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Google Wifi

Table of Contents

Neat little device that runs ChromeOS. They have been abandoned by upstream but make excellent OpenWRT devices! I am using them to build out a bunch of Reticulum nodes.

1. OpenWRT Install

This is a distilled version of the OpenWRT wiki page for the device.

1.1. Factory Reset

  • Hold the Reset button
  • Connect power
  • Release button when flashing orange
  • Insert recovery image
  • LED should turn off, and recovery begins
  • After about 5-6 minutes, the device should automatically reboot; LED will pulse blue

1.2. Install OpenWRT

  • Hold the Reset button
  • Connect power
  • Release button when flashing orange and amber
  • Press SW7
  • wait for pulsing blue then purple blink
  • connect USB
  • Press SW7

1.3. Copy image to device

scp -o StrictHostKeyChecking=accept-new -O openwrt-24.10.4-ipq40xx-chromium-google_wifi-squashfs-factory.bin root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/
ssh root@192.168.1.1 -C "dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 seek=7634911 of=/dev/mmcblk0 count=33 && dd if=/tmp/openwrt-24.10.4-ipq40xx-chromium-google_wifi-squashfs-factory.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0"
ssh root@192.168.1.1 "reboot"
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts -R '192.168.1.1'

ssh root@192.168.1.1 "opkg update && opkg install cfdisk resize2fs"
... resize the FS
ssh root@192.168.1.1 "resize2fs /dev/loop0"

Date: 2026-02-01 Sun 08:53

Author: Aaron Bieber

Created: 2026-02-01 Sun 09:26

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