytes 175 Mbits/sec 0 3.01 MBytes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1llusion Posted August 23, 2018 Author Share Posted August 23, 2018 Thank you all for your replies so far; I will "process" them tomorrow. Best, 1llusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1llusion Posted August 24, 2018 Author Share Posted August 24, 2018 I checked your suggestions and would like to comment: The main purpose of the AP is to share an 50MBit/s internet connection; so I am not really looking for crazy speeds like the 600MBit/s boards you suggested. I do also like the idea of WiFi and Ethernet already being "on board" -- the possibility of an external antenna would be nice, though. So I am open to more suggestions; or maybe someone has experience with the Orange Pi Zero Plus 2.. I've read mixed things about the WiFi performance and general stability.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chwe Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 On 8/23/2018 at 10:49 AM, Igor said: I'll add 8814AU USB (USB3 or external powering might be needed) based wifi dongle with AP support here. the Asus version of it messed up my ubuntu (with 4.4 kernel)... But well, it was something like 3 times pricier... at least they delivered a proper USB3 cable to get it away from the computer and it looks like it has 2 antennas.. Does your driver also end in a sluggish ssh connection? Mines is sluggish but a second ssh connection with something like ping running 'to keep it active the whole time' helps. 2 hours ago, 1llusion said: I checked your suggestions and would like to comment: The main purpose of the AP is to share an 50MBit/s internet connection; so I am not really looking for crazy speeds like the 600MBit/s boards you suggested. I do also like the idea of WiFi and Ethernet already being "on board" -- the possibility of an external antenna would be nice, though. The main problem is if your 1T1R wifi chip is able to deal well as soon as multiple clients are connected.. And well, that's probably something you've to test on your own due to the majority will have an AP for that.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjc Posted August 25, 2018 Share Posted August 25, 2018 4 hours ago, chwe said: Mines is sluggish but a second ssh connection with something like ping running 'to keep it active the whole time' helps Well, my Intel 8275 also suffers from these kind of problems (on Debian stretch), and I guess it's related to firmware version and low power control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chwe Posted September 15, 2018 Share Posted September 15, 2018 thread was splittened. See: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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