Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought a MX5 back in November 2019 shortly after they first came out and another in March 2020. Prior to that I had a first generation WiFi 5 dual Triband Velop system so getting this new single WiFi 6 MX5 seemed like good way to check this out. Initially this looked like it was going to really be a good product. With close to 50 smart devices in my house I was starting to outgrow the initial WiFi 5 Velop Triband system. I do not have any WiFi 6 devices on my network so I was not sure I would be doing myself any good, but I wanted to find out. I soon found out that having this new WiFi 6 MX5 router actually did speed up my network. In spite of alleged backward compatibility with the first generation Velop, I was not happy with the overall performance so I bought the second MX5 as the second (child) node and retired the legacy Velop system. Now I essentially had a MX10 system operational. I could see a basic improvement in network speed throughout the house. Okay so why a 2-star rating? In short features, reliability/stability, app, and product support. I could write pages about all this but will keep it short and let any readers draw their own conclusions. By most standards I consider myself a pretty advanced user, having gone through many routers, computers, devices, etc. On features this system has enough for me to get by fine with one critical exception. There is no way to back up your router configuration. There are people in forums that have been asking for this since at least 2017 and it is still not there. When I install a Velop system with a lot of devices I take a lot of time and devote a lot of effort to identifying each device and assigning a recognizable name to it. This is no short or easy task. Further I need to do various port forwardings and make a few IP reservations. All of this takes a lot of time. If you just had to do it once it would not be that big a deal. In my case I have had several technical issues with this MX10 system and if you ever do get someone in Tech support that doesn't hang up on you then about all they can do is to get you to do things like master resets, swapping devices (same thing), or other configuration destroying changes. On a recent conversation with tech support they told me there indeed was a way to back up the configuration, but that actually turned out to not be true. So on missing features, my big thing is no no way to back up configuration. It is a basic feature that virtually all other routers have. Reliability/Stability - When everything is working well it's great. Then there is a node that goes offline and tells you it is offline (in the app). Generally unplugging and replugging will fix this. Then there is a node that goes offline but the app says it is online. A whole new problem here. Then while the router continues to report 240 mbps down my actual wifi speed slows to about 40 mbps. No problem, just restart everything and it usually comes back. Okay enough of that, the system is a little flakey and unreliable unless you are willing to keep your eye on it a lot and often do soft and sometime hard restarts. Not acceptable performance to me. The App - At times the app works fairly well. It could a lot more features for sure, but the real problem is that the app too is very flaky and unreliable. It can show things not connected when they are and vice verse. One theory I have (only a theory) is that this app is merely reflecting problems with the router and child node and would work fine in a trouble-free environment. I can only judge by what I can see though, and I pretty much see a crap app. On tech support - Oh this is so bad. The people you will talk to are obviously their tier 1 and that can be okay. Unfortunately in the many times I have tried to get help I have not had any good results and have often gotten clearly wrong information. Further I have heard some references to perhaps having an issue elevated up a to the next level, but I have never been able to talk to anyone at that next (imaginary?) level. Also in those instances the case just died and I never heard from anyone again. Okay folks that's the short version. MESH systems are clearly more complex that single point routers and I understand there are challenges, but these systems need to be stable, reliable, and robust. The Linksys MX10 and its associated app all look very good on paper, but in my opinion they will disappoint, and I would not buy it again or recommend it. One of the problems with all reviews of these systems, is that they focus on speed and range. These are important variables, but a few more feet in range or a few more mbps will quickly become meaningless when a user runs into reliability issues, product support issues, setup quirks, and other issues that will govern how things go day in and day out.