TP-Link Deco M4 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi System, Up to 4000 sq
TP-Link Deco M4 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi System, Up to 4000 sq ft Coverage, Qualcomm CPU, Dual-Band AC1200 with Gigabit Ports, Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa, Parent Control, Pack of 3
From the brand
AV1000 Gigabit Powerline Kit
- HomePlug AV2 Standard – high-speed data transfer rates of up to 1000 Mbps
- Gigabit port
- Up to 300 Meters
| Weight: | 1.3 kg |
| Dimensions: | 22.5 x 10.5 x 47.3 cm; 1.3 Kilograms |
| Brand: | TP-Link |
| Model: | Deco M4 (3-Pack) |
| Colour: | White |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | TP-Link |
| Dimensions: | 22.5 x 10.5 x 47.3 cm; 1.3 Kilograms |
This product worked for me to overcome problems with solid internal walls in an old house. An issue with getting the third power point to link with the others was resolved by an efficient member of the TP Link support team.
used in a four bedroom house. Master unit in office (bed 4), one unit in hall and one unit in lounge. Has worked perfectly for 25 months and only had to reset once in that time. Supporting two people working from home without missing a step.
These work really well in a large extended bungalow where we have struggled with intermittent wifi for years. Have tried several other wifi systems over the years but these provide fast stable wifi across the whole house and into the garden. Works well with Alexa, smart appliances and Sky Q. Very pleased with them
Have been using a TP-Link extender for a few years to get wi-fi to back of the house. This was reasonably acceptable but wth recent device additions, such as security cameras and heating controls, it became Impossible to keep everything online. Looking for a mesh whole house wi-fi system revealed many expensive solutions with features I didn’t need. This system is fairly basic and relatively low cost. It has solved my problems, now all device’s are on line 24/7 and every corner of the house(4bedrm) has wi-fi coverage. Even extends into front and back garden. Very satisfied!
Like many others who are now having to WFH, I needed a decent internet connection in the bedroom that has been turned into an office. The through mains adapters kept slowing down, stalling or failing completely. So I decided to take a punt on a meshed WiFi network and reading reviews of some other devices decided to plump for the DECO system. It look a little bit of patience with the setting up and of course had to move all our wireless devices onto the new network name/password, but buy what a difference! The upstairs office has one DECO connected wirelessly to an intermediate at the bottom of the stairs, itself connected to the main DECO connected to the Virgin router in MODEM mode. I would definitely recommend.
I run a small craft business from a shed outside in the garden and my Wi-Fi was poor, was looking for an booster and these are fantastic full signal now in the shed
Easy to set up and broadband was much faster with a strong signal upstairs at the back of the house where signal was usually poor and speeds were slow.
I was sceptical as I’ve spent a lot of money trying to get good Wi-Fi around our 19th century cottage. Overkill, I know but I bought 6 units. Brilliant! Set up easy and workable Wi-Fi everywhere. Highly recommended.
These are very impressive – I was tempted to buy a fourth as we have a fairly big house with lots of walls but three is plenty – the signal is extremely strong from each device – I have run speed tests and the wifi speed is pretty much the same as the hard-wired ethernet speed at the router. Set up is easy – just download the app.
Read all the reviews before purchasing and this seemed like the best option for me.
I wasn’t disappointed !
Download the app first, set up your account and password and its very much plug and play.
The app takes you through every step, its simple and easy to follow.
This was specifically bought for my garden bar as everything i have tried previously has been poor, it took an extra go to set that one up but it is absolutely brilliant, running live programmes and sport without any buffering, hoorah !!!
Absolutely over the moon with this product .
Tech support helped set this up, being a technophobe. But Jonaire was very good and understood my ham-twacky question perfectly!
Still tonsee how it performs. Finger crossed.
Very easy to set-up using the app, which is nice and easy to use during and after set-up.
So far provided great coverage and stability throughout the house and into the garden.
Expensive yes, but should in theory get better in the coming years as my currently rubbish broadband eventually catches up with them.
Exactly the solution i was looking for. There’s a couple of things that would be good if they worked differently. The nodes/network determine their own setup/network map but it would be good if you could determine it manually as well (tell one node to always connect to a particular one for instance instead of it being automatic). Apart from that it’s improved the WiFi in our house 100% for the better.
