Banana Pi Opensource Router R1 Overview and Wireless Test

Banana Pi Router R1

Banana Pi M1 is the handy dandy development board that can handle anything from Apache server to OwnCloud. The Banana Pi R1 is a routerfied version of the M1 with the same SoC, Allwinner A20, but now with 5 Gigabit ports, and wireless support. This router offer good performance and most importantly can run on a variety of operating system including Android, OpenWrt, Raspbian, Fedora...



Unboxing

The inner container of Banana Pi R1 is quiet nice, it looks decent and is easy to open, but the outer container is wrapped with tape, so get you scissors ready for some though times:p 


Specifications



  • A20 dual core 1GHz processor
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 4 Gigabit LAN, 1 Gigabit WAN
  • 1 USB 2.0
  • 2 micro USB (Plug power cable to the one on the side!)
  • SATA for 2.5 inch drives
  • Micro SD (For operating system)
  • Wireless a/b/g/n dual band with antenna connectors

Quick Start

Download Banana Pi R1 image (Android if this is your first time), and Phoenix Card writer (for android img) here. 
Extract the zip package.
Format a micro SD card (8 GB minimum) FAT 32.
Run PhoenixCard.exe from the Phoenix folder
Select the drive letter corresponding to the micro SD card.
Select the Android image downloaded from the package or from bananapi.com
Select boot and press Burn

Connect power adapter to the micro USB that is on the outer side (at least 1.35 Amps, I tried with 800 mAh and the system crashed all the time)
Connect Ethernet cable to the single port apart form the four port cluster. 


Connect HDMI display (optional).


Connect to the network and go to "10.0.0.1" to access the OpenWrt router interface. (password: root)

Wireless Test

I ran some wireless tests with antennas salvaged from an older router. Antennas are a must have and they boost the wireless range dramatically. If you do not have antennas, go buy some because it is not going to work if you are more than 5 feet away. I only did 2.4 GHz benchmark because I cannot get the 5 GHz signal to broadcast on the R1.  


BPI R1 with antennas (android default settings)

1 feet away
  • 32.14 Mbps download
  • 11.57 Mbps upload
1 wall away
  • 10.96 Mbps download
  • 11.57 Mbps upload
20 feet 2 walls away
  • 3.48 Mbps download
  • 11.08 Mbps upload

TP Link TL-WR 841N (DD-Wrt defaults)

1 feet away
  • 47.64 Mbps download
  • 11.62 Mbps upload
1 wall away
  • 44.09 Mbps download
  • 11.22 Mbps upload
20 feet 2 walls away
  • 23.57 Mbps
  • 9.15 Mbps

Conclusion

The Banana Pi R1 is definitely a fun project with decent performance for real applications as well. Though it can not compete with the legendary $20 TP Link router in performance in 2.4GHz, the R1 has more processing power than even $200 routers. The R1 is ideal for a NAS as it has a SATA port for a 2.5 inch hard drive and it is also good for a VPN server or a TOR router. 

This is the R1 overview and I will post more R1 projects in the coming weeks! Most M1 projects will also be compatible with the R1 if it runs on Raspbian or similar Linux OS. 

Mopidy Music Streaming Server on Banana Pi (Partial)

What is Mopidy?

A music server capable of playing music on local storage, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and more. It can be accessed through a web interface. So basically, it plays music and store music, but now with your Banana Pi. Visit Mopidy page to learn more. If you want to do more hacking, check the official Mopidy support page. 


Installation

The following installation will be done with Putty, if you need help connecting to your Pi command lines with a PC look at this blog article or the beginning guide.
First we need to install Python for Mopidy server to run

Check if you already installed Python, Mopidy needs version 2.7.x
python --version

 Then install some more Python packages (on Debian)
apt-get install build-essential python-dev python-pip

 Then we need to install a thing called GStreamer
apt-get install python-gst0.10 gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-tools

Now installing Mopidy
pip install -U mopidy

 Installing Mopidy Extensions (run lines separately and it might take a while)
pip install Mopidy-HTTP-Kuechenradio
pip install Mopidy-GMusic
pip install Mopidy-SoundCloud
pip install Mopidy-YouTube
pip install Mopidy-Spotify-Tunigo

It is wise to install this interface too
pip install Mopidy-Mopify

For the complete list of plugins
pip search mopidy

HTTP Configuration

nano /root/.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf
Look at the configuration file and un-comment a line if changes are needed



Now restart Mopidy service
service mopidy restart

Access Web Interface

In a browser go to
"the local IP of Mopidy":6680
for example
192.168.1.1:6680
Select a web interface (in this case Mopify)
Now make sure you enable cookies and block ups
Connect with your Spotify account and start listening


Server Testing

*Sorry I did not get it to work with spotify yet, there is some lag, and I can not hear audio output, you might need spotify premium

Debug

mopidy local scan

Alternative

Just run android and play music that way!
So much easier
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