TP-LinkDeco M5 Mesh WiFi System - Up to 5,500 sq. ft. Whole Home Coverage and 100+ Devices,WiFi Router/Extender Replacement, Anitivirus, 3-Pack

I read all the reviews before I bought, talked to a family friend who is an electrical engineer, talked with a friend who deals with computer systems for companies, and then just took a gamble!Installation was super simple. We just built a new house. With basement, it’s about 4,500 sq ft. Our modem is in the back corner of the house, in the basement. Even though we up’d our Xfinity signal to 1,000 Mbs, the signal in our house was pretty sad. Because of COVID, we have 2 kids virtual learning, me virtually teaching with 3 computers, and my wife doing secure law office work downstairs. We also have an extensive Ring camera system working around and through the house. On top of that, we have OneLink Safe & Sound devices on on all 3 floors! There’s a lot of stuff going on here. The first test I did I was standing a room away by the front door, which is around a corner from the unit. The signal speeds were off the charts! Then I went to the garage and driveway(pic1&2), amazing! I re-set up the ring camera out there to the TP mesh system and did a speed test through the Ring app. Much different numbers, but the signal was the highest it’s ever been without an extender in the garage (pic3)! Next, out of curiosity, I went to the sidewalk out front, check out the signal through TP app (pic4&5)! I then redid the camera on the side of the house by back porch (pic6&7). I took both Ring and TP readings - they differed, but that Ring test was the highest I had ever gotten! So, out of curiosity, I went into the backyard by the property line. See the numbers (pic8&9)! I then got on the ladder and redid the center camera. The Ring numbers were off the chart (pic10)! In our house the farthest point was my daughters bedroom. We called it the dead zone. Tonight’s reading seemed unreal, so I tested the speeds with Xfinity’s app. The 3rd numbers down was the speed test before I installed the mesh system. Look at the numbers now. I did it twice just to see if it was a fluke? She’s never had numbers that high, EVER (pic11)!! Lastly, I tested our master bedroom (pics 12&13), used both apps. Once again, amazing numbers! Placing the devices...I ignored the apps suggestions. I ran a hardwire from the back basement room up through a small hole in the first floor where the refrigerator has its water pipe coming up. I placed it on the wall to create a wide range of signal to be able to spread itself out (pic14). I then placed the second one on the 2nd floor in the middle of the hallway (the only outlets we have up there are near the floor (pic15). Signal works great! The 3rd one I placed in our unfinished basement. We do have some outlets higher up on the wall, so I placed it in the middle of the room (pic16&17) to get maximum WiFi coverage without anything blocking the signal. Now, it should also be noted, if you’re still reading this, that we live 10 minutes from the airport and planes fly over our house all the time. It messes with the signal of our WiFi, but not anymore! I swear this system covers every inch of our house with great speeds and extremely strong signal strength. The negative reviews that I read, I really don’t understand what happened in their houses. We used to have the Xfinity pods and they struggled at best and still gave us crappy numbers. This system is worth the money and does what it says! And no, I do not work for TP Link. Honestly, it’s a great system. Is it better than all the others out there? No clue, but it does work like they say it does. And, on mine, the update worked just fine. No issues. For the price and quality of product, I am feeling pretty lucky right now!

This thing has fixed so many issues with our current internet experience. We Live in an area where our only option for Internet is DSL. And it’s not VDSL. It’s the regular, run-of-the-mill, plain Jane, archaic DSL. You know, the stuff that Neanderthals used when they would email each other thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, they are developing the once-rural farmland around us putting many houses in close proximity to us and bringing them up on the same ISP. Our Internet was never great, but it has slowly gotten worse with every new house that goes up. I am in IT and I work for one of the largest healthcare institutions in my state. As such, having consistent and reliable Internet was an absolute must for me. Our entertainment is all “streamed“ in nature. My kids use their phones and gaming systems to communicate with their friends. My husband enjoys his news and entertainment on his phone. But all of these things were getting more frustrating with every passing day. My Internet connection would drop on average about five times an hour during my working day. The ability to stream from Disney+ had all but dried up. We could hardly make it through an episode of Andy Griffith without our signal buffering over half the time. We were exhausting all the data in our cell phone package because our home Internet could not handle reaching the other side of the house in spite of having an extender halfway. I spent hours on the phone with Century Link trying to get “a quicker connection“ and tried various fixes with no success. Century Link sent us new modems to try, supposedly “flipped the switch” to give us a higher speed, but nothing ever made a darn bit of difference.So-I did some desperate research and discovered the concept of “home mesh” and figured I’d give it a try. Holy smokes this set up has made a HUGE difference. No more dropped signals! We can stream just fine all over the entire house; the kids are able to game and we can watch a movie at the same time. It has literally changed our Internet! During my research I found out that an extender basically gives you a totally separate network that you have to bounce back-and-forth between with your originating router network. If you use Sonos or another app that is network-dependent in tandem with an extender, you know that this is a huge pain to deal with! In order to get the app to work correctly on the speakers, you have to be on the same network. This home mesh setup totally resolves that. You stay on the exact same network throughout your entire home. I bought the 5500 square-foot/3 piece set for my 2800 square-foot house. Yes, I’m sure it was overkill, but we have 14 acres and the ability to get Wi-Fi outside is huge. Also, one big hindrance on our previous set up was the fact that we live in a brick home; but this set up flawlessly reaches through the very clunky floorplan of our house (built in the 1960s—>lots of walls!). We have the Century Link-provided C1100Z modem/wireless router manufactured sometime before 2010. In order to make this work I had to do a little bit of home networking: I had to turn off the “wireless router“ portion of the modem and use it strictly as just a modem. Then I hardwired the C1100Z into one of the Decos (doesn’t matter which) and I was off and running. Yes, you do have to use an app to set it up. It’s not hard, though. I did have to reach out to my ISPs technical support to find out what kind of connection I have (static IP/dynamic IP/PPPoE/etc), but it was still super easy. You pick the name of your network, you pick the password, you can even create a “guest network“ for your own home. I highly highly recommend this thing. Especially to someone with the archaic DSL set up like we have. It can be endlessly frustrating to deal with a crappy network and crappy connection. I was convinced that we just did not have any other options other than just dealing with it. But I was totally wrong. Ditch the extender, convert your modem/router to strictly a modem, and buy these things. You will not regret it!