[sthlmb]

I do accept them from vendors directly (and it has no bearing on how I run the tests) but I've not taken any from individuals before. I'm not quite sure how I'd do that logistically, but if there's something interesting then I'm open to discussing it!

I'm currently in talks with a few of the vendors to start filling the database with missing boards from their ranges so we should have more data available in the coming weeks. There should be 2 BeagleBoard (Eco Green and PocketBeagle 2) arriving tomorrow/Tuesday to expand their range on the site!

[aspenmayer]

As for donations from individuals, I have seen folks who do this kind of thing get a P.O. Box or use a mailbox service provider/remailer[0] to maintain their opsec, though that is an added expense. It would likely be easier to accept donations earmarked for equipment purchases, but that requires a bit of trust and reputation, but you have to begin where you are, which is pretty good so far, as you are doing your own tests on your own equipment in your possession. I’m sure many would be willing and able to donate funds and/or hardware, if the option were presented to them, but I don’t know if that is worth the added efforts involved in engaging with the community.

Directly engaging with vendors for donations is somewhat fraught with concerns of its own, as ideally you are doing blind purchases so that vendors can’t give you known-good units, but rather are giving you units that the vendor doesn’t already know are going to be subject to enhanced scrutiny.

Maybe get in touch with the OpenWRT folks to see if you can test the OpenWRT One? I believe they’re using a modified BananaPi design.

https://openwrt.org/toh/openwrt/one

> OpenWrt One is based on the MediaTek Filogic 820 SoC and has WiFi 6, dual-band, 3×3/2×2, 1x 2.5Gbit WAN, 1x 1Gbit LAN, 1GB DDR4 RAM, 256 MiB NAND, 16 MiB NOR (for recovery), M.2 SSD, USB-C Serial console and USB 2.0. Power Over Ethernet (POE): an IEEE 802.3af/at compliant device can power the device via the RJ-45 2.5 Gbps WAN connector.

https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/OpenWRT-One/BananaPi_OpenWRT-O...

> OpenWrt One uses Mediatek’s MT7981B SoC with a dual-arm Cortex-a53 core at 1.3 GHz, 1 GB DDR4 RAM and 256 MiB SPI NAND storage. It also integrates 16 MiB of additional protected storage as a system backup, dual storage hardware to ensure that the onboard system is unbrickable, and finally integrated M.2. 2230/2242 NVMe PCIe 2 X1 ports can be used to add external storage. And with a battery holder for an internal clock, OpenWrt One offers a USB 2.0 Type-A and a mikroBUS expansion port to provide more interfaces to a host of technical possibilities

> OpenWrt One is the first board design with OpenWrt opensource communtity.and designed in collaboration with Banana Pi that will also handle manufacturing and distribution of the router board. The OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY router should provide a source of income for the project, for example, to cover the cost of hosting and OpenWrt conferences, with Banana Pi selling the board through their distribution network, and for every device sold, donating to the Software Freedom Conservancy (SDC) with the funds earmarked for OpenWrt.

[0] Techlore on YouTube interviewed the operator of such a service in the video linked below. I won’t name the company as this is not a review or endorsement (pun intended), as I have not used their service, nor can I speak to their operations, but the interview is a decent explainer of the service itself from the point of view of an operator of such a service, and other competitors in that field are also named.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=idSBvjaaFSk

[sthlmb]

I do have a ko-fi available in the footer of the website, and if someone wants their donation to go towards a specific piece of hardware then I'll most certainly do what I can to honour that, or return it if I can't.

On the samples from vendors front, yeah, that's definitely a concern, though in the years I've been working with manufacturers and had samples from them, I'm fairly confident that no "golden sample" binning is going on as I've had quite a few shockers, hah! Not to say that it couldn't/wouldn't happen, I wouldn't want to introduce that doubt. Perhaps, like my review website, I should add a quick note/indicator of whether a board was obtained directly from a vendor, or if it was purchased.