Introducing the Firewalla Orange: All-in-one Firewalla + Dual Band Wi-Fi 7

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    1980cyber

    What stage is the Orange at? Is it real or just a concept? I am interested for sure. 

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    Firewalla

    Hardware + software running, tunning WiFi :)

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    David Flanigan

    Purple was "short-range wifi" - and makes a good travel router, but could not replace wifi in a small home or apartment. Will Orange offer full Wi-Fi for small-footprint applications?

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    AZ

    I guess my question is the same as David Flanigan.  Basically a wider range wifi 7 built in and can still be used as a travel router like the purple?  

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    Firewalla

    Yes, the Orange is a full firewalla + Wi-Fi access point, and it works beautifully for a small apartment. Can support much more devices and up to 1.2Gigabit (5ghz) with traffic inspection. 

    Only bad side is the size of the Orange is bigger (likely around 2x) of the purple, and runs warmer

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    Firewalla

    Orange is a full WiFi router. Like the purple, it can be stationary (get you a 2Gbit Firewalla + WiFi) or in hotels (WiFi LAN+WiFi WAN). The wifi side can comfortably handle 1000sqft (wood frame house) 

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    David Flanigan

    This will be perfect for my work apartment. I want one. 

    Need Beta testers? :D

    Second question - will the wifi mesh with the Firewalla AP7?

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    Firewalla

    David Flanigan if you have AP7 installed, the WiFi LAN function of the Orange must be off (you still can use the WAN as a backup WAN) The Orange WiFi LAN can't co-exist with AP7.

    We will offer an early bird discount and an early bird beta program, as usual. 

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    Dion Warj

    6GHz?

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    John CA

    Able to confirm functipnality stack on the range of purple to gold pro?

    DAP? Suricata? FireAI? Protect features at large, VPN support? 

    Additionally, support for captive portal logins (hotel wifi scenarios)?

    4G/5G wireless usb dongle scenarios? 

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    Firewalla

    Dion Warj Dual Band is 2.4 and 5ghz; 6ghz is too hot for a small package like this. (

     

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    Firewalla

    John CA 

    The Firewalla side of the Orange is the same as purple/purple SE. You can look at the purple column here https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010465893-Guide-How-to-Choose-between-Different-Firewalla-Products (under software features)

    So no DAP, no Suricata, Yes FireAI, Protect same purple, VPN same as purple. (WireGuard likely a bit slower than Purple, OpenVPN likely a bit faster)

    Captive portal support is the same as the purple, likely better since the WiFi7 chip is likely more powerful than the WiFI5 client chip in the purple.

    No 4G/5G wireless

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    Alan Roberts

    It sounds like it’s not supported but I’d be an insta-purchase if I could set it in my house and it would act as my 4th ‘AP7’ and then when I travel I could take it with me. When in ‘travel mode’ it connects to the hotel (or whatever) local WiFi and then it auto-VPNs back home to my Gold SE while broadcasting my home SSID

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    Firewalla

    Alan Roberts you can do this, but just not able to mesh with the AP7's seamlessly. (you can run the orange as its own unit, with the same SSID as your home one)  The idea is cool though, if we figure out how to seamlessly mesh these units

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    Alan Roberts

    Thanks for the quick reply Firewalla - nice addition to the family. I'll be watching closely to see you can figure out how to seamless mesh them - that would be amazing and could warrant a higher price tag even.

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    Firewalla

    I do know "transparent bridging mode should work", if we turn off monitoring, and manually configure the SSID, and if you don't roam too much, this may just work like an AP. But ... when you take it with you, you may need to change it back to router mode. So, the experience is not plug and play, but should be usable. 

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    Chris Parker

    This is great news. I was wondering when a successor to the Purple would appear.
    2.5G will give my WAN port some head room. Will the orange have a more powerful CPU or identical architecture as the Purple?

    WiFi 7 built in also is great move. I would love to participate in a early beta program as well as an early discount. TY

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    Knowguy

    Is that an Easter egg Firewalla Switch in the background?

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    Firewalla

    Chris Parker The Orange CPU per core performance is likely a bit better than the current purple, the purple has 2 more cores, so it is faster (unless it is running WiFi). Orange's WiFi is very fast, with inspection, it can go to 1.2 to 1.3gigabit WiFi.  If you want to get into beta, please purchase early. 

    Knowguy it is just a random switch sitting there. 

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    CloverLeaf

    That looks awesome! It will be the perfect travel companion! 🙌

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    idowens

    I love all my Firewalla devices, and the new Orange looks especially appealing as a possible replacement for my Beryl travel routers. That said, the trend—at least in the U.S.—is that Ethernet ports are becoming increasingly rare in hotel rooms.

    Obviously, the Orange could be accessed over SSH from another authorized device to configure hotel WiFi, but will it be able to handle captive portals smoothly when used as a repeater? I don’t have a Purple, so I’m not sure if the Firewalla Android app can connect ad hoc to the device to select and join a WiFi network & pass the captive portal. 

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    Eric Sorensen

    Something that would make this even more useful would be to support plugging a hard drive into the USB port for NAS.  Is this something you've considered?

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    Firewalla

    idowens The Orange can do wifi LAN and Wifi WAN at the sametime, so you can use it in hotels without ethernet. 

    The Orange is like the purple, should already have functions to talk to captive portals. (the purple been traveling for 4 years now, so there should be enough code inside to deal with common captive portals)

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    Firewalla

    Eric Sorensen It is really a bad idea to attach NAS to firewalls, it is not a good practice; A better way is just run the NAS behind the firewall

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    Manny Cavalier

    It’s a deal breaker for me knowing this Wi-Fi 7 router doesn’t have 6Ghz. 😔

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    Firewalla

    Manny Cavalier this unit is for a different market; 

    6ghz is very hot, if we include it, the size of the unit will likely be 4x to 5x bigger. You are best just get an AP7 https://firewalla.com/products/firewalla-ap7

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    Firewalla CM

    Check out our quick intro video on the Firewalla Orange: https://youtu.be/GXXYn1V-gJs?si=UC4K7Ut8tA8ikpw4

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    M

    "The Orange WiFi LAN can't co-exist with AP7."

     

    That is unfortunate. I saw later on you mentioned it can act like a standalone access point with the same SSID but wont mesh with the AP7. I assume that is because the AP7 meshes over its 6GHz band right? And the Orange doesnt have 6GHz. 

    Perhaps a software update could be done for the AP7 that gave you a setting that when an Orange was used in the whole system together you could choose to mesh over 5GHz so the Orange integrates seamlessly with the AP7's, at the cost of backhaul bandwidth from dropping to 5GHz.

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    Firewalla

    It is possible Orange WiFi LAN can coexist (but unlikely to mesh) with AP7. (coexist, like a different SSID, and if you tolerate slower roaming, it may mesh with the AP7). These features are likely future enhancements. What we say here is what's being developed for Orange initial release. (so yes ... many many cool features will come!)

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    Todd Norman

    Is there going to be support for the Firewalla Wi-Fi SD USB adapter for WAN fail-over?  That would we SWEET!

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