I bought this because, even though I have fast broadband, a lot of areas in my house, particularly up stairsare deadzones for wifi.. I bought these as they were recommended by a friend. They were easy to set up, I have plugged the master unit into the lounge, plugged into the existing router, another unit on the landing and one is in a bedroom with a games console plugged into it, I nkw have 2 wifi networks and at times my original network will drop signal as it always has, virgin routers are pretty poor, but the new network remains online, great stuff..
I’m writing this review within 30 minutes of installing the Deco system. We have some really poor Wi-Fi spots in the house and it seemed to be getting worse. I ordered the Deco (Set of 3) Boosters and have just installed them. Very easy to do via the App and instantly the results are incredible. We should’ve bought them sooner! I literally click on a link, or App or Webpage etc. and it just appears so fast. If you’re having similar Wi-Fi signal issues at home, or anywhere else, get these purchased now!
So easy to setup. The package arrived about 16 hours after I ordered it.
I then open the box, take one out plug in the power and the network cable. As the light are starting to flicker and chang I scan in the qr code and downlod the app.
So far so good. A simple create an account and login (after verifying an email).
Now for the good stuff… the app does most of it now. I’m asked to add a deco, so I select the E4, wait for it to tell me its joined and set up what I want to call my new wifi network. Bibidy, Bobberdy BOO. All done. Then asks if I want to add another. As I have 2 more, then I answer yes. I plugged them in one at a time so it doesn’t get confuses.. The app finds the new one, I tell it where it is (bedroom, living room and so on) and that’s it. Signal is magic so impressed.
Simple to set up and did improve the coverage around the house. I have CCTV around the house and noticed that the wireless signal was low, as a precaution, i placed these in rooms near the weak signal, made a huge improvement. Since buying this purchase, i also bought an additional one to extend more coverage out to my shed.
For note, it did not extend the signal enough to go to the end of my driveway, about 4 car lengths. Had to buy a dedicated omnidirectional Wi-Fi aerial for that.
Since the advent of WiFi, I have never been satisfied with the coverage in any property I’ve lived in. I’ve tried repeaters, range extenders, plug in whatever’s and never been successful. I finally got fed up of intermittent coverage and signals, so did a bit of research, and decided to try the Deco M4 kit. What a transformation! Where’s this been all my WiFi life? Solid signal all over my property, including back garden and driveway.
The setup was very easy, however the Virgin Hub 3 threw a wobbler when I tried switch to router mode. I got everything back and just disabled the 2.4 and 5 ghz WiFi signals.
I setup the M4 as per instructions and plugged the Lab cable int port 4 of the hub. I wanted to have the same SSID and password so that I didn’t have to change all my other stuff. The only thing to remember is, after you have input the SSID and password and before you hit the next button, disable the hub WiFi, or you’ll get a conflict. Once that’s done, set up your other M4’s as per instructions.
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!
Great purchase. As others have mentioned the setup must be completed using the TP link deco app, so you will need to create an account.
Setup: Super easy, just follow the steps that are clearly laid out in the App. Takes about 10 mins to setup 3 devices. You can connect each device via an ethernet cable or via wifi, nothing extra to do the device knows the difference and adjusts automatically. Works with powerline, so if your phone socket it nowhere useful you could have your main node connected via a powerline adapter somewhere else in the house.
Features: Pretty simple little devices, you can change the SSID in the app.
Performance: Losing about 10% speed vs LAN cable directly into the router so really impressed. Wifi signal is much stronger than my BT smart hub 2 and they all talk to each other without issue.
Really great devices that gives you robust Wifi in your own home.
With careful placement around the house these are great with near full speed internet thought out the house. I live in an old cottage with extremely thick walls so these have done a great job. We even get great internet out in the garden.
Bought these due to shockingly poor Virgin Internet. Set them up via the App in my living room, dining room and upstairs bedroom. This was very simple to do, just follow the App instructions. They do work, but we still get issues of internet cutting out and no signal. They have certainly helped, but sadly VirginMedia is just so poor.
I’m on Virgin 250 and have terrible problems with speed and constant drop outs of wifi so I bit the bullet and practiced what I preached. I scoured Amazon and finally decided on this one.
I have a Virgin Superhub 3 and had massive problems when putting it into modem mode. What I didn’t realise at the time, when you put it into modem mode and you want to go back into the router, it changes the IP address. My internet stopped working completely and the TP Link although connected had no internet.
