IMHO:
What we need is not another Router, there are already plenty out there which work with OpenWRT.
What we need are more "level3-"switches with 24/48 ports which work well with OpenWRT.
The only really good thing about this is the price.
What we need are more "level3-"switches with 24/48 ports which work well with OpenWRT.
The only really good thing about this is the price.
I'm vaguely aware of some enterprise options. I want something quieter and reasonably power efficient. Price is no object within reason. I would pay low 4 figures for something equivalent to a Mikrotik CRS326, but with upstream kernel drivers and an X86 CPU.
* I don't run libreboot or anything, I'm sure there's a fair bit of closed blobs in my lab, but almost all my devices can boot any standard Linux boot image.
The VLANs are to keep my network segmented: wan, management, internet of shit, trusted, testing.
(I don't know the prices of such switches or whether they are available to prosumers, which would explain why almost nobody has them in a homelab)
[1] https://opencomputeproject.github.io/onie/ [2] https://sonicfoundation.dev/
The sub-enterprise, prosumer, SOHO-type market is pretty strong, but OpenWRT isn't a part of it -- not sure if that was a requirement.
The "home network with a NAS" is typically served with a small 4-8p 10G, while the 2.5/5G switches (particularly high density ones) are more of a bridge for orgs that have a lot of AP density and to get more out of that physical cable plant as they upgrade to WiFi 6e/7 devices on those existing wires. Gaming motherboards ship with up to 2.5/5, but again, how many switchports are needed for the SOHO market, especially when users can chain a few smaller switches together?
The price point for mostly/full mGig switches is almost an order of magnitude over what the prosumer/SOHO space prices at. UI offers a 48p but with only 16x2.5 ports at $1300. Cisco Meraki has 48p models with full mGig but that's $7-10k based on Google, and now you're out of prosumer/SOHO and squarely in enterprise platforms.
Ultimately, I do think such switches will pop up, but it'll be a little in the future as those enterprise dollars drive the cost of chipsets and transceivers down. Just not there yet to have that density at SOHO prices.
Also has 280 watts of PoE. Goes for $700 or so.