TP-LinkDeco Mesh WiFi System(Deco M5) –Up to 3,800 sq. ft. Whole Home Coverage and 60+ Devices, WiFi Router/Extender Replacement, Parental Controls, 2-pack

As an IT professional, I have tried hundreds of combinations of routers and switches and wireless AP's. Like everybody, my needs have changed over time. The kids are old enough now to be using the internet, the house is getting smarter all the time, and even my television comes in over the web now. After exhaustive research and feature and price comparison, I decided to move on to the Deco m5. I was using a cisco asa firewall and cisco 3900 series switch with a netgear router in AP mode before, but it lacked the ability to easily implement parental controls. I get annoyed with the kids for staying up late playing on the internet after we go to sleep. I un-boxed the deco m5, very nicely packaged by the way, to find everything in order and ready for install. I powered down my firewall, called the ISP to have the IP address released, (I work for the ISP, so that was convenient) and got the router plugged into the internet connection. I am fiber to the house, so I don't have a modem. I had already installed the TP link app on my galaxy s6, so I was ready to get started. (Everybody else was at work/school so no complaining about the lack of internet while I did all this. YEA!!!!) The app found the deco with no issues and ran through the VERY basic setup process. Everything immediately came up and worked. I have 80 meg service and speedtest.net was reporting 82.7 download consistently over wireless. I started playing with the app, and under the advanced tab is an option to check for updates. I clicked it and it did indeed find one. 5 minutes or so later, the led indicator on the router went green again. This is where things went a little sideways for a few minutes. I spent the next 10 minutes losing and gaining wifi on my phone, and had to force stop the app a couple of times. Everything else in the house seemed fine, it was just my phone. I have six echos/dots in the house, and they all came right back up after the swap out. The echos/dots are usually the problem children to get connected after a power outage, so I was suprised. My wink hub didn't even seem to be affected. everything was functioning normally except the stupid phone. A quick restart on the phone seems to have fixed it. I did have 2 of my 5 wink relays lose connectivity, but I think they may have already been disconnected. A quick restart fixed them both. I plugged the second port into my cisco switch and all my wired devices reported for duty. Next step was to walk to the far corners of the house and run speed tests with my phone, which was still giving me pause because of its recent bad behavior. My home is 1400 square feet, and about 4 years old, with tech shield in the attic. (the aluminum foil looking coating on the inside of the roof decking to block the heat) wifi seemed to be great everywhere with speeds at maximum in every corner. (I bought the single Deco m5 unit) The router is actually in the garage in the corner for now, so it will probably cover significantly more ground once located in the center of the house. Next step was to setup parental controls. Yeah, this is the good part, talk back to me one more time you obnoxious little turd. Setup the profiles and went hunting MAC addresses. The only downfall to the process was finding all the mac addresses. Nothing has a logical name in the table you are looking at, everything just says "android" or "amazon". I started with "amazon", and that is when it hit me. I opened up my alexa app and went to settings, and then to devices. At the bottom of each device's settings page is the device's mac address. I found my trusty pencil and an envelope from some junk mail, and my list was soon made. You can change the name of the devices in the table on the Deco to recognizable names. I then went to the android devices and PC's. That was a little more time consuming, but not too bad. Next, assigning who the device belonged too. You do that at the bottom of the device settings page, just make sure you have already built that person's profile. When you set up the profile you give them a movie like rating system, and can disable or enable various types of websites or specific websites. Next option is setting time limits for daily usage, and last is setting hours to shut them out completely. Kids got pg-13, adults get "adult". Now that that's done, time to explore. I knew it was "alexa" enabled, so that was next. Honestly, don't waste your time. Alexa can do very little besides run a speed test and change the led's status. I was hoping to pause the kids internet just by telling alexa, but that is a no go for now anyway. It also cannot control access to wired devices with parental controls, so if you want to disable the kids smart tv's, make sure they are connected wireless. I probably should have given 4 stars due to the setup issue with the phone app, but everything is just working too good now. the parental controls shine, and the wireless connection seems to be rock solid. Only major negative I will give it, you cannot change it's lan IP address yet, but I have read that this feature is in the works in a future update. If you have anything set static on your current network like I do, you may have to change some IP's in a few devices. (Cameras, network servers, stuff like that) I only have a few devices like that, so I can handle it, especially for the price I paid for this. Overall, if you are on the fence, this is a great little mesh system. I wish it was POE powered and wall mountable, that would have made it perfect, but I guess it can sit on top of the fridge and do its thing. I'll update if anything changes, but I don't suspect I will have any trouble. Oh, and for anybody who is wondering, it does look like you can manage it remotely, as I can log in and change settings right now while I am at work. That could be handy for pausing the internet to make sure the kids do their homework before I get home from work, or to make sure they are doing their chores on time. I wonder if that will work with the old lady too???

