FriendlyELEC NanoPi R3S LTS is an update to the NanoPi R3S low-cost dual gigabit Ethernet router introduced last year, which gains HDMI output, a speaker connector, and a power button.
The new model still features a Rockchip RK3566 SoC with up to 2GB RAM, an optional 32GB eMMC flash, a microSD card socket, a MIPI DSI display connector, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and a USB-C port for power and programming, as well as a 3-pin UART header accessible after opening the metal enclosure.
NanoPi R3S-LTS specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3566
- CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz
- GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU
- NPU – 1 TOPS AI accelerator
- VPU
- 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoder
- 1080p60 H.264/H.265 video encoder
- System Memory – 1GB or 2 GB LPDDR4/4XX
- Storage
- Optional 32GB eMMC flash
- MicroSD card socket with support for UHS-1 (SDR104)
- Video Output
- HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60
- 30-pin MIPI DSI FPC connector
- Audio – Speaker connector
- Networking – 2x gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports
- WAN via Realtek RTL8111H PCIe to GbE controller tested up to 934 Mbps (Tx) and 936 Mbps (Rx)
- LAN via Realtek RTL8211E tested up to 934 Mbps (Tx) and 941 Mbps (Rx)
- USB
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port
- 1x USB-C port for power and data (to flash firmware)
- Debugging – 3-pin UART header (1.5 Mbps baudrate)
- Misc
- Power, User, and Mask buttons
- 2-pin connector for RTC battery for the HYM8563TS RTC
- 3x user LEDs for SYS, LAN, WAN
- Power Supply – 5V/2A via USB Type-C port
- Dimensions – PCB: 57 x 57 mm (8-layer PCB); enclosure: 61.5 x 61.5 x 25 mm
- Weight – 35 grams without the case, 150 grams with the metal enclosure
- Temperature Range – 0 to 70°C
As usual, there’s no WiFi on board, and instead, the company recommends a list of MediaTek and Realtek USB WiFi dongles tested with FriendlyWrt and other Linux distributions: RTL8188CUS/RTL8188EU. RT2070, RT2870/RT3070, RTL8192CU, Ralink MT7601/MT7601U, RTL8821CU/RTL8811CU, and others. Some support access point mode, and others only station mode.
FriendlyELEC provides a long list of supported OS and software tools: Alpine Linux, Buildroot, Debian 12 Core, Debian 11 Desktop, FriendlyCore 20.04 (Ubuntu Core-based), FriendlyWrt 21.02/23.05/24.10 (OpenWrt fork), OpenMediaVault, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop, and Ubuntu 24.04 Core, all with Linux 6.1 LTS and u-boot 2017.09 support. The level of support likely varies, and some OS/tools may work better than others on the board. You’ll find more details and links to images on the shared wiki for the NanoPi R3S and NanoPi R3S LTS boards.
The NanoPi R3S LTS is up for order/pre-order starting at $25 for the model with 1GB RAM, no eMMC flash, and no metal enclosure. The top model with 2GB, 32GB eMMC flash, and a metal case goes for $42. The 2GB RAM variants are available now, while the models with 1GB RAM are up for pre-order with shipping scheduled to start by the end of this month.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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The first in the NanoPi series the R1 did the UART correctly, but since then only the R6C exposed UART externally. Please make the UART externally accessible!
yes completely agree on that, no way I open up this every time I need Uart. Willy, please chime in with us.
For once I’m not the only one to ask for it! Thanks guys, I don’t feel alone!
@Yuefei, if you read this, please, really please, pass the message once for all to your product/engineering team: you guys are losing sales ONLY because of this insistance to refuse to make the UART externally accessible for so many years. Many of us have switched to Radxa primarily because they now include a USB-C console that makes our lives so much easier.
We still love your boards design and your enclosures (and price), but we don’t want to be pissed off anymore to run for a screwdriver each time the device fails to boot or to appear on the network. It’s less than 50cts to add a USB-UART chip, there’s absolutely zero excuse for crippling the design like this.
And to give a concrete example of this, I know that RK3566 works out of the box on mainline. I need to replace the aging Neo2 on my reverse-proxy, and I will buy another Radxa E20C for this, which is not yet ready in mainline while I would have loved to use an R3S instead from a software support perspective.
It’s not too late to put an end to this persistent mistake.
I’d expect the usb-c serial console to be present on the high profile systems.
And look: T6 and R6C have a serial console.
You want a cheap router device…
Cheap doesn’t mean without console. The chip is so cheap. The cost of lost sales certainly outweighs the cost of the missing chips!
I guess they could also expose the 3-pin header and protect it with a rubber cover when not in use. People would just have to connect a USB-to-serial board. Not quite as convenient as a USB-C port, but it might be a little cheaper.
I agree, but really at this point we’re speaking about super low prices, and when it makes a difference on sales, you can even inflate the price. I would really pay up to $3-$5 more to have that usb port connected in factory so that I can naturally connect to a device without having to seek an adapter not check the pinout, so that’s a great investment! I don’t count the number of times I visited friendlyelec.com to check for a suitable device for various use cases, and left the site sad to have found what I needed but unusable due to this. And since I’m almost done replacing my last old machines (alix etc) with E20C/E52C, it’s likely that I won’t need to go back to their site for a while 🙁
I concur!
(the console is only needed when you are suing it headless, to setup the system the added ch342 or whatever does raise the cost by a little.)
yes please!
I don’t buy hardware anymore for networking purposes unless it has exernally accessible serial – a header on the PCB is not enough, full connector on the outer case like you say.