What else can the Xiaomi Router 3 do? Scrolling a Padavan as a bypass router for the TV has cut more than half of my mom's ads

Mid-Autumn Festival, when I went back to my mom's house, her smart TV had to wait 90 seconds for ads to turn on. A 71-year-old just sat there waiting, and even if the remote was pressed to the limit, it wouldn't get through. While cleaning the storage room, I found a Xiaomi Router 3—the first router I bought for her in 2016 for 149 yuan. After replacing the AX3000T earlier this year, it was put away in the drawer ( I usually watch over that new device remotely for her ). Instead of just gathering dust, it's better to refurbish a Padavan and use it as a dedicated bypass for ads on the TV.

clarify first: what is this old machine even fit for

Xiaomi Router 3 is a 2016 machine, priced at 149 yuan, with a MediaTek MT7620A single-core 580MHz, 128MB of RAM, 128MB of NAND flash, and all three ports running for 100MB. The earlier Xiaomi Router Mini shares the same platform, costs 129 yuan, has only 16MB of flash storage, and has two antennas. These two are the most common in the drawer.

foundation determines the position. The physical ceiling for 100Mbps ports is around 93Mbps. My home has 500Mbps broadband plugged in and it cuts right to the ankle. this machine is the main router, there's no chance, but doing some chores won't it. By the way, the R3's four antennas feed a bedroom's 2.4G through the wall, so there's still some surplus, enough to be a small AP. Additionally, its official firmware is already under maintenance, and the plugin store has stopped. If you want it to last a few more years, the only option left is to support third-party users (I've calculated how many years routers can last).

I counted three

positions: serving TVs or boxes as device-level routers for advertising sides; It serves as a 2.4G small AP for old devices at home; and also for practicing with it. Padavan's interface is entirely in Chinese, much friendlier than OpenWrt. By the way, what is a bypass router and why it can't be used as the main router? I previously wrote about it using a 100-megabit machine ( that article is here).

: Turn on SSH; older models have old channels

third-party swipes, you first need to obtain the system key, which is SSH. AX3000T the official channels of those new machines are soldered shut, you need to switch to community tools ( wrote about the SSH in the post); For old machines like the R3 and Mini, the official channels are still alive today—just five steps to finish:

• the machine is restored to factory first, then returns to the official firmware before proceeding;
• link your phone to Mijia and log in with your account;
• your computer's browser to open the miwifi SSH page, log in to the same Xiaomi account, and the page will show the root password for this machine. Copy it down;
• download the official toolkit, format the USB drive to FAT32, rename the files to miwifi.bin and place them in the root directory of the USB drive;
• the router powers off, plug in the USB drive, hold the SIM pin against the reset before plugging in. When the indicator light starts to flash orange, release it. After a few minutes, SSH will turn on.

two pitfalls first. The root password is a string per machine; copied from the internet is useless; Try to use old small USB drives; the newly purchased large FAT32 drive still requires tools, so don't get stuck at this step. After finishing, use the terminal to type ssh root@192.168.31.1, the password is the string I just copied; as long as it can log in, it's fine.

Step two, spawn Breed and fix the back lane first

Breed is like the fuse of the flashing world—even if the firmware is broken, it can still get you back. When I flashed AX3000T, it was the backup ( six-step process is in this article). First, download the Breed package for the corresponding model. R3 and mini are not the same package. Check the model on the download page before clicking.

use WinSCP or SCP to transfer the packet to the router's /tmp directory, then type this line:

mtd -r write /tmp/breed.bin Bootloader

partition name, write Bootloader. Don't use a single letter yourself; if you reprint the wrong partition, it's a real brick. After restarting, to enter Breed: Cut off the power, hold the reset plug in, let the indicator light flash wildly then release, manually set the IP address to 192.168.1.2 on the computer, and open 192.168.1.1 in your browser to enter.

first thing when entering Breed isn't flashing, but backup. console, export one copy each of the programmer firmware and EEPROM, and save one copy from the computer cloud drive. EEPROM stores the wireless network card's MAC and calibration parameters. If you lose this, half of the machine's WiFi is ruined, and even the programmer can't save it. My backup took less than two minutes, and those two minutes were the best part of the whole thing.

step three, spawn Padavan in Breed and pose it as a side route

Padavan, on forums it's called 'Old Russian,' a well-established third-party firmware alongside OpenWrt (I've written about OpenWrt of that path), with a fully Chinese interface. Its tuning for small memory platforms like the MT7620 is the most mature among all firmware brands. The mini's 16MB flash comes with a simplified version of the firmware, while the R3's 128MB NAND is easily installed.

