The really sad part is that it actually took me about 30 minutes to figure that out. I ordered one of the MR3201a's from open-mesh, and it showed up on Saturday. Now, I didn't come to open-mesh because I was looking for an off-the-shelf-product. I wanted a platform, specifically, for playing with OpenWRT and some of the captive portal solution's that are out there.
I chose this device because of one line in the product description.
"Modifying the firmware will NOT void your EULA or warranty. We fully encourage and support the open-source community. If you "brick" the router, we'll help you get it back to life. Experiment, learn & enjoy without fear..."I assumed this meant that I would need to install the vanilla OpenWRT on it in order to access the device myself. No company would give me complete and total control of the product I paid for, would they? Open-mesh does!
Once I realized, from reading the Directions for re-flashing the device to factory I realized this thing was already an OpenWRT device.
So I logged into Open-Mesh's dashboard and created a Network. Once everything was entered the little beast popped on with two networks. One open; one secured. I used the advanced settings to specify the root password, and was able to ssh right into the device. A full on, amazingly customizable OpenWRT platform to play with.
The part that truly suprised me about this device was the fact that a large number of the toys and such I needed to play with on OpenWRT are already included and ready to go! The product and service that Open-Mesh is offering is incredible.
The roadmap for the project has some really exciting developments that appear to be coming soon. I think my favorite part was the birthing of an open source mesh management solution OrangeMesh.
Well, now that I have new toys it's time to get busy. I can't believe how happy I was with this product... half of the stuff I wanted to do this weekend was already done. Score!
