router News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 14, 2025 by Debashis Das - 21 Comments

Turris Omnia NG Wi-Fi 7 router features dual 10GbE SFP+, mini PCIe slot for 4G LTE/5G, runs OpenWrt-based Turris OS

The Turris Omnia NG is a high-performance Wi-Fi 7 router with a mini PCIe slot for 4G/5G modems, two 10GbE SFP+ cages, a 240×240 px color display, and a D-Pad button, running OpenWrt-based Turris OS, and designed for advanced home users, small businesses, and lab environments. Built around a 2.2 GHz Qualcomm IPQ9574 quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A73 CPU, the Omnia NG supports Wi-Fi 7/6 tri-band connectivity. Additionally, it features four 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, NVMe storage support, and includes a 90 W power supply for attached peripherals. Other hardware highlights include rack-mount supports, a metal chassis, and antenna arrays for 4×4 MIMO operation. It comes 10 years after the original Turris Omnia open-source router was launched on Indiegogo. Turris Omnia NG Router specifications: CPU – Qualcomm IPQ9574 quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 processor @ 2.2GHz processor Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage 8 GB eMMC storage M.2 socket for […]

November 11, 2025November 11, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 winners announced!

CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2025 has just ended and we’ve now ready to announce the winners. We offered some of the review samples we tested, and three companies joined us offering new samples, namely Banana Pi with two router boards, VOIPAC with an industrial development kit, and RAKwireless offered two of their IoT development kits for the fifth year running. Besides the aforementioned prize, we also included an ESP32-P4 development kit, a dry switch from SONOFF, a Raspberry Pi CM4-based HMI with a 915MHz LoRa module, a 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display, and two USB PD voltage indicators on both CNX Software “International” and CNX Software Thailand. You can see all prizes shown below. Without further ado, here are the seven winners of Giveaway Week 2025 on CNX Software (English): M5Stack M5Tab – Ed, Canada Elecrow Pi Terminal – Tom, Finland Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite router board – Stef, Belgium […]

November 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nexalta Guardian NXG0042AI – Qualcomm IPQ9574-based networking solution with 10GbE, WiFi 7, 5G, local AI (Crowdfunding)

Nexalta Guardian NXG0042AI is a large networking and IoT gateway “monster” powered by a Qualcomm IPQ9574 chipset offering 10GbE and 2.5GbE networking, WiFi 7 support with up to five concurrent WiFi radios, up to four/seven 5G modems, up to 52 (e)SIMs, and two on-board Compute Module slots for Rockchip RK3588 or NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM system-on-modules. The main board (XWR A1) also offers 25Gbps WAN fabric, three MCUs for BMC, power management, and cryptography, M.2 slots for NVMe storage or AI accelerators, two mSATA sockets, HDMI video output, USB ports, Starlink satellite support, and a range of IoT protocol options such as LoRaWAN, 5G RedCap, UWB, Bluetooth LE, and so on. Nexalta Guardian specifications: Main SoC subsystem SoC – Qualcomm IPQ9574 quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 processor @ 2.2GHz processor System Memory – 2GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 64MB NOR flash SoM sub-system 2x 260-pin SO-DIMM sockets for: Turing RK1 […]

November 5, 2025November 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 392 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite

Mediatek Filogic 850 2.5GbE WiFi 7 5G router board

The third prize of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 is the Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite router board, which will be shipped directly to a randomly selected winner by the company. It’s powered by a MediaTek Filogic 850 (MT7987AV) quad-core Cortex-A53 network processor, coupled with 2GB DDR4 and 8GB eMMC flash, and equipped with four gigabit Ethernet ports, a 2.5GbE RJ45 WAN port, and a 2.5GbE SFP cage. It can also be extended with WiFi 7 and 5G cellular modules thanks to two mini PCIe sockets and an M.2 Key-B slot with USB 3.0 interface. The board also features a 16-pin MikroBus GPIO header with UART, I2C, SPI, PWM, and other signals to connect one of the over 1000 Mikroe Click modules available. As its name implies, the BPI-R4 Lite is a cost-down version of the Banana Pi BPI-R4 introduced a few years ago. The documentation has improved since the last […]

