In one in every of my current teardowns, commenting on the number of piece components included with the producer’s numerous merchandise in its streaming media field line, I famous:

I’d not need to be the particular person answerable for managing onn. product contents stock…

Seeming range, however under-the-hood commonality

Multiply that sentiment by 100x or so and also you’ve obtained a way of my emotions in regards to the poor of us who handle the inventories of (and forecast the long run gross sales of) router producers’ product traces. Right now’s teardown sufferer is from Linksys, however the state of affairs’s very a lot the identical at ASUS, (Amazon) eero, Netgear, TP-Hyperlink or any of the opposite {hardware} suppliers.

There are actually just a few basis silicon suppliers, and (in contrast to the comparatively current previous), the tempo of expertise evolution has notably slowed of late, significantly within the wi-fi realm. Probably the most important innovation of the previous decade has been mesh networking, which solely not directly offers with the Wi-Fi indicators being broadcast to and from any specific community node, largely focusing as a substitute on the node-to-node handoffs as LAN purchasers transfer by means of the community.

The outcomes? Provider-to-supplier and product-to-product enclosure and different cosmetics variations, however based mostly on primarily the identical underlying {hardware}, differentiated by software program (together with, for instance, antenna kind and amount and DRAM capability variations), as every firm strives to distinguish in any (ideally low-cost) means doable to squeeze no matter revenue is left from an more and more mature market. Typically, product line diversification (as we’ll see right now) includes little greater than new stickers on the skin of the system and packaging and an altered product title embedded within the firmware. And all this tweaking finally ends up inflicting ongoing stress complications for every firm’s pitiable product line managers.

Prepping for a sooner-or-later house workplace LAN transition

Right now’s evaluation is a prescient instance of what I’m conceptually speaking about…two examples, though, not less than for the foreseeable future, you’ll solely be seeing the insides of one in every of them. On the tail finish of one in every of my writeups from late final yr, whereby I unsuccessfully (up to now, not less than) strove to determine methods to get rid of my LAN’s ongoing dependence on the lightning-sensitive spans of wired Ethernet working across the exterior of my home, I discussed that:

I additionally plan to finally check out newer Wi-Fi expertise, to additional check the speculation that “wires beat wi-fi each time”. Nearing 3,000 phrases, I’ll save extra particulars on that for an additional publish to come back.

That “newer Wi-Fi expertise” isn’t the first focus of this publish, both, however for now I’ll not less than present an entrée. Proper now, I’m working a multi-node LAN mesh based mostly on Google Nest Wifi routers, which implement Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) expertise, particularly AC2200 4×4:4 albeit absent MU-MIMO. One different vital “twist” right here is that the backhaul connection between the community nodes is wired Ethernet, not Wi-Fi. The setup’s been operational for 3 years now, fortunately working fairly stably, truly.

However, as with its OnHub predecessors (one in every of which, from TP-Hyperlink, I tore down again in mid-2020) I’d run in a mesh configuration for the prior 5 years, Google will finally finish assist for Google Nest Wifi in favor of the newer Nest Wifi Professional and its potential successors. Indicative of my forecast, Google already pulled each the Nest Wifi and prior-gen Google Wifi (one in every of which I dissected again in early 2022) from its on-line retailer efficient the start of 2024 (I plan to dissect each a Nest Wifi router and entry level post-support cessation).

At that time, I’ll must improve my LAN as soon as once more. Fortuitously, I’ve already obtained the successors in hand…a bunch of them, truly, counting spares. Final September (in addition to a number of instances prior, which I hadn’t seen on the time), Amazon subsidiary Woot bought factory-refurbished Linksys LN1301 routers for $14.99 every (plus $5 off one through a coupon code):

Also referred to as the MX4300, it’s a beefy Wi-Fi 6 AX4200 unit with one WAN and three LAN wired Ethernet ports, together with a USB 3.0 port, based mostly on a 1.4 GHz quad-core CPU (id to be revealed shortly) and with 2 GBytes of RAM and 1 GByte of flash reminiscence. It helps each MU-MIMO and OFDMA and claims to ship as much as 4.2 Gbps of mixture wi-fi bandwidth.

Linksys additionally refers to it as a “Tri-band” router, though provided that it’s not a Wi-Fi 6E system, this doesn’t imply that it helps the latest 6 GHz Wi-Fi band. As a substitute, it concurrently helps two completely different 5 GHz band ranges, one predominantly supposed for non-obligatory node-to-node wi-fi mesh backhaul interconnect (with wired Ethernet being the opposite backhaul choice).

Talking of mesh, right here’s the kicker…properly, one of many two. Though not marketed as being mesh-compatible, it seems that if, after you arrange the first router, you then direct-connect different secondary “youngster” items to it, an undocumented setup menu display permits activating mesh connectivity between them. And (right here’s the different kicker), the LN1301/MX4300 is additionally supported by each the DD-WRT and OpenWRT open-source communities, offering ongoing-maintained choices to Linksys’ closed-source and (possible) end-of-life’d firmware.