I came back to this very page and read some of the reviews and discovered that you don’t actually need to put your router into modeum mode. When I eventually got everything working again, all I did was log into the router and disable both the 2.4 and 5Ghz signals, did an update and once that was done, I switched off my router and back on again and the same to my two ethernet switches. It then worked seamlessly.
Don’t mess around trying to put it into modem mode!!!
I am only using 2 of the 3 units in this pack in a 3 bedroom semi. The signal is full strength and much much faster than it was before. Only been on for 2 days but no drop outs and maximum signal.,
I highly recommend this product which is why I have given it 5 stars. I have only given 3 stars for tech support as I didn’t have to contact them.
I will update this if it all goes badly wrong, but so far it’s brilliant. Easy to set up if you don’t mess around with your router too much, stable and a fast good signal.
If you’re having wi-fi problems, get this!!
These mesh wifi systems whilst inexpensive compared to some you could buy, are excellent for the price. They are easy to set up using the app (which does all the discovery for you) and once up and running just need careful placement to get good and pretty stable connections. I would say that when roaming around your house, as the device switches from 1 deco to another for better signal reasons, there can be a momentary dropout but much more expensive systems can have the same trouble. Overall I am very satisfied with the purchase and the product.
I should point out that there is some misleading guidelines on the web relating to how the change should be undertaken: switching off to restart or hard resets and only using the lower Ethernet socket are not necessary , in fact all 4 Ethernet sockets remain active after the change, and the hub lower light must be showing magenta is again misleading, in my case its showing red(ie in fault mode) but the hub works perfectly -the fact that the hub is years old results in the led light fading somewhat, this was my problem and it lead to a great deal of frustration.
To implement the change to modem mode, connect your computer to on of the Ethernet ports, then in the web browser type the browser settings page address of 192.168.0.1. at the signing in page type the “settings pass word” printed on the base to the hub, mine’s an 8 digit number. Then go to the modem mode setting and select modem and click apply changes. Note, if you hover your mouse over the information mark it will advise that this will now change the page address to 192.168.100.1.
Then let the router to do its thing, eventually just the bottom light will be on, meaning its now in modem mode. Now for the Deco M9 plus. connect any one of your devices to to the router via to Ethernet cable, then using the app just go through the instructions, until your at the green light stage on the Deco, its all very simple. Then connect the second device to a power supply and using the app go through the steps detailed, and that’s it, now transfer to its designated location. Repeat for the 3rd device if you have one. Speed checks can then be made either using the Deco app or speedtest. My result gave the same speed of 135Mb in all locations, including at the “Ring door bell” location. Its now more than two weeks since its installation, Ive not experience any faults or drop outs. All 20 odd devices are working off the Deco WiFi including the hub for the lights-very pleased highly recommended.
I live in a small 2 Bedroom Bungalow and getting a good Wi-Fi signal to each Bedroom within spitting distance via a TalkTalk router was impossible, and frustrating to say the least.
I had Roon installed on a headless MacMini M1 as a server connected via an ethernet cable to the router then via Wi-Fi to both bedrooms, However in the Master Bedroom where I like to listen to music and surf the net in the morning the signal was at best good but when I shut the door for privacy at would go to Poor?. This would lead to a flaky performance to say the least. In the past I tried most manufactures Extenders and Home Plugs with bold claims regarding performance but in the real world never really worked and was unreliable? not to mention a complex setup procedure.
A week ago decided to try this product. Set up was ridiculously easy even for me as anything relating to Routers, ISPs etc is always complex and a mystery to me. Set one unit up next to the router connected to an ethernet port, one in the Front Bedroom and one in the Master Bedroom. Set up my own network and once setup and the Firmware updated within a short time it was complete. To my astonishment the Signal in the Front Bedroom on the 5Gz frequency was at 95% and in The Master Bedroom with the door closed at 86% on 5Gz. I then connected the MacMini to the unit in the Front Room via ethernet and am now streaming Hi-Res music files from the Roon Server and Qobuz to both bedrooms flawlessly. Years of frustration regarding having a good Wi-Fi signal in all rooms are finally banished, For now?.
So it works great but only with it if you have internet of less than 100mbps. I’m about to return as I have now ordered the TP link S4 which should do higher speeds.
These Deco M4s were easy to set up using my phone and the TP Link Deco app.