Breed console firmware update, select regular firmware, upload Padavan's trx package, and it will automatically restart in a few minutes. After swiping, the management address changes to 192.168.123.1. Both the account and password are admin. The first thing you do when entering is change the password.

then position it in a side position for four steps:

• LAN change the IP to be in the same subnet as the main router but with a one-digit difference. I set it to 192.168.31.3;
• DHCP turn off the server, only one person in the room can send an IP;
• both the gateway and DNS should be set to the main router 192.168.31.1;
• one network cable has both ends connected to the LAN port, and the other end should be connected to the main router.

the logic behind this setup, why do you have to turn off DHCP or dual DHCP when it gets fighting? I explained this in detail in the Bypass Routing article, so I won't repeat it here.

received it on my mom's TV and recorded both the actual test and the failure here

WiFi settings on the TV, set the IP to manual, set the gateway field to 31.3, and keep all other devices untouched—keep 31.1 as usual. This is called device-level—one device runs it, and the whole family won't be beaten down. I've said this more than once.

In the

Padavan, I turned on the Adbyby switch in the ad-blocking extension feature, and added a list of TV ad domain blockers in the DNS hosts section. It's the same method as routers blocking websites ( that article here). In actual testing: the TV's settings had a hidden switch for startup ads, so I turned it off halfway first; The rest can't be stopped: after passing R3, the startup wait slows from 90 seconds to just over ten seconds, and the patch paused at the start basically goes black and passes quickly. My mom's exact words weren't at last to sit and wait for the sentence.

be clear: don't expect to be 100% clean. Most of today's apps and TV traffic go through HTTPS. Solutions like Adbyby mainly block HTTP and domain layer ads, so it's normal not to block them. If you want to block all DNS solutions like AdGuard Home, Three things that went wrong were also recorded: the rule list expires, becomes invalid every few months, and requires a new replacement at Enshan Mountain; There is a TV app that just whitescreens the screen; just whitelist it in the rules; Also, don't let all your family's data pass through it. The MT7620 single-core 580MHz can easily filter about 20MB bitrates per TV, but if you get 500MB of FamilyMart data, it will just get stuck on its own.

I also calculated

electricity bills: standby is just over 4 watts, earning twenty to thirty yuan a year ( the same algorithm as those network devices at home). No matter how you calculate it, it's better than just collecting dust. If your home doesn't need advertising, treat it like a 2.4G small AP for convenience: send a 2.4G WiFi list, pin the camera, speaker, and vacuum all on, and the main router's 5G is crisp and clean.

want to revisit the official release or release second-hand items, don't get the order backwards

get tired of it and want to revisit the official team—it's simple: just update the firmware in Breed, send the official bin, and get the official firmware from the download page by model ( make sure the model and hardware version ). After flashing in ten minutes, all Padavan parts are gone. Remember to reset the TV's gateway back to 31.1, or the TV will be disconnected immediately.

The order for

to release second-hand is: flash back to the official post, restore factory (and turn off SSH while you're at it), unbind Mijia, and only then is it time to ship. If the order is reversed, buyer binding will cause errors; I've touched on this issue ( the factory restoration post has details ). Keep the Breed and don't touch it; keep EEPROM backups even better. If you ever want to tinker with it again, it's the life of this machine.

conclude with a sentence: For an old machine with hundreds of megapixels, think carefully about what you want it to do before you start. I've figured it out—these five steps in one night are enough. My mom's TV is still quietly working behind the cabinet.