TP-Link Deco Whole Home Mesh WiFi System – Up to 5,500 Sq.ft. Coverage, WiFi Router/Extender Replacement, Gigabit Ports, Seamless Roaming, Parental Controls, Works with Alexa(Deco M4 3-Pack)

This whole home mesh WI-FI device arrived quickly. It also more than met our expectations. We only needed two of the three units and our connectivity drastically increased. We would recommend this product.

I debated between this and Google's WIFI, and overall it came down to cost. The TP-Link is almost $90 Cheaper (At my time of Purchase) then Google's WIFI.Layout:- I have a 2500 Square Foot Home- 3 Floors- Verizon FIOS at one end of the house and bad internet at the back end.- How I set it up, you need to connect one to your main router (Pictured, Note: Once all is connected, you will want to disable your Routers internal WIFI, there is a such thing as too much WIFI)- Then I hooked one up down in the basement and connected it directly to the PS4 (The PS4 non-pro model only supports a 2.4GHz signal, so hooking this up directly to it with a WAN make it like it's god a 5GHz LAN Connection)- The last one I hooked up in the Master Bedroom.- Overall I made a Triangle of WIFI.Setup:- Setup overall was simple, plugged the main unit into my Router Directly.- Downloaded the TP-Link app, and took under a minute for it to detect.- You need to sign up for TP-Link account- It created a secondary Network, so most routers do 192.168.1.1. This will make another which you can change. This is important to know because if you are using any devices with a Static address (Like a Network / Wireless Printer or even a Home Desktop, you IP Scheme is going to change)- Also and VERY important, if you leave it create the 2nd VLAN, for Alot of at home devices it won't matter, but if you Work from Home and you need to connect thru VPN, your VPN will no longer work. Why you ask, this network you've create is now a "Double-NAT". VPN will not work through this type of setup, so you need to create "Flat Network" if you use and need VPN for work.Performance:- We have 4 Kids, and like 25 overall devices and I notice blazing speeds no matter the scenario of who was using what.- the pS4 is the biggest factor, so if there is say a 15GB Game Download or Update, it would have normally have told us it could take several hours to download (Again, PS4 only supports 2.4GHz unless you bought the PSPro). Now with it getting 5GHz and a Direct LAN / Cable connection, my test went from 5-6 hours to 12 - 15 minutes for this large file.Bad:The biggest pain for me in this was well, ALEXA! This has NOTHING to do with the performance of the TP-Link at all. We have 6 Alexa Speakers and a few smart Plugs. There is no way in the Alexa app to mass change the WIFI Network or Password, you need to basically go around to each device and almost set them up like they are new. The Speakers set back up pretty easily, but the plugs, the app treated them as new Plugs, not existing and I needed to re-do all our Alexa Routines.Overall:I would highly recommend this Mesh WIFI for a home, but like me, if you have some smart home devices (Alexa, Security Cameras, Nest Thermostat), just be prepared to redo all those devices as if they just came out of the box.

It allowed to cover entire property full strength. It took 2 times as its tricky on syncing up and firmware upgrade. Must do each one separate . It allows you to use deco outside long distance as well as links to 2.4 and 5k. Solved my issues. Highly recommend. I needed the three units plus outdoor unit one by router one back room one upstairs in window which then coukd see outdoor unit. Once dialed in. Awesome

In general it is really nice to have complete high-speed wifi coverage across my house, and I get good wifi signal now in corners of the house that had difficulty with streaming 4k video previously. Now my speed test application shows great upload and download speeds throughout the entire house and outside into the yard.The setup of the devices themselves was extremely easy - no real issues at all. Very "plug and play".I'm marking it 4 stars primarily because I had quite a bit of trouble getting certain wifi-connected devices in my house to connect to the new router, primarily because the original firmware and/or mobile application didn't offer the ability to turn off the 5ghz channel. I had trouble getting my weather station, Philips Hue hub, and Amazon Cloud Camera to connect to the Deco, and I'm still unable to connect the Cloud Cam while I have the Fast Roaming turned on, so I have to live without that functionality. It seems like part of your QA process would be to make sure "Internet of Things" (IoT) devices can connect easily, since that's a key part of usability. It took me literally days to get everything connected, and I'm relatively advanced in terms of my knowledge of networking. I had to spend time doing lots of research on various forums and trial and error to get different devices connected.And of course as soon as I had everything working, literally the next day an update came out that added the option to turn off the 5Ghz band. This is necessary because certain devices that only require the 2.4Ghz band have trouble connecting to the Deco because the Deco only has one SSID (wifi name) for both bands, so if you can't turn off 5Ghz, it seemed like devices would always get confused or if the device connected to wifi by using an app on my phone, there was no way to force my phone to only connect to the 2.4Ghz channel on the router. For example with my weather station, I had to literally set it into pairing mode and then run down my driveway, far enough to be outside the range of the 5Ghz signal for my iPhone Xs to switch to the 2.4Ghz band (2.4Ghz has better range and penetration so it goes further, but the iPhone will always default to 5Ghz if it can, because it's much faster) and once I did that, the app that came with my weather station could sync the weather station to the 2.4Ghz band of the router. If the option to turn off 5Ghz was there originally, this wouldn't have been a problem.So overall a really solid router, and it appears they are working to improve the firmware and app. But it felt like it maybe wasn't quite fully baked yet and they hadn't done enough testing with different devices to either support easy connection for these devices, or at least provide technical support on their website to guide users on how to connect different IoT devices. I think if I had to do it again I probably would have bought the same router (especially since it was on sale) but TP-link needs to up their game with regards to QA and Tech Support.