The main unit is upstairs. The 2nd unit is downstairs and the 3rd unit is upstairs in the detached garage.
Although they are a brilliant router, the Huawei b818-263 router that I’m using has a notoriously poor wifi range. I plugged the Deco into the Huawei with the included cat5 cable and turned off the wifi on the Huawei.
The wifi signal is now brilliant throughout the house and on both floors of the detached garage. Another pleasant surprise is that the wifi seems “snappier”… like when I am browsing a website, there used to be a bit of lag until the page loaded. Now it’s pretty much instant… the Deco must do a much better job of routing the wifi than the Huawei did. I’m guessing it takes some pressure off the Huawei…the Huawei can focus on being a router and the Deco handles the wifi side of things.
I made sure that the wifi SSID and password on the Deco were the same as when I was using the Huawei. That way, I didn’t have to go around and reconnect all my devices one by one. I have a smart tv and some sonoff wifi switches and they all automatically connected to the new network.
The Deco units can be linked together with cat5 cable, or even with powerline plugs, but my experience is that they work perfectly fine without doing that.
I would thoroughly recommend the Deco M4s.
I started by trying to configure the first Deco M4 out of the box as if it were a modem – shows what I know about networking! Once I’d connected the first M4 and my PC to the modem and tried to access the device, I got a Web message telling me to download and install the Deco Tether app on my smartphone. Once done, configuration became very easy – everything from your phone. When you reach the point of setting the SSID and pass key, you have to disable all existing instances of the same SSID – why change, all your WiFi devices will continue to work. I was replacing two BT Home Extender Discs and these also had to be unplugged and deleted from my modem’s table of devices. Once completed everything worked and my phone was connected to the Internet via the Deco M4. I got the remaining devices out of the box, powered them up and went through the Add Deco process, which was very easy.
Now for the downside of these devices! I was using all four RJ45 sockets on my modem, the first Deco needs one to connect it to the Internet, BUT the Deco has two RJ45 LAN sockets, so connect your “missing” device to one of them (modem is connected to the other). The problem now is that the rest of your network can’t “talk” to this device. I tried plugging my NAS box in to one – inaccessible! I swapped devices round with PC in this Deco port and NAS into modem port and I could surf the Internet but my NAS box was still inaccessible. The exact same problem occurs with a network printer whether plugged directly into the Deco port or connected via WiFi. I had to buy a 5 port network add-on to gain access to my NAS box.
I solved the network printer problem by turning back on one of the modem’s WiFi connectivity, changing it’s SSID slightly and connecting the printer to that – worked.
Good luck.
I recently switched my broadband provider from sky to talk talk, with sky my router was linked to those ‘Q’ boxes around the home, I had 2 separate ‘Q’ boxes and these acted as hotspots for the WiFi signal, as I live in a town house with 3 floors, I had my router on the middle floor and a ‘Q’ box on the top and bottom floors, my WiFi was fine. With sky gone I just had a single router on the middle floor and this wasn’t giving me no where near enough speed on the ground and top floor.
I do have an ethernet cable running down from the router to the ground floor straight into a PC but this didn’t help my mobile, internet radio and various I.P. cameras dotted around the house. This time yesterday I was having constant dropouts of signal on my phone, laptop and the radio in the kitchen was just stalling and buffering constantly.
As I type this review, one hour after installing this ‘Deco’ mesh, I’m enjoying lighting internet connection in my kitchen using the 5Ghz WiFi network with link speeds around 800Mbps, now that’s what I’m talking about, this product actually works and work it sure does.
Put it this way, without this mesh system I measured a link speed of 22Mbps Receive and 8Mbps Transmit speed with my laptop in the kitchen (ground floor), now, I’ve recorded, see photo, 866Mbps Receive and 780Mbps Transmit—-Massive improvement!!!!!!
This product won’t speed up the internet speed coming into the house from the cabinet but it sure will allow your devices to make the most of the speed available, it’s just like I’ve got my laptop hardwired up to my router 🙂
So it’s worth the money, every penny of 84.98, I can’t fault it, marvellous stuff. I will talk further about set up and quality, I’ll try and keep things as straightforward, I’m no expert on these things so you’re in safe hands 🙂
Packaging and delivery
This set comes nicely presented, the box depicts illustrations of the product along with all the features and some specifications. The 3 mesh units are nestled in a cardboard tray.
