WRTnode Opened for $25 (opens in new tab)

Hmmm I'd agree it's common when you're talking about components with hardware developers, but when you're pitching it to software developers/users then RAM/flash is almost uniformly referenced in megabytes. Take for example:

- OpenWrt's table of hardware page: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start

- Raspberry Pi specs: http://www.raspberrypi.org/product/model-b/

- Minnowboard Max specs: http://www.minnowboard.org/meet-minnowboard-max/

- Beaglebone Black specs: http://beagleboard.org/black

Oh and I love the reference to TL-WR703N, that little thing was pretty special! I was always disappointed by the MR3020, which is basically identical but a lot larger for no obvious reason.

I never see Mbit in the embedded world when talking about RAM or Flash. I always see KB or MB, never Mbit.

At least it wasn't "mb". I am not even sure how that would work.

Nope, can confirm it sucks on mac desktops too. At least with an Apple magic mouse.

Opened the web site, tried to scroll on my touchscreen, couldn't and immediately closed it. Then I read these comments and went back.

A lot of really bad ideas are being used on web sites now to make them look sophisticated. Ironic considering all of the simple to use tools developers now have to measure conversion rates and user engagement.

Any electronics-related web page that uses "shield" other than as meaning "RF emission/reception blocking element" is automatically obnoxious, mobile or not.

Do you have an idea how much of bandwidth a MIPS cpu like that can push?

The chip is actually made for routers: it has 802.11n "MAC/BBP", 5-port 10/100 switch, etc. http://www.anz.ru/files/mediatek/MT7620_Datasheet.pdf I wonder how "Hardware NAT with IPv6 and 2 Gbps wired speed" works if the switch is only 100 Mbits...

I guess if what you want out of this is really a router, you are supposed to either build the rest of the hardware yourself or wait for yourself, or wait for the "motherboard" module for this.

Good point. I remember working on MIPS M4k CPUs many years ago which could almost service a single 1Gbps link (at 100% CPU though). Without a gigabit link on the other side fast WLAN is pointless though. It was just too tempting to see a little board for networking. I agree though, networking is not the primary market.

If I could have a router or even just an AP with complete hardware documentation in public and 100% open source firmware for it that would be an ok price. With the advertised $25 of course greed kicked in as well. ;-)

I can't speak for rffn, but many people want to avoid using the 2.4GHz spectrum due to congestion.

In the 2.4GHz band there is a limited amount of space available, and there are now many wireless routers in typical residential neighbourhoods all competing for the same space. Many other devices such as cordless phones, baby monitors, and wireless speakers also use 2.4GHz and interfere with wifi signals. Most microwaves generate significant amounts of noise in the 2.4 GHz band when in use.

In the 5GHz band there is much more space available, and there are many fewer competing devices and sources of interference. The penalty of 5GHz is slightly less range, and more expensive wifi equipment.

The problem I often see with "open" devices like that is that they typically work with exactly one Linux kernel binary that shipped with the device. They usually don't work with upstream kernels.

Even if you can get original kernel source, it might not be trivial to get it to compile. Porting the required changes to a newer kernel once a security vulnerability was discovered can be very time consuming.

Well, my beef with it is that the proprietary blobs should be interchangeable, and that requires an open ISA, the silicone can be as proprietary as it wants, as long as the interface is open.

or get a "flashy" website that enrages people enough to upvote rant

Many SD cards have wear leveling built in, but most of the algorithms and CPUs used for the controllers are quite crap at wear leveling. If you start looking at more industrial targeted SD cards you'll find quite decent wear leveling.

Most of them do some kind of wear leveling, but they usually use cheaper flash and less capable controllers and the controller algorithms are mostly oriented around making them usable for sequential writes as you see with a digital camera, not for making a good drop-in replacement for rotating disks.

Thank you.

When I was taking Chinese classes in university, people would sometimes poke fun at the eccentric or badly accented English. I would as them how their Chinese sounds to their native-speaking instructors.

It is strange how the reaction to that was always one of confusion or dismissal.

Seeed isn't a typo, to save anyone else checking.

Yes, the Chinese website (http://cn.wrtnode.com/) is perfectly fine. (Chinese is my second language.)

However, I would not immediately characterise the copy as written by a US/UK college grad though - it feels like it is written by someone who learnt English on the mainland.

I don't really know why companies in various parts of East Asia don't hire/outsource to someone who actually is highly fluent in English to write/edit their copy. Sometimes I suspect it is simply due to cost, other times I suspect they just don't realise that their fluency is not quite.. 'international English' level

(No offence to anyone who runs/writes for East Asian company websites.)

They don't need better translation. They need a cultural liaison. You can speak English at a very high level but without deep cultural involvement, you won't know that "get out of the city" and "get out of town" have very different meanings.

When the peasants are revolting its very different from when the food is revolting!

The words realise and capitalise should be spelt with an 's', not a 'z'.

If I can share a suggestion: the phrase "Born to be proud" comes off as a bit arrogant and doesn't sound natural to a native English speaker. If you're proud of the product, or you're trying to convey the idea that it was created with good intentions, some different wording might get your point across better. Something like "a better open platform" or "born to be open" [even though that also doesn't sound natural either, unless you know what 'open hardware' is].

Here i've cleaned up some of the copy from your sales page:

"WRTnode is a high performance, low power, small, inexpensive development board intended to run OpenWRT OS. It also easily ports open source software based on Linux.

Today, more and more devices are connecting to The Internet of Things. The WRTnode is a small node which can connect to the internet all by itself and perform complex tasks, like detecting a cat running by, or identifying your speech and twittering it, or checking your email and speaking it to you, or learning how your room is laid out and finding garbage to sweep while streaming video to you over the internet. [..] Open Source hardware for OpenWrt [..] [remove the line "smart machines' heart"] complete set of high performance I/O [..] Local dns uses i.wrtno.de, wrtnode.lan, and openwrt.lan [..] default WRTnode ip 192.168.8.1 [..] WRTnode additional features (source at github.com/WRTnode):"

It looks good now. Next time I will try your support link instead, but I am glad you saw the comment and got it cleaned up.

In the future it shouldn't be too hard to find someone willing to support and a good open source project with some proof-reading. I may not be the best candidate, but it would be a good way for someone to get started helping the project, and could make a big difference if you are targeting a larger audience.