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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

TP-Link TL-WR703N running OpenWRT.

Cost is about $22. Ethernet, Wifi, USB already working well with OpenWRT. Nice package manager. Real Linux at micro-controller price and power consumption.

You can lift some GPIO beyond the single light and button that comes on the board if you're clever with a soldering iron, but a generic Arduino Mini can make it sing for about $10 extra.

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Currently using a TL-WR703N to build my own nest thermostat. Very cool device.

Yes, I'm very glad I found it. With the exception of graphics, it seems to deliver on all of the "maker promise" that originally excited me about the raspi, for a lot less, and with no issues actually getting hold of them.

Where are you getting these boards for $22? It looks like they are not manufacturing the device any more. They list a '702 but not a '703:

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=&...

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR703N-Portable-802-11n-Wir...

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-802-11n-802-11g-Wireless-TL-WR...

Be careful with model or even revision numbers, always check hardware compatibility lists. very often times the difference between something like a "653" and a "653+" can be an entirely different (and not supported) chipset.

http://dx.com/p/tp-link-tl-wr703n-mini-3g-2-4ghz-802-11b-g-n...

I usually get them 10 at a time. Looks like the price went up to $26 :(

You can always try your luck on ebay. Looks like lots of vendors are shipping new ones from HK.

The '02 is just the '03 without a USB port and less flash. It can't fit OpenWRT.

Edit: Ahh. Looks like they superseded it with the TL-MR3020. The bad news is, it costs $33. The good news is that it has a software readable 3 position switch on the side that does seem supported under OpenWRT.

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Portable-802-11n-Wireless-TL-M...

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3020

Interesting hack.

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