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How to hack the Google wifi cylinder with Openwrt
2026年07月08日 21:35:54 -05:00
img1.jpg first commit 2026年07月08日 21:35:54 -05:00
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README.md first commit 2026年07月08日 21:35:54 -05:00

Hacking OpenWrt on Google's wifi cylinder

Intro

Google Wifi AC-1304 is codenamed Gale and it is possible to install OpenWrt on it. The device has 2 radios, 2 ethernet ports, and a single USB type C interface. This limitation makes it difficult to both power and flash. This guide walks through doing it with nothing but a single USB drive and a bench power supply.

This guide is based on https://github.com/kkestell/openwrt-on-google-wifi and follows the guide in the wiki here: https://openwrt.org/toh/google/wifi?s[]=link except it uses a single USB drive and does not require a hub.

Hardware Required

  • Sacrificial Legacy USB 1.1/2.0 flash drive
  • Soldering set
  • 5V power supply
  • Phillips screwdriver
  • Guitar pick for prying base tabs open

Prepare Google Wifi Cylinder

  1. Unscrew the single screw hole on the bottom and using a guitar pick, gently pry the tabs on the bottom releasing the base and exposing the board.
  2. On the bottom you will see a daughterboard, in the middle of the daughterboard is a square pad between the ports and above the USB header. This is your +5V rail. You can safely solder a wire to this pad. I just tacked onto this pad, it doesn't have to be pretty. You can also use any groundplane for the common. I used the screw terminal and wrapped the wire around it. You can use your DMM with the device plugged into a supply to confirm these points.
  3. Power the board using these newly added connections using a power supply.

image DMM

Installation

  1. Download the target OpenWrt image https://openwrt.org/toh/google/wifi
  2. Write the image to a sacrificial flash drive using dd
dd if=openwrt-25.12.5-ipq40xx-chromium-google_wifi-squashfs-factory.bin of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress
sync
  1. Get the block device for the disk. It will likely be /dev/sdX
  2. Fix the MBR with fdisk. It will prompt you that the MBR is mis-aligned. You can hit w directly to fix the boundaries.
fdisk /dev/sdX
  1. Plug in the flash drive.
  2. Hold the external reset button on the front of the cylinder and turn on your 5V supply.
  3. Wait around 10 seconds and the front LED will turn orange.
  4. Press SW7 inside the device. The LED will blink purple, then reboot.
  5. When the LED blinks purple after rebooting, press SW7 once more to trigger USB boot.
  6. If the device successfully boots OpenWrt, you should be able to ping 192.168.1.1 from a computer connected via Ethernet.