Ask HN: Any startup working on a os for consumer routers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Any startup working on a os for consumer routers?

4 pointssoulbadguy9 comments

It seems that this last couple of years we have seen the hardware side of the average consumer router evolve quite a bit (probably due the volume economy from smartphone).The software on the other side haven't progress as nicely : 1 - Lot of security issues and bugs 2 - No automatic update 3 - Complex configuration 4 - Usually missing basic feature like parental control, bandwith allocation,vpns etc...

There are a lot of opensource OSes and project for router but most of them end up target at either hackers or enthusiast.

Why isn't anybody trying to build a better software platform for consumer routers ? The only real initiative we have seen lately is google's onhub.

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What about appliance created using open source OS like : - https://www.pfsense.org/products/ - https://www.clearos.com/products/hardware/clearbox-overview - http://www.endian.com/products-overview/ - https://www.untangle.com/untangle-ng-firewall/appliances/

Most of those initiative are not targeted at the consumer level

You wouldn't need to do much more than put a pretty front-end on (free|open)BSD to have a decent consumer router. You can even do this with commodity hardware: http://rtfm.net/FreeBSD/ERL/

I totaly agree on this. All this really need is a nice web front end and some nice apis for smarphones/plugin apps. My questions is mainly given that this shouldnt technically very challenging why is nobody giving it a shot. Why BSD vs Linux ?

Most of the modern BSD distros have incredibly advanced and performant packet and networking systems compared to Linux.

Some benefits over linux (this is especially geared to openbsd):

The main reason BSDs are awesome: `pf` is an amazing firewall/routing/shaping system.

Stability: BSDs have been far more stable under heavy loads than Linux.

Security: Generally (free|open)BSD are far more proactive with security patches and fixes than Linux distros.

I'm skeptical you could convince a mainstream homeowner to switch from the router that Verizon or Comcast supplies to them. You would have to 1) Make it wireless, the one I have from Comcast is a wireless router and I don't want to loose functionality 2) Make the new router have seamless setup with some device I can't get to work with my other router....maybe xbox, home automation, etc. 3) Make it dead simple for me to swap the $6/month I'm paying Verizon and start paying you instead...I do not want to call Verizon customer support...ever.

Because Verizon and others have conditioned people to pay a monthly fee, but they don't back that up with any updates for software or hardware, there should be an opportunity to offer a better substitute.

Good points. I wouldnt think that trying to sell directly to consumer is a viable business model. As you pointed that the number of people who actually think of buying a new router is just too small. I was thinking of something like what google is doing with android of their onHub platform. Build the software, and licence it (or sell support) to booth hardware manufacture (asus,netgear) and ISPs.

Good question, but I'd suggest a title correction:

"a os -> "an OS"

Can't update the title :(

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