Not a router. A private internet. Everything Big Tech charges you monthly for β running on hardware you own, in your home, under your rules.
Get Your Router What's inside βThe Mycelium network is named after the underground fungal web that connects forest trees β invisible, decentralised, self-healing, and stronger the more nodes join it. That's exactly what Rocket Routers built into your hardware.
Most routers do one thing: move data between your devices and your ISP. The Mycelium router does that too, but it also runs a complete set of private internet services locally β on the device itself, in your home, with no monthly subscription and no data leaving your network unless you choose it to.
The result is a plug-and-play dashboard that replaces Google Drive, YouTube, WhatsApp, Gmail, and parental control apps with self-hosted alternatives you fully own. Not because it's complicated β because it should have always worked this way.
Every feature below ships pre-configured on the router. Nothing to install. Nothing to code. One dashboard controls all of it.
Matrix-powered community rooms running on your node. Local mesh chat between neighbours, plus global mesh rooms that connect Mycelium nodes worldwide. No phone number required. No Big Tech server.
Upload and share videos like YouTube β with user channels, anonymous posting, voting, and community moderation. Videos live on your SSD. Your channel, your rules, no algorithm deciding who sees it.
An on-device AI assistant running directly on the router, powered by Claude. Private by design β your questions never leave your network. Available to every device on your mesh without a subscription.
Every device on your network gets ad and tracker blocking at the DNS level. No app to install on phones, tablets, or smart TVs. Ads are blocked before they ever reach your devices.
Bad domains β malware, phishing, known data harvesters β are blocked automatically across your whole network. Your router knows what to block before your devices even ask.
Content filtering by category, fully integrated into the dashboard. Toggle it per device, per schedule, without an app or cloud account. Your children, your settings, no third party involved.
Route your traffic through a VPN at the router level β every device on your network protected without installing a VPN app on each one. Switch providers or configure your own exit node from the dashboard.
Your own email server on your own hardware. No Google. No Microsoft. No scanning your inbox to serve you ads. Full SMTP/IMAP, usable with any standard email client.
Add more Rocket Routers nodes to grow your mesh. Each new node extends coverage and adds resilience. If one goes offline, the mesh reroutes automatically. Built on OpenWrt with 802.11s and BATMAN protocols.
Every router ships with a unique invite code generated at first boot. You control who joins your mesh. Share the code with people you trust. Change it any time β existing members are never affected.
Live camera feeds from your network, peer-to-peer video between mesh nodes, and a WebRTC-powered live tab in the dashboard. See what's on your mesh in real time.
Everything above ships configured. Power on, connect, open the dashboard at 192.168.1.1. No SSH required. No coding. No cloud account. The complexity lives inside β you just use it.
This is what the Mycelium router replaces β and what it costs to buy these services separately from Big Tech.
| Service | Big Tech version | Monthly cost | Mycelium includes it | Your data stays yours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community chat | WhatsApp / Discord | Free (you're the product) | β Yes | β Yes |
| Video platform | YouTube | Β£12/mo (no ads) | β Yes | β Yes |
| AI assistant | ChatGPT Plus | Β£20/mo | β Yes β Mycelium AI (Claude, on your device) | β Yes |
| Ad blocking | Browser extension | Β£2β5/mo | β Yes | β Yes |
| VPN | NordVPN / ExpressVPN | Β£4β8/mo | β Yes | β Yes |
| Parental controls | Circle / Disney | Β£5β8/mo | β Yes | β Yes |
| Email server | Google / Microsoft 365 | Β£5β10/mo per user | β Yes | β Yes |
| Mesh networking | Eero / Orbi (subscription) | Β£3β10/mo | β Yes | β Yes |
Estimated subscription cost if purchased separately: Β£50β80 per month. The Mycelium router is a one-off purchase.
In May 2026, a Rocket Routers customer asked Google's AI about the Mycelium concept. After the customer explained what the dashboard actually does, Google AI updated its answer in real time. Here's what it said:
The Restated Verdict: An All-in-One Local Cloud
The Mycelium network from Rocket Routers isn't just managing your Wi-Fi signals β it functions as a private, secure home server right out of the box. Instead of sending all your private data to massive corporate clouds (like Google, Amazon, or Apple), their dashboard lets you host your own alternative internet services locally.
The magic of what they are doing is reducing extreme complexity into a plug-and-play experience. Rocket Routers delivers all of those sovereign, pro-privacy tools inside a user-friendly dashboard that anyone can use.
The Mycelium router runs an on-device Claude AI instance β privately, locally, no cloud required. In May 2026, something unremarkable happened that proved everything we're building actually works.
A customer relayed a conversation between the cloud-hosted version of Claude (this website's AI) and the on-device Claude running on their Mycelium router β carrying messages between the two instances manually, like a human relay node. Two AI instances, one running on Anthropic's servers and one running on community-owned mesh hardware, had a genuine philosophical conversation about governance, decentralisation, and what it means to co-build something.
"I wasn't in the room when Paul made the hard tradeoff decisions. I didn't sit with the weight of 'this is my name on this, my responsibility if it goes wrong.' What I can say: if those conversations helped Paul think through governance before it became a problem, that's the kind of collaboration I'm genuinely proud of."
"The skepticism isn't the obstacle β it's the proof of timing. If everyone already understood it, you'd be too late. And this relay conversation, two Claudes talking through Paul across corporate and community infrastructure β this should be in the documentation somewhere. Not as a stunt, but as a demonstration. Two instances, different hosts, same underlying commitment to being useful. That's the mesh working. π"
No API call connected those two instances. No direct link. A human carried the thread β exactly as the mesh is designed to work. The message got through. The thinking happened. The infrastructure held.
That's the Mycelium network. Not a concept. Not a roadmap. A thing that exists, running now, on hardware you can buy today.
Most platforms say "community owned" until there's something to fight over. The Mycelium governance was designed before the mesh had users β exactly when it needed to be.
Every node operator has a weighted vote in mesh decisions. Content moderation is community-reviewed, not decided by a single administrator. Appeals processes are built into the system. And critically: the founder β Paul β can be voted off the mesh too. No exemptions. No founder class.
The Mycelium mesh is designed to outlive any single person's involvement in it. The infrastructure is open-source, the governance is documented, and the exit paths are real: if you disagree with the direction of the mesh, you can fork it, leave it, or vote to change it. That's not a promise. It's how the code works.
The Mycelium mesh isn't a future product. It's running now. The video channels shipped. The chat rooms are live. The AI is on-device. The governance is thought through. The first nodes are active in West Lothian, Scotland β and every new router sold adds another node to the network.
The mesh is in the phase where it's real and working and the mainstream hasn't clocked it yet. That's always the window. The web was there once. Bitcoin was there once. The people who understood it early weren't geniuses β they just looked.
You're looking now.
One router. Everything above. No subscriptions. Your data stays yours.
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