To that “end-of-life” word, the elemental motive why Linksys was promoting the LN1301/MX4300 so inexpensively, it seems, was as a listing purge; the corporate then dropped the system (initially supposed to be used by small companies, not customers) from its product line. Upfront suspecting that this was the case, I went forward and bought the utmost amount of ten items per Woot account, after which additionally requested my spouse to choose up one other one (utilizing the identical $5-off quantity-one coupon) from her Woot account. That’ll give me loads of items for each my present four-node mesh topology and as-needed spares…and finally I’ll determine to throw warning to the wind and redirect one of many spares to a (presumed harmful) teardown, too.

Disassembling a extra modest sibling

For now, I’ll focus my teardown consideration on another, extra humbly outfitted Linksys router I subsequently acquired. A month after my LN1301/MX4300 binge, Woot bought a two-pack of factory-refurbished Velop (Linksys’ model title for its mesh-compatible gadgets) VLP01 AC1200 routers for $19.99, minus one other $5-off coupon, subsequently $14.99 plus tax. VLP0102, by the way in which, is Linksys’ naming scheme for the two-pack…VLP0101 is the single-unit package, whereas VLP0103 refers back to the three-device mesh bundled variant. Inventory photos to begin:

Walmart’s web site signifies that the VLP01 was (it’s now out of inventory and presumably EOL’d as properly) a Walmart-exclusive product, which explains why you may’t discover a devoted product web page for it on Linksys’ personal web site. As a substitute, there’s the WHW01 sequence, spec’d as AC1300 gadgets. Anyhoo, what prompted my acquisition was three important motivations:

• They had been cheap, and I already had loads of LN1301/MX4300s, so I may rationalize devoting one in every of them to a teardown
• Since I deliberate on doing wired backhaul anyway, I didn’t want super-robust wi-fi capabilities, significantly on the mesh node in my spouse’s workplace, and
• This (grammatically-tweaked-by-me) thread on the Woot Discussion board web page caught my eye:
  • Can these be meshed with the earlier $15 Linksys router deal (Linksys LN1301 WiFi 6 Router)?
  • Couldn’t discover a direct reply on the Linksys website, however somebody requested this identical query on Reddit, and Linksys answered: “All of our clever mesh programs are suitable with one another. Simply be sure that you designate the one with superior specs because the father or mother or important node.”
  • Sure, you may. I did this. You will want [to set up] the LN1301 because the father or mother after which set these up because the [child] nodes.

This assist web page on the Linksys web site paperwork and helps the Woot discussion board declare.

Packaging and contents preliminaries

Now for some photos of our affected person, starting with an outer field shot of what I obtained…which, I’ve simply seen, claims that it’s an AC2400 configuration (I’m guessing it is because Linksys is mesh-adding the 2 gadgets’ theoretical peak bandwidths collectively? Lame, Linksys, lame…):

Talking of which, listed here are these two gadgets:

Together with what’s beneath ‘em:

Wall wart first, as normal, accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for dimension comparability functions:

Now for the router itself:

“Solely” one LAN port this time, together with the WAN port and energy enter connector:

Onward:

Standing LED up high, together with an abundance of (passive; no fan on this design) air flow holes:

And on the backside, energy and reset switches together with verbiage together with the all-important FCC ID, Q87-03331, which curiously (and unsurprisingly) paperwork this product as being the WHW01, not the Walmart-relabeled and (barely) de-spec’d VLP01:

Diving inside

Ordinarily, I’d have begun my seek for a pathway to the inside by specializing in that backside panel, however an iFixit teardown of the WHW01 that I’d stumbled throughout throughout my analysis (which, fact be advised, I truly didn’t understand till my teardown was full and I’d begun this writeup was of the identical {hardware}, because of the product title variance and “AC2400” silliness) as a substitute suggested me to begin on the high as a substitute:

High off and to the aspect, full with flips and focus shifts:

Now standalone:

Subsequent, let’s ditch these two screws:

And now we will (re)flip our consideration to the underside. As normal, the rubber ft are first to go, revealing screw heads beneath ‘em:

Buh-bye:

And we now have liftoff:

One other set of flips and focus shifts:

Adopted by extra standalone photographs:

And now, freed from its higher and decrease encumbrances, the inside meeting lifts proper out:

Gotta love these focus shifts! The enclosure’s simply so tall, don’cha know:

Intelligent cooling and wi-fi connectivity

The inside meeting reveals some fairly nifty engineering. There’s a metallic plate on high of 1 aspect of the PCB, a finned warmth sink on the opposite aspect surrounded by a plastic shroud (to which the Bluetooth antenna is hooked up), and a plastic grill (that you just sorta already noticed already from these earlier inside-from-top still-assembled photographs) on the highest finish with the two.4 and 5 GHz antennae caught to it and the LED mini-PCB inserted inside it. Facet photographs first:

High finish:

And backside finish:

Let’s ditch the plastic piece across the Ethernet ports and energy connector first. It unclipped and pulled proper off with completely no fuss:

Eradicating three screws permits the extrication of the metallic plate on one aspect of the PCB:

Don’t fear; I’ll be attending to these two Faraday cages shortly:

However first, I need to get the topside plastic grill and the other-side plastic shroud off:

The 2 Wi-Fi antennas’ connections are begging for unclipping:

There’s the LED mini-PCB, nonetheless in place:

And there we’re:

Some standalone photographs of the top-end grill piece, topside first:

Then the underside:

Now the 4…err…aspect sides:

I’m guessing that “P2” references the two.4 GHz antenna construction, whereas “P5” is for…err, once more…5 GHz. Agree or disagree, readers?

