So I’ve seen the TP-Link and GL.inet travel routers, and it looks like some of the GLs are/were built to run wrt firmwares. Stock TP firmwares have been pretty full features in my experience. I really want USB-C power. The GL wireguard support looks useful too, but it looks like their newer stuff is proprietary? Another want, not need, is 5 GHz band.
Does anyone have a favorite model or another board that can be flashed?
I use the GL.inet Shadow and have been happy with it. If you want 5Ghz and don’t mind that it’s a little larger (still small), I’d consider the Slate. It supports the latest version of OpenWRT. https://openwrt.org/toh/gl.inet/gl-ar750s
They include a custom GUI on top of OpenWRT, which I like. But LuCI is still there.
I have a slate (705S) and I love it. I have a wireguard server set up on an RPi at home and when I travel I plug in the slate, connect it to the hotel wifi (or Ethernet if I can), and flip the switch to turn on the VPN. All my traffic goes through my home connection, and I can still access my internal services.
I’ve even used it to save the day when an AirB&B’s wifi was too weak for the living room smart tv to connect when the family wanted to watch a movie.