Package contents
3 x Deco Mesh units
3 x Power adapters
1 x 2m ethernet cable
1 x Instruction booklet (it isn’t really an instruction booklet, it just tells you to download the App)
Setup
You must download the App, ‘TP Link Deco’, to install this mesh unit, otherwise installation isn’t possible. From unboxing to fully setting up takes up to half an hour, that’s with all 3 mesh units positioned and connected. The App does all the work for you, just follow all the on screen instructions and Bobs your uncle!
Function and quality
The quality is top notch, a nicely finished bit of kit, all 3 mesh units are the same, they’ve a rubber non slip base, this will also prevent any surfaces getting scratched. They’re rather tall, I’d say about 21cm with a diameter of around 6cm, although they aren’t really round as such. Each unit has 2 ethernet ports thus allowing any devices to be plugged in if they don’t have any WiFi capability but please note that using the ethernet ports on this mesh unit has a slower speed of 100Mbps as compared to the blazing WiFi speeds, I did notice a reviewer on here complaining about the 100Mbps speeds, they must be using the ethernet port, if they switched to using WiFi then their moaning would be solved 🙂
Back to the product, each mesh unit has an individual power supply, this has a cable length of about 1.8m, this is long enough to allow for good positioning. I nearly forgot to mention the top grill and LED indicator, the grill is basically an air vent and allows for good airflow to prevent any over heating. The LED indicator is positioned inside the grill, it isn’t bright at all and even though you can switch the light off, there’s no real need to be honest.
The set up was very easy, a breeze, even for me, when I set up WiFi boosters and the likes I always encounter problems but this was so easy. First off, download the App, open the App, set up account using a name and password. Then follow the on screen instructions, plug the first mesh unit into your router, switch on the power, wait for the LED indicator to flash blue, connect with the App using the onscreen prompts, once connected it will ask you if you want to connect more, tap yes, go to the next mesh unit, plug in, wait for blue light to flash, follow onscreen prompts, then go to the last mesh, follow instructions onscreen as always and job done! Magic stuff!!!!!!!
One thing I will mention, I wanted this mesh to transmit my router SSID and keep the same password, this is possible, during set up of the first mesh unit the App will ask you to input a SSID and password for your mesh, I copied my routers and inputted that. What I then did was access my routers admin and switched off the WiFi signal coming from the router, this stops any confusion with my devices in the home, thus as far as my mobile phone would see is still the same SSID and password as my router but in fact the phone was connecting to the Mesh unit instead because I had named it the same. If you’re unsure of how to access your routers admin settings then look it up online. If you’re still not happy about doing that then just call the mesh unit anything you want and set your own password up, this way your phone or laptop would see your old router SSID and the Mesh with a different name.
So within half an hour I had all this set up, I was quite chuffed with myself and I must say that the designers of this bit of kit have actually spent some time on developing the App to allow not so techie people like me to breeze through it.
So all my I.P. cameras and other WiFi enabled devices connected immediately to this mesh unit, as I had named the unit the same as my talk talk router with the same password. The most noticeable difference was the sheer speed at which I was browsing the internet on the ground floor and the top. The link speeds had improved by 4000%, that’s a crazy figure but true. Rather than just relying on the 2.4Ghz WiFi signal, my laptop and phone hops on to the superior 5Ghz band, the 5Ghz band allows for faster speeds over a shorter distance, your laptop will normally use the 2.4Ghz band automatically if your WiFi signal is weak but allows for a greater distance from your router at a slower speed.
The App is very user friendly, it will perform a test to ensure it’s all working in tip top condition, check security, speed, strength and all that techie stuff. You can also see which devices are connected to each of the Mesh units and it will show the I.P. addresses. There’s the option to select any of these devices and use the parental control system, individual devices can be linked to a profile, say your child, then you can set limits and times, so I can link my sons tablet, phone and laptop to a profile and then set times and if I so wished disable the internet for him, extreme I know but useful.
Alexa and Google Assistant is a feature available with this mesh unit, however, all I found was useful was asking Alexa to open up the Guest network. So if you have some friends come over they can immediately access your internet without having to tap in passwords, so ‘Alexa, open guest network’, and she obliges. I did ask her to run a speed test but she said it wasn’t available on the Mesh units I had, now that’s a shame because it would’ve been cool to get her to run the occasional speed test for me, no matter, I shall just use the Alexa for opening the Guest network.
