GL.iNet Flint 3 - A Short Review

I have been using OPNsense as my main router for the last few years. It is overkill for my home use-case, but it was really fun learning enterprise software! Now that WiFi 7 devices are more readily available, I though it would be nice to upgrade to a WiFi 7 access point and use this opportunity to also change my home networking setup.

Finding a new WLAN router

In the quest of finding a new WLAN router, I wanted to keep the spirit of using an open source software like my old router. The most prevalent software for WLAN router is OpenWRT. It can be flashed to many routers like Asus or TP-Link, replacing their original OS. However, WiFi 7 are still relatively new and OpenWRT support are still not there yet. In the latest release of OpenWRT, they stated that WiFi 7 is still in initial support.

After looking for a new WLAN router for a few weeks without lucks, I saw that GL.iNet is releasing a new router with WiFI 7 that I can pre-order soon. It fulfills my need perfectly. It has WiFi 7 and its 4 LAN ports are all 2.5Gbit. Most importantly, it also comes with (custom) OpenWRT. Their OpenWRT has an GL admin panel, which is supposedly more user friendly. It is also priced really competitively during pre-order, around €130 if you're fast enough or if you're slow like me then it was just below €150 with shipping.

GL Admin Panel

In an standard OpenWRT router, the interface (frontend/admin panel) is called LuCI. It is quite advanced compared to consumer router like Asus or TP-Link and I would describe it as not user-friendly. The GL.iNet team solution to this was to develop their own interface, which they called GL admin panel. The user-friendliness of GL admin panel is similar to any other consumer routers. It is really easy to use and configure. However, the GL admin panel does not expose all of OpenWRT capabilities.

One example for this was the first time I tried to setup the DHCP server. In routers like OPNsense you could set an NTP server in the DHCP configuration easily. On the other hand, GL admin panel doesn't allow me to set an NTP server. Luckily, the LuCI interface is still available.

Adding NTP Server in DHCP Options via LuCI

I have a proxmox machine and it runs many VMs. I think it's a waste of resource to have all of the VMs connect to an external NTP server. So I prefer to run my own NTP server with chrony. The easiest way to distribute the IP of my chrony instance automatically to all VMs and my own local devices is to set the IP in the DHCP server. Currently only Linux machines will use the NTP server, but most of my VMs are Linux anyway.

This is my first time using OpenWRT, but how hard can setting up DHCP server can be? I just need to search for the DHCP options in LuCI and then change something there... right? So I clicked Network -> DHCP and DNS and there I check all tabs and configuration but found nothing about DHCP options. After a lengthy google session, I found that I needed to first go to Network -> Interfaces -> Edit on LAN Interface -> DHCP Server -> Advanced Settings. There, I could fill the DHCP options with option:ntp-server,10.1.1.3. Now all of my local Linux machines use a local NTP server.

Conclusion

I found that the Flint 3 is a very solid router with a very competitive price. It runs OpenWRT, which feels great if you're already familiar with Linux. The Flint 3 supports the new WiFi 7 in three different bands. I could also install all familiar software like Unbound, Chrony, Adguard Home and even htop. It ticks all my needs and I'm very happy with my purchase!