
Ask HN: Any startup working on a os for consumer routers? - soulbadguy
It seems that this last couple of years we have seen the hardware side of the average consumer router evolve quite a bit (probably due the volume economy from smartphone).The software on the other side haven&#x27;t progress as nicely  :
1 - Lot of security issues and bugs 
2 - No automatic update
3 - Complex configuration
4 - Usually missing basic feature like parental control, bandwith allocation,vpns etc...<p>There are a lot of opensource OSes and project for router but most of them end up target at either hackers or enthusiast.<p>Why isn&#x27;t anybody trying to build a better software platform for consumer routers ? The only real initiative we have seen lately is google&#x27;s onhub.
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sumodirjo
What about appliance created using open source OS like : \-
[https://www.pfsense.org/products/](https://www.pfsense.org/products/) \-
[https://www.clearos.com/products/hardware/clearbox-
overview](https://www.clearos.com/products/hardware/clearbox-overview) \-
[http://www.endian.com/products-overview/](http://www.endian.com/products-
overview/) \- [https://www.untangle.com/untangle-ng-
firewall/appliances/](https://www.untangle.com/untangle-ng-
firewall/appliances/)

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soulbadguy
Most of those initiative are not targeted at the consumer level

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archimedespi
You wouldn't need to do much more than put a pretty front-end on
(free|open)BSD to have a decent consumer router. You can even do this with
commodity hardware:
[http://rtfm.net/FreeBSD/ERL/](http://rtfm.net/FreeBSD/ERL/)

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soulbadguy
I totaly agree on this. All this really need is a nice web front end and some
nice apis for smarphones/plugin apps. My questions is mainly given that this
shouldnt technically very challenging why is nobody giving it a shot. Why BSD
vs Linux ?

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mfruhling
I'm skeptical you could convince a mainstream homeowner to switch from the
router that Verizon or Comcast supplies to them. You would have to 1) Make it
wireless, the one I have from Comcast is a wireless router and I don't want to
loose functionality 2) Make the new router have seamless setup with some
device I can't get to work with my other router....maybe xbox, home
automation, etc. 3) Make it dead simple for me to swap the $6/month I'm paying
Verizon and start paying you instead...I do not want to call Verizon customer
support...ever.

Because Verizon and others have conditioned people to pay a monthly fee, but
they don't back that up with any updates for software or hardware, there
should be an opportunity to offer a better substitute.

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soulbadguy
Good points. I wouldnt think that trying to sell directly to consumer is a
viable business model. As you pointed that the number of people who actually
think of buying a new router is just too small. I was thinking of something
like what google is doing with android of their onHub platform. Build the
software, and licence it (or sell support) to booth hardware manufacture
(asus,netgear) and ISPs.

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kafkaesq
Good question, but I'd suggest a title correction:

"a os -> "an OS"

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soulbadguy
Can't update the title :(

