Hello,

I have red, that WiFi card built-in Orange Pi Lite (RTL8189FTV) could make troubles (drivers), so I wonder - maybe will be better to buy Orange Pi One and WiFi dongle (a well tested one, with non-problem chipset)

Which WiFi dongle would you recommend for Orange Pi One?

Which WiFi dongle would you recommend for Orange Pi One?

 

None, if you don't need Ethernet. Just choose OPi Lite instead since you'll never ever get any USB Wi-Fi dongle for the price difference ($2) that will 'perform as good' as OPi Lite's RTL8189FTV.

 

There were some problems with a missing driver in the beginning but those have been resolved pretty soon. So don't let you fool by outdated forum posts (especially when not from Armbian forum since there are many OS images for OPi boards around that completely miss a Wi-Fi driver for OPi Lite -- important to understand all those whining in official OPi forums) and please also keep in mind that this is still single antenna 2.4 GHz low power Wi-Fi behind a pretty slow SDIO bus (still better than el cheapo USB Wi-Fi sticks, even those that cheat on you and talk about '150 Mbps' or even '300 Mbps')

Ok, thanks a lot!

I've found a

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2015-Raspberry-pi-Wifi-dongle-Micro-USB-wireless-Adapter-Dongle-802-11n-Plug-and-Play-Free/32357527348.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.19.Z3IXSK&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_3_10065_10068_10501_10000074_10503_10000032_119_10000025_10000029_430_10000028_10060_10000067_10062_10056_10055_10000062_10054_10059_10099_10000022_10000012_10103_10000015_10102_10096_10000018_10000019_10000056_10000059_10052_10053_10107_10050_10106_10051_10000053_10000007_10000050_10084_10083_10119_10000047_10080_10082_10081_10110_10111_10112_10113_10114_10115_10116_10000041_10000044_10078_10079_10000038_429_10073_10000035_10120_10121-10053_10503_10501_10119_10116,searchweb201603_1,afswitch_1_afChannel,single_sort_2_default&btsid=2a449c79-925c-4336-9f16-37a66ce313e3

on RT8188, so I tough it will be working better (stable drivers are for me more important than fast transmission - there will be short distances and small data packets).

I've found a

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2015-Raspberry-pi-Wifi-dongle-Micro-USB-wireless-Adapter-Dongle-802-11n-Plug-and-Play-Free/32357527348.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.19.Z3IXSK&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_3_10065_10068_10501_10000074_10503_10000032_119_10000025_10000029_430_10000028_10060_10000067_10062_10056_10055_10000062_10054_10059_10099_10000022_10000012_10103_10000015_10102_10096_10000018_10000019_10000056_10000059_10052_10053_10107_10050_10106_10051_10000053_10000007_10000050_10084_10083_10119_10000047_10080_10082_10081_10110_10111_10112_10113_10114_10115_10116_10000041_10000044_10078_10079_10000038_429_10073_10000035_10120_10121-10053_10503_10501_10119_10116,searchweb201603_1,afswitch_1_afChannel,single_sort_2_default&btsid=2a449c79-925c-4336-9f16-37a66ce313e3

on RT8188, so I tough it will be working better (stable drivers are for me more important than fast transmission - there will be short distances and small data packets).

 

Well, if you think one sort of cheap RealTek crap would be better than another then at least be assured that I did some testing already and will never ever buy such an USB dongle since you can judge already by looking at it (mini aerial) what to expect: https://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/2586-realtek-rtl8192eu-wifi-driver/?p=18413

 

BTW: never had any stability problems with 8189FTV but of course you can't expect any performance from this kind of Wi-Fi. Also when you feed the custom google powered search (see my sig below) with eg 'RTL8188 driver' it should also be obvious what to avoid if in doubt.

As always, your answers leave no illusions :-) respect for your knowledge and fairness!

By the way - talking about dongles and built-in's - in the case of Bluetooth function - it does not have such a number of obstacles to use dongles instead of built-in? I mean buying Orange Pi Lite + BT dongle instead of NanoPI Neo Air?

I mean buying Orange Pi Lite + BT dongle instead of NanoPI Neo Air?

 

No idea, never used BT with Linux a single time. But you can use forum search -- AP6212 is used on a lot of other devices than the Air (with more to come in the next weeks/months). By reading through @arox' posts I got the impression that there's something clearly wrong with BT software stack in user space. But maybe that does only apply to 'sophisticated' stuff like BT audio -- don't know...

I have no experience of recent cheap WIFI dongles .

An important point IMHO is to choose one that allows Access point and Blue Tooth operation.

Using a long USB cable can also improve greatly their performance by placing them in a place

where interference is low.

Speaking of cheap - never had any problem with ralink chips supported by rt2800usb module but you don't get it any cheaper than $2.60 (rt5370) so $2 for built in wifi is bargain.