TP-Link Deco 4+

Had a puny VM router with extenders around the house, then purchased a three pack of P9s and have a house full of signal now. The app is pretty cool - it does what you expect and pretty intuitively.

You can name all your connected devices, block them individually or by group (give them owners and block and individual person’s devices - say, until they’ve done their homework), set age-groups for content filtering, and see which Decco device they are connected to. The last point is useful if you want to see that things are actually seamlessly handing off from one to the next - which they do very well.

Also, alerts when new devices join - that’s cool. The powerline backhaul seems to work peacefully with other TP-Link powerline extenders on the same ring; they aren’t aware of each other but they don’t interfere either.

I’m not sure why there is an Alexa integration - I haven’t tried it but it sounds a bit gimmicky, I wouldn’t want anything that doesn’t require authentication having control of my network - anyway, it’s optional.

Very easy set-up and much more reliable app than the tpPLC app which I found very glitchy.

Improvements: more object types (e.g. MacBook, Echo, etc.); and maybe a way to see what the devices have been doing (data transfer stats / logs maybe). I thought it might do more to help with device placement around the home to maximise signal, but my set-up gives me what I need so it’s a moot point.

Nice work TP-Link - very cool.

I get a brilliant Wi-Fi signal now using XE75Pro’s setup as wired backhaul. Compare that to my previous Wi-Fi extender plugs it is a world apart.
I am happy that the app generally gives a good feel for what is connected and when.
Just a few snags. I had an issue whereby 1 XE75 router node stopped working as such, and I couldn’t get it to connect so I had to swap with another node and make that one as the router. At the same time I lost the names of all devices that I had spent a while configuring. So I will have to do that again if I can find the time.
Then there is an issue another commenter has alluded to whereby on opening the app all decos are reported as offline when they are clearly not. It can take as much as two minutes for the app to report them all online. Occasionally, however, a node will genuinely drop out (understandable) and require a re-start. I would like to see that one immediately in the app so I can go and unplug/plugin, to get it back online. But this one node is ‘masked’ by that fact that the app initially reports all are offline and I have to wait until it reveals any that may have randomly and genuinely dropped connection.
It seems it maybe better to invert this process so that the app assumes they are all online first, wait a few minutes, and then report any that do not ping the router back to flag these as offline?

I only installed my X55 mesh today so can’t comment on long term, but setting up via the app was extremely easy. I am using my Decos in Access Point mode, I would have preferred if it was possible to select this mode BEFORE the main setup process as I didn’t want another DHCP server appearing, however it didn’t cause any problems.

Adding extra Decos (I have three) didn’t require any setup apart from giving them a location. My satellite Decos are using ethernet backhaul (they are all connected to the main Deco via the wired network), I would recommend this if you have the required infrastructure, otherwise you will be sharing the backhaul with wifi clients (these don’t have a dedicated wifi channel for backhaul) which could impact performance.

Prior to this mesh network I had two access points, the upstairs one using the ISP router’s built in wifi, and the downstairs one using a Netgear WAC104. Both had the same SSID so it was possible to “roam” between them, however I did get issues with wifi dropping out and buffering when streaming TV. The TP-Link network has fixed all these problems and is much faster, I just wish it was possible to monitor the wifi mesh via a web browser rather then the app.