Before I forget, when connecting for the first time with the App, it will ask you for the model, select E4.
Conclusion
I’m very impressed, buying this mesh has improved my home network big time, well worth the money, don’t buy any other WiFi booster, but buy this one. Apparently this Mesh is compatible with all Internet Providers, mines talk talk so I can’t really vouch for any others.
Very highly recommended.
Specifications
Wireless speeds – 300Mbps on 2.4Ghz and 867Mbps on 5Ghz!
Mesh – 802.11k
Access Point Mode
Guest Network
IPV6 compatible
2 ethernet ports on each module offering up to 100Mbps
Packaging Recyclability
The outer packaging and inside tray is made from cardboard and can be fully recycled, the minimal plastic packaging inside can’t be but full marks to the manufacturer as it’s basically 99% recyclable overall.
AmazonCustomer B07RXLF5XZ 140322 #IX
This Deco mesh system has good reviews and easy setup (allegedly), I don’t have time to mess about with network settings and once set up I expect it to continue working without constant tweaking. I admit the Deco has proved to be reliable so far, was easy (-ish) to setup, and wireless speeds more than acceptable with weakest signal area now >275Mbit (in my garage/workshop) which previously was virtually a black hole for wireless comms. I had to rely on a Powerline connection to get anything at all in there.
As for setting up the Deco I missed an important step with bad consequences. At the stage of ‘Creating your Network’ using the iOS App on my phone I did not delete the existing Virgin wifi network, so when it asked for a name for the new one it rejected the original name+password (which I’d intended to re-use) because it already existed. No problem I thought it’s just the name right? so I called the new network DECO M9 Plus and used the same password. Figured I’d just delete the old network later. Well it created one but the root address was 192.168.68.1 (upwards). Most of my devices (computers, NAS’s, IP cams, iPads et al.,) simply failed to connect. It was then I noticed the ’68’ instead of ‘0’ – because the old network root address was 192.168.0.1 (commonly the default). So I started to reconfigure the PCs first and yes, they connected to the network – but not to each other! Some faffing around in Win10 and they sort of agreed to talk to each other – but the NAS’s and IP cams continued to sulk quietly. At this point I discovered I could reset the root address of the Deco router to 192.168.0.1 and after once again reconfiguring the PC network connections in Windows that fixed most of the problems. The wireless IP cams I just deleted and reinstalled. The ethernet connected IP cams showed up as soon as I changed the root address back to the old one. So yes, for me it was a lot of trouble to set up, mostly my own fault, but there were no helpful suggestions as to how to proceed in the TPlink setup App that would have warned me in advance and avoided this problem.
The app interface on the phone is rather basic, if you’re used to using the ‘advanced’ router options on a Virgin Hub3 then the app seems over simplified to the point where you feel many options are missing. There’s not even a quick way to list IP addresses of all connected devices – you have to click on each one then choose details to see the address. That is useless if you need to check many devices. It turns out you can connect to the Deco router via a PC (a functionality not found in the setup info) using the inbuilt web interface by typing ‘tplinkdeco.net’ and that does list all devices with IP addresses on one page. The page won’t scroll for me using a mouse wheel, I have to drag the scroll bar with the mouse pointer, but at least the info is there.
So functionally the Deco M9 Plus system works very well – that’s the important thing and that’s what gets it 4 stars. The interface is lacking a lot of configurability found on the Virgin Hub3 but if you just want plug ‘n play then it’s probably going to be OK for you.
We currently have a Virgin Hub 3, which gives great speeds but only really for the room it’s in and the signal degrades pretty quickly in any other room. We live in a 3 bed semi and our Virgin Hub had to be installed in the living room at the front of the house, so signal is pretty poor (even when using Repeaters) in our rooms at the back or the extension & garden, and so I thought I’ll give the Deco E4 a go.
Installation generally was pretty easy – the biggest faff was getting our Virgin Hub to go into modem mode – for most routers/modems this is usually a simple process but the Virgin Hub took a few times to restart before it properly entered modem mode. Once sorted though, installing the Deco units via the app was simple – just plug in the unit, connect it to the modem and let the app do the rest. Once the first unit was connected, there was already a massive improvement in WiFi signal across the house, without any drop in speed. Adding the additional units was just as easy – just plug them in to the socket in your chosen room (in this case, at the far end of our dining room and one of the bedrooms upstairs) and let the app connect them to the network.
