TP-Link Deco BE25 Dual-Band BE5000 WiFi 7 Mesh Wi-Fi System | 4-Stream 5 Gbps, 240 Mhz | Covers up to 6,600 Sq.Ft | 2X 2.5G Ports Wired Backhaul | VPN,MLO, AI-Roaming, HomeShield, 3-Pack

We have a long house (4,000 sq. feet) and because my modem was at one end we have used range extenders to reach TVs and computers at the other end. My son works in sales from home and required a faster and more stable connection than he had in his office at the far end from my modem. We decided to install a mesh WIFI system and chose TP-link's Deco S4 (3-pack). Once up and running (easy) we weren't able to achieve a faster speed than the range extenders. Although, things were slightly better in coverage and stability. After reading a lot about do's and don'ts of mesh WIFI systems we decided to return the Deco S4 and get the Deco AX3000 X55 (3-pack) system. Here are the early results:1. My son's speed more than doubled to 535 Mbps, which is almost the same speed I get being directly connected to the modem at the other end of the house. In other words the rated speed that our ISP sold us.2. The TVs haven't buffered even though we use streaming exclusively on 3 sets. Plus we have mobile phones and other assorted gadgets that use the internet.3. My wife's PC, even farther than my son's, is getting almost double the speed (145 Mbps) that it got with the S4 and triple the speed she received from the range extenders.4. Very easy setup via the mobile app.Here are some of the reasons why the newest mesh system is better from a technical perspective:1. The AX3000 is rated at double the speed of the S4 (at less than double the cost on Amazon using their coupon).2. The AX3000 has a maximum of 6500 sq. feet of coverage vs. 5500 sq. feet for the S4.3. The AX3000 is WIFI 6 vs. WIFI 5 on the S4. This means a 50% increase in "streams" providing greater functionality and speed because there are more paths to the base station router. One of the x55s (base station) sits next to our ISP's modem and the other two are set up as satellites at the other ends of the house. Satellites can be connect via ethernet cable (called a backhaul) if you have cable already installed in some rooms. This should increase the throughput. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do this.4. The AX3000 is smaller than the S4 and thus doesn't stand out as much. This is not a technical issue, however we plan to mount two of the units on the wall with wall mounts that can be purchased separately. The S4 is almost twice as tall so may tip out of the mounts easier. Plus the cord and charger is white rather than black so doesn't stand out as much.5. Other systems are faster and cover more area, but are significantly more expensive for a 3-pack. Also most use WIFI 6E, which we don't need because we're in a single family home. I understand WIFI 6E comes with those systems because it's good for people in large apartment buildings. It's not faster but does have a third band in the 6 Ghz range which WIFI 6 does not.Update: I have had trouble connecting our solar panel gateway to the new system. Our solar system installer suggested connecting to the 2.4 Ghz band because or WIFI is now mesh. I didn't know we had that capability until I read an earlier post by another happy user. I will now research how to do this.