Waited a few months to review this so I could give an honest opinion.First the bad:1. The units only have 2 Ethernet ports on them, so you have limited options for hardwired internet devices. You will need an Ethernet switch if you want more than 1 free port. I picked up a switch at home Depot for $15 and it works just fine for my satellite Deco to hardwire my tv and game consoles.2. Don't expect great signal from the deco wifi backbone. I hardwired my deco because the wifi between the units wasn't great. If they are line of sight to each other it may be ok but for best results they should be hardwired to each other.3. For the price of the two Deco units I could probably have bought a very good Wi-Fi router that might have equivalent coverage.4. These units need to be exposed for best Wi-Fi signal. I had one in a cabinet and I was getting about a third of the speed.Now the good:1. For the two Deco units I was able to cover my house which is about 2,300 square feet plus basement with good Wi-Fi signal. Download speeds are in excess of 100 Mbps on Wi-Fi, which is the same speed basically as hard wired and that is what my ISP plan is.2. I had no issues with installation and setup was very easy.3. Originally the signal was not very strong but there is an option to optimize the network on the Deco app. After optimization the signal was much better.I would probably recommend this setup if you were looking into it but I am not 100% convinced of the advantages of mesh Wi-Fi versus a good centrally located Wi-Fi router. Would I buy them again, probably not.

Works great, easy to add to my existing system. Couldn’t ask for more!

Pro.Box instructions pretty clear.Most of my devices connected immediately.The wifi performance is Much better now.Cons.Several devices didn't connect. It took Pandora 3 days. It took Amazon blink devices between 3 to 5 hours.High frustration.I didn't understand why devices wouldn't connect. Everytime I tried to connect, I got the screen above asking for a network code. 8 digit minimum. What I set up initially, I set up a 4 digit code. So I got onto Deco chat. 1. They kept saying to enter my password. I told them that my password was 4 numbers, but, the wireless code was a minimum of 8. The agent was trying to help me. But we had a communication breakdown. 2. It was not resolved via chat support 3. No indication from app as to why it takes hours/days for a device to connect. Weird.Major takeaway.It may take hours or days for your devices to connect to the network. The online agents aren't familiar with what we're being asked to do according to the app.

Great upgrade to my home wifi. Placement is important.

VERY EASY to use! Download the app, follow the instructions, and BAM! You have WiFi all over the place! I put the main Deco connected to my modem in my living room and put another deco in my master bedroom on the other side of my house (my house is 2700 sq.ft) and perfect WiFi on that whole side of the house. Then I put the 3rd Deco in my barn out back (approximately 120 ft from my house) and full bars WiFi out there!!! The Deco in my bedroom and barn are in line of sight of each other through windows, but to have WiFi in my barn that far away from the house is AMAZING! Once you set up the 1st Deco, the rest are just plug and play…meaning, just plug them in, wait for the yellow light to turn to flashing blue and then to steady green, and done! WiFi everywhere!!! This is the first mesh system I have used and it works perfectly! HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU BUY THESE!!!!