unboxing

    Unboxing the Firewalla Gold Pro

    My early access Firewalla Gold Pro 10 gigabit router came today. It’s replacing a Firewalla Gold Plus 2.5Gb router we’ve used for the last year.

    Cardboard box with 'Firewalla' printed in the center

    The production line isn’t fully running yet but the packaging and the router itself look like it is. Firewalla says the hardware design is finished and this is the same unit everyone else will get later this year. The software’s still under active development.

    Open box showing the router and boxed power supply A yellow router in a semi-opaque wrapper A white metal box with 'Firewalla' embossed in the top

    The Gold Pro is quite a bit larger than the Gold Plus and doesn’t have mounting holes on the bottom for vertical installation. It does have holes on the side for installing rack mount ears.

    The front panel of a router with 2 10G ports and 2 2.5G ports The golden yellow metal bottom of the router

    A fan screamed when I turned it on. It turned off a few seconds later. I wouldn’t want it in the room with me if it always ran at full speed.

    Setup was mostly easy. The Firewalla app prompted to replace an old box or set it up as new. I followed the “replace an old box” process and was running a few minutes later.

    “Mostly” means:

    • I had to reboot my ISP’s modem to clear out its MAC cache, and I initially plugged the WAN cord into the wrong jack on the Firewalla. Neither of those were its fault.
    • A software glitch in migrating the firewall rules from the old router to the new one stopped one of my remote servers from connecting in. This is an early access device so I knew what I was getting into. I reported the problem to Firewalla’s tech support and they’re looking into it.
    Screenshot of its iPhone app showing its setup options

    The end result was a smoking fast 8 gigabits down, 3.4 gigabits up connection. A speed test from my Mac Studio was faster yet.

    Screenshot of a speed test showing 'Download 7989.90 Mb/s, Upload 3384.77 Mb/s'. Also, the Cardinals were losing to the Reds.

    This is a beta device. It may stop working at any moment, catch fire, overfeed the dog, or call me bad names. As long as it keeps racing along like this, I’m going to be a very happy tester.