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by shimo5037 3329 days ago
I have one and I'm not using it anymore. It's quite possible that the software is more mature and usable now, but unfortunately it just wasn't good enough at the time. There were severe issues with DNS, with most requests taking a few seconds to complete, making simple tasks like browsing the internet quite infuriating. By default, there was no support for resolving local hostnames either, but it was possible to make that work by modifying some of the config-generating scripts to add a forward to another local DNS resolver. I don't recall the details exactly but there were at least two local DNS resolvers running due to missing DNSSEC support in one, and it may have been possible to enable a third resolver as well. Quite confusing.

I'm also not sure why they bothered adding their basic UI in addition to the OpenWRT side, it barely exposes anything and it was common to receive error responses. Maybe they just felt like they had to add more funding goal rewards.

The antennas were a bit loose but the case is quite easy to open, so they were easily tightened.

I now have Ubiquiti gear and the DNS delays and other issues are completely gone. While I in principle fully support the project, it turns out that I just wasn't willing to spend days customizing the thing to get it to work at a reasonable level, especially when my own daily internet use relied on it.

If someone feels like the current retail price is a bit steep but wants to give it a go, I've got my silver 2GB RAM model available for a more reasonable price :) It has the potential to be great in the hands of the right person.

5 comments

I also have one of the first backer editions and I had no issues. DNS being slow sounds like a resolver problem. Like it's timing out for some reason. To be honest, I'd suspect your network rather than the omnia.

The thing that worries me the most with the Omnia is how well it's going to be maintained.

I had no idea it used OpenWRT at all, my impression was that they made their own OS based on Linux.

So that's essentially like its own distro. Hence my worry that it's not going to be well maintained with patches for the far future.

But so far it's been great.

It's good to hear that at least some others have not had any issues :) It is certainly possible that the ISP modem may have been doing something special, but I've now been through at least 4 different routers of various grades over the years and sadly Omnia was the only one to ever exhibit that issue here. Or it may have had something to do with IPv6 or PPPoE. Hardwiring DNS to 8.8.8.8 did not help either. In the end I deemed it not worth it to waste any more time attempting to fix it.
it's an issue with their NIH DNS resolver. If you have no IPv6 connection, it times out after 2 seconds. Really annoying.
Well I ended up buying an ASUS router, because OpenWRT's support for IPv6 isn't full on (The 6RD support really needs improvement).

There are some other things I would like to see, which I see people have been making scripts for some of those things (Time based firewall rules for example).

I too paid for the 2GB upgrade. =)

I have to second this. Got the 2GB version as well and it was a (big) downgrade from my previous router. Same problems: DNS took ages, which lead to all requests/'the internet' feeling very slow. Switching hardware/going back improved the performance again, so I don't quite feel that the ISP or network was to blame.
I've had the opposite experience with DNS. Moving to this router made DNS lookups in particular perceptibly faster than before.

Agree that the hardware is poorly built, the antennas dangerously loose.

The turris omnia box interests me. Can you drop me an email to <username> at gmail?