Review on Cudy AC2100 Smart WiFi Mesh Router with WiFi Range Extender, Access Point, Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Internet Router for Home, 5 dBi Antenna, VPN, IPv6, Quality of Service (QoS), OpenWRT, WR2100 by Ernest Duckett

I've been using Tomato firmware for a long time (I've used various Tomato plugs on other routers for over 10 years). Recently I came to openwrt trying to find the best budget ac router that supports openwrt. they exceeded my expectations. When I saw this Cudy WR2100 for sale I bought it immediately. Out of the box, with stock firmware Cudy 03032021, Archer C7 messed up the speed. Placed in the same place, my laptop had 440Mbps at 12ft. C7 could only reach 330Mbps. The computers in the bedroom 1 floor above reached 260 Mbit/s compared to 140 Mbit/s before. On the Kadi website they have Openwrt 19.07 for flashing over the stock firmware. I haven't tested this for long and tried Openwrt 21.02. But speeds dropped to 120Mbps at best, and throughput was like a rollercoaster ride. I tried to go back to 7/19 and started cooking. Good thing the recovery procedure is very easy with tftp64 and I downloaded the recovery firmware and then the latest stock firmware. But the stock firmware had a terrible graphical interface and couldn't turn off Wi-Fi bands on its own. Speeds were also sporadic and unpredictable. Reverted to Cudy's OpenWRT 19.07 and left that version for a while. The last 3 days since 7/19 have been very stable and the speed is still much better than C7. The Wi-Fi signal strength is also better than the C7 and my devices seem to reconnect a bit faster. Overall I'm very happy with this router and plan to use it for many years until Wifi 6E becomes more popular and I find a better budget. Wi-Fi 6E in the future. If Cudy ever releases a 6E device, I'll seriously consider buying it too.