Thanks to Prime Day it was time for me to finally upgrade my home network. I was looking for a reasonably priced WiFi-6 mesh system with 3 stations (1 main + 2 satellites), at least AX3000 speeds, and a price tag of up to $300. It came down to two choices: the Eero 6+ and what I chose instead, the TP-Link Deco X55. Both systems had similar specs, but I liked how the TP-Link Deco had 3x Gigabit ethernet ports per satellite (the Eeeros have just 2). That meant I could wire each satellite in a daisy-chain configuration for a wired backhaul AND connect the 3rd ethernet plug to the gigabit switches I had at each satellite location. This meant that all of my hard-wired devices could stay hardwired, while adding mesh WiFi at full speeds (no bandwidth reserved for transmission thanks to the backhaul).Installation was quick and easy - I simply turned off my cable modem, disconnected my previous router, installed one of the Deco X55's in its place (in my bedroom), and turned everything back on. After downloading the TP-Link Deco app I had an internet connection set up and good to go in less than 5 minutes! Once that was working, I added the other two Deco's into the mix - one in the living room and one in the family room - with all three forming an almost perfect triangle for whole-home coverage. In less than 15 minutes after opening the box, I had a fast, Wifi-6 mesh system in my home.I had been using an older AC1900 router for almost 10 years now and back then it was just fine - but with more and more smart home devices being added to my home, it no longer was enough. I have a medium-sized amount of smart home devices (around 50 devices including hubs) and on occasion, I'd experience signal dropouts on some of the farther cameras, and other devices would sporadically go offline/online at random. With the X55 mesh installed, all of my issues disappeared! My smart cameras used to show a signal strength of between 80% (indoor cameras) down to around 55% (outdoor cameras). With the TP-Link Deco mesh in place, the signal strength changed to 100% indoor and 95% outdoor - a major improvement for sure. Pulling up live and recorded footage from the outdoor camera is so much quicker now. All of the other indoor smart devices I have all show 98-100% signal strength. Needless to say, this was a definite upgrade!As for my rating, I give it a solid 4-stars. There are a few small details that keep me from giving it a full 5-stars: some missing features that I had with my old router. One of them is being able to bulk reserve IPs by entering them into the app beforehand; with the TP-Link Deco, the device has to be connected to the network FIRST (with whatever DHCP IP address the Deco gives it), then you have to go into the app to reserve it with a static IP. I would rather have the more common table where you just enter each Mac address, static IP, and device name and it's done. Another missing feature is being able to have at least 2 separate SSIDs (not including a guest SSID). With the Deco you can only have one main SSID and one isolated guest SSID.Finally, to see some speed numbers I ran speed tests using both fast.com and speedtest.com, and the day before installing the mesh system I had an average internet speed of around ~260Mbps. The day after I installed the TP-Link mesh system my speeds went up to well over 490Mbps! Downloading is a lot faster, and streaming is super snappy as well.So in the end, I am very happy with my purchase of the TP-Link Deco X55 Wifi6 mesh system. Aside from the small feature complaints above, everything is awesome! I no longer have devices going offline/online. My internet speed has almost doubled (my old router was the bottleneck!) and streaming seems quicker as well. If you are looking for a mesh system to upgrade your current home network to the current WiFi6 standards, I would say that this is definitely a good buy!------------EDIT 02.18.2024: TP-Link Improvements Are Awesome!TP-Link has been steadily pushing out Deco firmware and app updates, and my -1 star complaint no longer exists thanks to two added features that completely address my complaints:- CUSTOM IP RESERVATIONSFirst, I don't have to play the game of connecting a new device, letting the Deco assign a DHCP address to it, then having to go back into the app to manually change the reserved IP. Now I can go straight into the Deco app and under the "Address Reservation" tab I can now select "Custom"; this brings me to a page where I can manually type in a MAC address AND the local IP address that I want to assign to it - without having to connect the device first.- SEPARATE IoT NETWORKMy other complaint was that I only had the option to have two SSIDs - one main and one guest network. I wanted to be able to configure another SSID specifically so I could group all of my Smarthome devices, and after a couple of firmware updates later TP-Link not only gave me that option, but an even better one: they added a dedicated Iot (Internt of Things) network! Not only does this group my sparthome devices separate from my main network, but it also restricts communications between networks so that the IoT devices stay isolated. This is exactly the feature I wanted them to add during my initial review.- VPN COMPATIBILITYTP-Link has also added the option to use a VPN (server or client) directly through the router, as opposed to having to VPN each individual device manually. Furthermore, the VPN can be assigned to the network in two ways: either all devices (every device connected to the mesh will go through the VPN) or I can select specific MAC addresses that must pass through the VPN before reaching the Internet (tI chose option #2). With this I can make sure that certain devices that like to "call home" can only do so through the VPN, helping to protect my network and privacy.All in all, TP-Link has done a great job at supporting these devices, and their ability to add additional features over time have made me feel confident to revise my initial review now give this system a worthy 5 stars!