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Broadcom unveils WiFi 8 chips for access points and clients

Broadcom has recently revealed its first WiFi 8 (802.11bn) chips with the BCM43109 for wireless clients such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and automotive devices, the BCM6718 designed for residential and operator access applications, and the BCM43840 and BCM43820 made for enterprise access applications. Broadcom BCM43109 WiFi 8, Bluetooth 6.0, and 802.15.4 client chip Specifications: IEEE 802.11bn compliant Dual-stream spatial multiplexing data rate of up to 5 Gbps during single-band operation and 5.25 Gbps in RSDB mode Up to 320 MHz channels for the 2×2 5 GHz and 6 GHz radio, and 20 MHz channels for the 2×2 2.4 GHz radio STR MLO and EMLSR support Scan radio enhances 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz channel performance Dual-core Bluetooth 6.0 with 2G, higher band SDB with HDT, and support for future Bluetooth versions IEEE 802.15.4 supporting OpenThread, ZBOSS, etc. Host interface PCIe Gen3 x1 for WiFi UART for Bluetooth PCM and I2S […]

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

$165 Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro board offers 2x 10GbE SFP+ cages, 7x 10GbE/2.5GbE/GbE RJ45 ports, WiFi 7 support

The Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro is a new router board based on MediaTek Filogic 880 (MT7988A) Cortex-A73 SoC offering two 10GbE SFP+ cages/RJ45 ports combos, four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and optional WiFi 7 support via the Banana Pi BPI-R4-MIC-BE14 dual mini PCIe module. As its name implies, it’s a Pro/upgraded version of the Banana Pi BPI-R4 board first introduced in 2023, which doubles the memory to 8GB DDR4, doubles the SPI flash’s capacity to 256MB, and adds a few networking ports, M.2 expansion slots for a total of six, and a few other minor features highlighted in bold in the specifications below. Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) quad-core Arm Corex-A73 processor @ 1.8GHz with AI-powered packet accelerator called TOPS (Tunnel Offload Processor System) System Memory – 8GB DDR4 Storage 8GB eMMC flash 256MB SPI NAND Flash MicroSD card slot 2x […]

September 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beelink EQi13 Pro Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 on an Intel Core i5-13500H mini PC

Beelink EQi13 Pro mini PC review Ubuntu 24.04

We’ve already checked out the hardware of the Beelink EQi13 Pro in the first part of the review, and followed up with a detailed review of the Intel Core i5-13500H mini PC running Windows 11 Pro. We’ve now taken the time to test the Beelink EQi13 Pro with Ubuntu 24.04 to find out how well (or not) it performs on Linux. We will specifically report our experience testing features, running benchmarks, checking out the SSD and USB ports, evaluating Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 6 networking performance, and finally stress testing the mini PC, before measuring the fan noise and power consumption of the mini PC under Linux. Ubuntu 24.04 installation Since the plan is to install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS alongside Windows 11 in a dual-boot configuration, we shrank the Windows 11 partition to about half its size before inserting a USB drive prepared with the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO to start […]

August 18, 2025August 18, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Matter 1.4.2 adds support for WiFi only provisioning for cheaper devices, improves security, and more

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) released the Matter 1.4 specification in fall 2024, and we skipped Matter 1.4.1 here, but decided to cover the Matter 1.4.2 release, which enables WiFi only provisioning, removing the need for a Bluetooth LE radio often only used for onboarding Smart Home devices. This will enable device makers to reduce costs and hardware complexity by removing the Bluetooth LE radio and the associated software stack in designs where a BLE radio is only used solely for commissioning. While Matter 1.4.2 is a minor dot release, it includes many other changes we’ll cover below. Matter 1.4.2 highlights: Wi-Fi Only Commissioning – Relies on Wi-Fi Unsynchronized Service Discovery (USD), and removes the need for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) radios to onboard devices to the Matter ecosystems. Security Enhancements Vendor ID (VID) Verification – Matter Controllers can now cryptographically verify that the Admins installed on a device are […]