TP-LinkDeco M5 Mesh WiFi Router - Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Router, Quad-core CPU, MU-MIMO, HomeCare, Parental Control, Up to 2,000 sq. ft. Coverage, Works with Alexa, 1-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???

Very impressed with the Deco mesh internet system. This specific system is Wifi 7 which is the latest and greatest and frankly may have been more than I needed. Super easy to setup. I spread out the 3 pods between the utility room, downstairs living room and upstairs game room. Then easily linked them to the Deco phone app on my iphone 13. In less than 10 minutes I had minimum of 200GB coverage to every corner of my 4000 sq ft house and had 100GB coverage to my back patio where I have an outdoor TV that runs over wifi. Every device in my house is now wireless and has perfect connectivity. Very impressed with this product and two thumbs up.

Works great. Plug and play. Had to reset it after I changed my modem, but the setup through the Deco app was very easy.So much faster than my previous modem/router combo. Going to be buying more of these so I can setup a "mesh" with them.The Deco app has so much information, and parental controls built in. If you need more options there is a paid subscription that gives you more control, but honestly, everything that I'd ever need (and more) is included in the free version.Almost no info available through "the old way" of looking at the router through the IP address. Everything has to be done through the app.

Overall, this might be the best router I've ever purchased. I have 1000Mb down and it seems like I'm getting the full speed. I have about 30 devices online throughout the day and I haven't seen any slow down so far.Almost all the functions I normally use are present. Renaming devices, address reservation, guest network with bandwidth control, detailed list of devices and other features are available to use. I can even set whether a device should use 2.4ghz or 5ghz or both or use the 1st deco or 2nd deco or auto which is pretty amazing.I have an upstairs and downstairs so I have a deco on each floor. It's works great so far. I have a room that's separated by 3 walls and the signal is ok.Unfortunately, there is something basic that is missing and it's per-device bandwidth control. The deco uses QOS (Quality of Service) which is very limited. I can only pick about 4 device to have bandwidth priority. This is ridiculously limited. I've had routers that were a quarter of the price and I was able to set a bandwidth limit for 30 devices. Hopefully, this will be added at some point (I'm not holding my breath).I think deco is a good device. Time will tell if it's great. I recommend this if you want a decent level of control and features.

Works well, easy setup. I had to use the Ethernet backhaul for one room due to distance and interference. Total transparent…

I love the Deco M5. It is one of the best, most versatile units. For the price, you can’t beat it. I use it to create coverage across my entire property. The app makes it easy to set up a mesh system for your whole property. The good thing is you can buy as many units as you want and keep connecting them. Being mesh technology, the speed does not degrade with added units. The size and footprint make it for almost anywhere and you can’t beat even buy a wall mount that hangs it from the outlet. Also these feature wireless or wired backhaul and have a dedicated wireless backhaul channel. So you can extend your network as far as you want with Ethernet cable from unit to unit or simply connect each one wirelessly. Simply the best, mesh WiFi system you can get at an affordable price.

Very good product works everywhere in the house even on the street