Hello. When would Flint 3 be available for ordering in Italy? I'm thinking of selling my Flint 2 to a friend and get Flint 3, my friend is a bit in a hurry as he would like me to setup his Wi-Fi 6 network (he isn't an expert)
The beta test did not even start yet - I would assume it will be late Q2 2025 then.
1 Like
Thanks. Is there a way of participating in a beta test as far as you know? I'd like to if possible
1 Like
Rocking! Subscribed! Thanks make. Gute Nacht
You can sign up for the beta test, other than that everything is very quiet, in order to be a beta tester you have to have good literacy and knowledge on gl-inet gui and openwrt knowledge in order to properly find bugs that most people would not normally find.
I have discovered Flint 2 bugs which I have reported which since have been patched and these bugs I encountered were through the gui of gl inet and openwrt
1 Like
Why is the future Flint 3 taking a step back in development?
Slower Wireguard and OpenVPN
Fewer LAN ports
No USB 4
Higher power consumption
Do you have a beta test device to say so?
He says so purely on the specs on the product pages.
There are indeed a few specs that are lower:
- 5 instead of 6 ethernet connections. What you do not mention is that all of those 5 are 2,5 Gbps, while the flint 2 only has 2 x 2,5Gbps. The other lan-ports on the Flint 2 are just Gbit.
- Both have a USB3 port
- Flint 2 advertises 1148Mbps (2.4GHz), while Flint 3 advertises 688Mbps (2.4GHz). That said: Flint 3 has 6GHz and higher speeds on 5GHz. Also no MLO for flint 2, because that is not wifi 7.
- With more speeds (and more wifi bands) there can indeed be more power usage. < 20 w vs < 24 W.
- The VPN speeds is simply result of a slow CPU-SOC: MediaTek Quad-core, @2.0 GHz in Flint 2 vs Qualcomm Quad-core @1.5GHz in Flint 3. The MediaTek wins there.
These are choices that are made based on chipsets that are available in the market. Possible the OpenWrt Two would be a better match for you with its MediaTek 7988-soc.
3 Likes
If these are really the specs, the breaking point for me is the VPN speed and performance which depends on the CPU, then I will not buy Flint 3. I already have a Wi-Fi 7 router provided by my ISP which is quite OK, so I'll keep Flint 2 behind this device and continue like this
Looking at the specs, the more important question is: Will the Flint 3 ship with OP24 firmware? If not, I’ll likely choose another device that does. @bruce, could you clarify this?
So, I actually wanted to buy the new Flint 3; currently, I have the Flint 2. However, when I saw that the Flint 3 only achieves "OpenVPN Speed Up to 142 Mbps; WireGuard® Speed Up to 644 Mbps", I was quite disappointed. Therefore, I will probably stick with the Flint 2 and wait for the Flint 4.
2 Likes
Hello,
It may not ship with op24 firmware, as vanilla openwrt does not yet adapt to this hardware platform.
2 Likes
I believe that this is the way. MTK for Flint 4 with vanilla OpenWRT development support would be golden. However, Im glad that GL did not cheap out with the wifi-7 features just like what other manufacturers are doing so thats a good start. Still a solid buy for those who wants to upgrade from their very old routers tho.
3 Likes
Thanks for the feedback, @bruce.
Are you planning to roll out OP24 with Flint 3, once it is available/usable?
We can't determine this time.
It depends on whether there are any contributors from open-source community who are willing to debug or to adapt this CPU hardware solution.
1 Like
Looking at the specs compared do Flint 2 I would not downgrade my Flint 2 with the flint 3, this sounds quite funny saying that the newer model made some years after flint 2 to be worse than flint 2 
1 Like
Frankly speaking I do not know why GL have chosen those specs. With all the due respect, and as you mentioned, it is literally a downgrade from Flint 2 and I would have bought Flint 3 if I didn't read the comments here, as I took it for granted that it must be better. Hoping for better specs in Flint 4, who knows, maybe Wi-Fi 8 will be there as well
Likely it is purely based on SoC-availability.
MediaTek Filogic 880 or Qualcomm IPQ5332 are logical choices for the chipset of the device. Both of those are current flagship chips for wifi-routers.
Routers are sadly not like PCs where you can easily pick and match parts. The selected SoC will decide a lot!
The OpenWRT Two (manufactured by GL-iNet) appears to get a MediaTek Filogic 880; If GL-inet would make a GL-inet Firmware as well, possibly that would fit your specs better?
There are indeed some lower specs, but there are also other specs better than Flint 2. If indeed one of those specs that went down is important, then the Flint 2 indeed will be better for now.