191
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #173,738 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★☆☆☆☆
Don't Buy if you don't like being the family IT support
It's decent, when it works. But most of the time it's not decent. I bought this with the intent that this might be overkill for my small-ish house (~1600 sq ft). The app is fine, pretty dumbed down, but fine. Having deployed dozens of firetide mesh networks, I like a bit more IT focused control (seeing signal strength and QOS across bands and seeing how the power line back line haul is working), but for the average consumer it is fine. But I don't like being IT support when I am at home. I just want stuff that works so I don't have to hear "the internet is not working", and I heard that the internet was not working plenty. I had one mesh node consistently loose signal (<30ft from the base and tertiary unit) and I constantly had chromecast devices drop off as well as laptops and other devices. I have one Android TV unit 3' from the base unit that routinely (every 30 minutes or so) had to have the wifi cycled on/off to maintain service. It's a headache. Just don't buy it.
UPDATE: So I went with another home mesh system and after having installed that new system with a node in the same location as the one that kept dropping off with the TP-Link, I notice even more how bad the TP-Link and software really are. The new system has a similarly simplified interface, but does tell me how the signal strength is doing and its 2-node system has excellent signal strength even in the position with the node that kept dropping off with the TP_link. The one device that I kept having to restart the wifi on (and that I thought might be the device malfunctioning), no longer has any issues. And I now get the full speed 400Mbs symmetrical over wifi throughout the house with the new system too, where the TP_link topped out at 100Mbs (actually closer to 90-ish download only....). And the new system took me about 15 minutes to set up and forget about, because it just works.
February 2020 · Electronics · verified purchase