Once these were added, the signal across the house and garden is much improved and can now use the WiFi across the house without needing to switch to WiFi repeater networks. It’s much simpler to use now as it’s essentially one WiFi network across all the units. Naming the new WiFi SSID to the same as my existing network helped as all devices were able to reconnect without needing to add them again.
One issue, although minor, I did have is that although the Deco offers 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands, it doesn’t seem to give the option to use a certain band for specific devices. By leaving both 2.4 and 5 on, it apparently chooses the most suitable band for whatever use you device needs – although I’m not sure if that is the case. A workaround I found, rather than turn one of the bands off, was to create a guest network solely on the 5Ghz band and connect my phone specifically to it.
Overall I’d highly recommend this to anyone who has weak signal or dead zones in parts of their house, as it should make a massive difference. One thing to watch out for, although not an issue for me, is that the apparent maximum download speed these units offer is 100mb so anyone with higher connection speeds will need to consider this.
I’m not going to cover off how transformative a good mesh system is vs a single router as that is covered by other reviewers and is a no-brainer, especially if you have anything bigger than a 2 bedroom house/flat.
What took me ages to decide (and therefore might be valuable to others) is whether to swap my perfectly reliable 3 node Tenda Nova MW3 system with the TP Link Deco M9 Plus or some other higher priced alternative. I have worked as an IT architect for 30 years and even I find the various performance claims made by competing manufacturers hard to decipher. I also have a proper (up/down) 1Gbps fibre connection and seeing the Tenda Nova “strangle” that to ~70Mbps inside my house eventually got to me. Truthfully 70Mbps is perfectly good for most internet requirements but it just felt wrong!
I’ve had the TP-Link Deco M9Plus (3 nodes) running for only 3 days but it really was simplicity itself and a faultless 10min exercise. Even without any tweaking it is noticeably and measurably a lot faster than the Tenda Nova mesh. Measuring it I get between 200 and 500Mbps at every point in my house/garden. I think this is simply that you get what you pay for, e.g. there is a much more substantial feeling and weight to these which I contribute to a better internal aerial setup. With some work, e.g. wiring the nodes together with ethernet, I believe it will go higher still.
Might be worth noting that before I bought the TP-Link mesh I did also try the Tenda Nova MW12 and could not get that to perform anything like as well as the TP-Link, even after adjusting all the settings. It wasn’t even faster than the Tenda Nova MW3 system I already had.
So far it seems that the TP-Link strikes the right balance between price and performance. There are faster and more expensive mesh systems but most of us can’t make use of the extra speed and WiFi 6 is only just being rolled out on Apple powered Macs anyway – so not relevant for me just now.
I don’t normally write reviews but I’ve been really impressed with this so far. It’s been in for about a week and so far no issues.
I live in a 3 bed brick built house with an extension to the rear. We spend most of out time in the family room at the back of the house where the WiFi router is placed, and have always had massive issues getting Internet throughout the house due to the make up and lay out of the property.
I changed my provider from sky to virgin and knew that virgin don’t provide boosters etc and that I was going to have issues. Also, a lot of reviews have said that they had problems getting the system to work with their virgin router but having read up, I still thought this was the best system for the money.
The system arrived and I put aside 2 hours to set it up guessing that I was going to run into some issues on the way.
I need not have worried. I uploaded the app on my phone, put on my Bluetooth and commenced the set up process which was seamless. After I worked out that I had to keep the Internet ethernet plugged into my router with an ethernet between my router to my mesh WiFi, my first disc was up and running within a couple of minutes. No Messing with router settings or anything. Literally plug and play.
The app asked if I wanted to install another unit which again was installed in a coupe of minutes and the same for the 3rd and final disc.
The system was set up in around 15 minutes from opening the box to being online. No issues. No dramas and totally straight forward.
Previously, when I walked into the kitchen from the family room, my signal disappeared altogether. Now I have full bars in every room.
My only gripe is that whilst I’m getting roughly 300mb in the family room on the mesh wifi. When I walk into the kitchen or front livingroom, it drops to between 100-150mb, so it’s not maintaining the speed fully from the router. That being said, it’s a hell of a lot better than it was before. I’m also getting around 100mb upstairs and into the garden where’s there’s no mesh discs, so again pretty pleased with that.
