Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

So, to begin this review I will give you an overview of my review. This router has a major design flaw in its cooling design. This design flaw causes the router to overheat, which in turn causes it to thermal throttle, which makes it unusable. So, I have been using a 5 year old router and recently decided to upgrade. I did research and read reviews and I chose this router, the TP-Link WiFi 6 AX3000 Smart WiFi Router. Unfortunately, I chose wrong. One day at work, about 2 weeks after setting it up I noticed my home's alarm system kept switching to cellular back up, which means my wifi was going out. Once I got home from work, I kept losing my wifi connection on my phone and on my PS4. I checked the router and it was hot enough to fry an egg. I made sure my firmware was up to date, it was, and then I reset the router, and checked all the connections. After it rebooted I was still having the same issue, instead of getting 230 Mbps like I did on the first day of set up, I was getting 1-2 Mbps. That's a pretty substantial difference. The issue with this router is that it is cooled by passive cooling(vents) and not active cooling(fans) The passive cooling is not enough, once it gets too hot it thermal throttles. Even though this receiver is wifi 6 and has these advertised high speeds, you will only get them for a couple weeks if you are lucky. They jammed too much into too small of an area with no way to cool it. This in turn, makes it heat up to unmanageable temperatures, which will cause the system to fail and put extra wear and decrease the lifespan of the components. I have since read some comments about this issue and people recommend that you buy a cooling fan to help cool it. This is not an acceptable option for me. If the design is this flawed that the consumer is required to provide the cooling means for light to moderate use of the router, it is shoddy work from TP-Link. I did put the router up on small blocks so it could have increased airflow to help with cooling on the bottom. It didn't help. I decided I wanted to make sure I didn't get a bad router and wanted to be thorough for this review. I contacted Amazon and requested a replacement router after explaining my issues. They sent the replacement. The replacement is actually worse then the first one. The router only lasted two days before I started having issues. Once again my alarm switched to cellular back-up and my phone lost wifi. Again I checked and that the firmware is up to date(it was because I updated it when I set it up), I restarted the router, and checked all the connections, it didn't help. I also started this one off on small blocks to help the passive cooling on the bottom of the router. It is still hot enough to fry an egg and is thermal throttling after two days of use. I am a single person and am the only one who uses this router. If it can't even handle one person, I would hate to see a family or couple attempt to use this. Today was when the second one started giving me issues and so I will keep it a couple more days for the sake of being thorough. But, I will be requesting a refund for this router. A positive I wanted to make note of, was the app for the router. I enjoyed using the app and found that it was intuitive and easy to understand. The app to control the router is the best part of the router. Unfortunately it can't overcome the design downfalls. So, in summation. The router had potential if they would have spent maybe a dollar more(just throwing out a number here and it would be much less on the scale they would be buying them at) for a fan in the design. But, because they wanted so save a little this router is unusable in the current form. Also, because of the design flaw I will not be purchasing TP-Link products for the foreseeable future. A manufacturer that can't realize this will be a problem has no place in this market. A closing note, I don't have a horse in this race. I am not brand loyal when it comes to routers and I chose this router because it had some pretty good reviews. If you still chose to buy this router thinking my two sample size review is a fluke, that's fine. Do your research and chose the router that you think will work for you. I rely on reviews to make a lot of purchase decisions and just want you to have all the information you can.