Subsequent up, the aspect shroud. Outer portion first, revealing (amongst different issues) the aforementioned Bluetooth antenna:

And now the within:

Subsequent, the LCD mini-PCB.

The biggest chip on this aspect is labeled as follows:

9633
11 02
D819

My guess is that it’s an LED driver, like this PCA9633 from NXP Semiconductors. And on the opposite aspect is, in fact, the multicolor LED itself:

From the on-line documentation for the WHW01 (which, I’m guessing, works the identical because the VLP01):

• Blue (blinking): Node is beginning up
• Blue (strong): Node is working correctly
• Purple (blinking): Node is paired with telephone for setup
• Purple (strong): Node is prepared for setup
• Pink (blinking): Node misplaced connection to the first node
• If that is your major node, guarantee it’s securely related to your modem
• Pink (strong): Node misplaced web connection
• Yellow (strong): Node is just too removed from one other Velop node

And talking of which, right here’s a hyperlink to the PDF of the WHW01 consumer information, which additionally references the VLP01 on the quilt web page!

Subsequent up, let’s get that large finned heatsink off:

Fortuitously, with all of the retaining screws now eliminated, it lifted proper off straightaway:

Oh, goodie, two extra Faraday cages beneath!

Let’s take care of these first, earlier than returning to the 2 on the opposite aspect that we noticed earlier than:

Take away the thermal tape from the within of 1, bend again the opposite…

And surprisingly, not less than to me, the system SoC is not on this (previously finned heatsink-augmented) aspect of the PCB. On the left is a Winbond W632GU6MB-12 2 Gbit DDR3 SDRAM. And on the suitable is a CSR (now Qualcomm) 8811 Bluetooth 4.2 controller, unsurprising given the antenna connector’s proximity to it.

There’s another chip I need to level out on this aspect of the PCB, on the backside:

It’s a Macronix MX25L1606E 16 Mbit serial NOR flash reminiscence. (Briefly) maintain that thought

A number of nonvolatile recollections

Wrapping up, let’s revisit the PCB’s different aspect, this time post-removal of the black plastic items:

On the high is one other Winbond system, this time a serial NAND flash reminiscence chip, the 2 Gbit 25M02GV. It’s based mostly on high-reliability SLC (single-level cell) expertise, and given comparative capability, I’m guessing it comprises the majority of system software program, with the Macronix chip on the opposite aspect relegated as well and restoration code (or one thing like that…mebbe it holds updatable configuration knowledge as a substitute, though EEPROM would appear to be a superior alternative?).

Cage tops off…

Alongside the left:

are (top-to-bottom) two Skyworks SKY85330-11 2.4GHz 256QAM RF front-end modules (FEMs), adopted by two chips labeled:

SKY
748
2K01D

WikiDevi (or in the event you choose, DeviWiki) says that they’re Skyworks SKY7482I001 5 GHz FEMs, though I can’t discover such a chip on Skyworks’ web site, so as soon as once more… I’m fairly positive they’re proper in regards to the 5 GHz FEM half, however I’m questioning the precise half quantity…then once more, I can’t discover a web based reference to the SKY7482K01D, both. My working idea is that we’re truly wanting on the SKY85748-11, and Skyworks simply didn’t have room to print the “85” portion of the half quantity on the bundle.

To their proper, and previously beneath two pads of thermal tape, one connecting the cage to the metallic plate and the opposite between the cage and IC, is the dominant warmth generator of the design, Qualcomm’s IPQ4018 dual-band 802.11ac controller, which additionally handles wired Ethernet MAC duties. To its proper is the companion Qualcomm Atheros QCA8072 dual-port Ethernet PHY. So principally what we’ve obtained here’s a Linksys-branded and software-customized Qualcomm reference design. And above the QC8072 (and under the 2 wired Ethernet ports) is the Hyperlink-PP HN36201CG dual-port transformer module. There’s nothing notable beneath the sheet metallic sq. in between the IPQ4018 and QCA8072, by the way in which, in case you had been questioning.

Greater than 2,500 phrases in, that’s “all” I’ve obtained for you right now. There’s one other shock ready within the wings, however I’ll save that for an additional teardown one other (near-future, I promise) day. Till then, please share your ideas with me (and your fellow readers) within the feedback!

—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line e-newsletter.

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