The reason for only 4 starts? As mentioned, it doesn’t maintain speed throughout the whole house, albeit, it maintained excellent signal strength which provides more than enough bandwidth for phones, tv’s, alexas, playstations etc etc to work seamlessly.
The other reason I gave 4 stars is because the plugs are massive and I couldn’t get it plugged in in the kitchen because it was hitting the worktop upstand!
Im still thinking about getting an additional point for the upstairs. But in reality, I don’t actually need one as I’m getting plenty of speed throughout the whole house.
I’m summary. I highly recommend this system. It has transformed the Internet signal throughout my property both internally and externally and was well worth the money.
This networking solution is refreshingly easy to set up. You plug the first Deco in to a power outlet, plug an ethernet cable in to one of the two ethernet ports and then continue the installation process via the smartphone app.
My first deco is plugged into a powerline adaptor’s ethernet cable which is connected to a Three mobile router (4g), running in normal mode. No need to change it to bridge mode or cable only.
I have 3 floors so I have 2 decos in opposite ends of the ground floor and the 3rd at the top of the house on the 3rd floor.
Everywhere now has excellent wifi signal. The 3rd floor gives me a full wifi signal and excellent throughput, which was the weakest point in the house prior to the Decos arriving..
I am surprised at the throughput to, for example, my bathroom. The router is pulling ~60mbps and across the house I am now receiving ~55mbps…over wifi! Very impressive.
If you are to unplug or restart the Decos they do take a little while to reboot and start working again. 3-5 minutes I would estimate.
The app is solid though, a really good, clear and easy to use app showing you simple enough info to know whats going on at a glance. But its great at showing a little bit more detail (shows you what devices are connected and how much data they’re pulling real time).
The settings are the same too, simple stuff is clear and easy to find and change. Then the more advanced settings are a couple of clicks away. Anything you change has an explanation to tell you what the effects of the change will be.
TP-Link’s support material on the website is fantastic.
I have one LAN/ethernet device connected. Its a grandstream SIP phone hub, which incidentally wouldn’t work with the Decos on installation. 5 minutes later having consulted TP-link’s support website, which told me to flick a switch in the settings menu (disable SIP), and my phone was back up and working.
Only issues I have encountered are the power supply plug and cable. It is quite difficult to get the power lead into the back of the deco due to there being a small void to slot the power lead through and into the socket on the unit. Annoyingly tricky, albeit a minor issue. And the plug unit itself is quite bulky which can limit where you plug these things in. 2 of my locations were made difficult due to the size of the plug. Minor issues though. I highly recommend these.
I don’t normally write product reviews, but felt I had to with this. All I can say is WOW! Incredibly easy to install with the app, and for the fIrst time in 3 years we are now able to get the full 350mbps Virgin Media service we are paying for around the whole house, even at the far end of the garden. Due to brick walls, phones, and other interference, upstairs was atrocious at best, sometimes as slow as 0.2mbps, but now it’s as though you are plugged directly into the router.
As others have said, make sure you change the original router over to modem mode first so it doesn’t try and compete (with Virgin Media to get to the settings just type 192.168.0.1 into a browser and the password is on the sticker on the bottom of your hub) and I also found that you need to plug the TiVo box Ethernet cable into the first Deco unit instead of the Virgin hub, but other than that it’s probably the easiest thing I’ve ever installed.
I read a great comment on here somewhere that said that by increasing your broadband speed you are only making the road wider, not longer, but by installing this mesh system you are creating an entire home network that reaches all the places the rubbish ISP routers can’t get to. It works seamlessly from room to room, there are great parental controls on the app and most importantly it is very stable with no drop outs. I went for the M4 mesh system with 3 Decos, which is probably overkill in a 4 bed house this size but the cost is very reasonable if you consider the difference it’s made. One is installed front right of the house as it has to be plugged into the Virgin hub, the second one is back left to cover the other end of the house, and the third is at the top of the stairs and covers every bedroom perfectly. Even my son commented on how much faster his Xbox games and updates now download.
If you have any wifi black spots around your house, or your devices run slower than they should, then I can not recommend this highly enough.
I bought this to replace my current setup – multiple separate access points throughout the house – with a seamless, single SSID which devices can switch between as I roam.
I had a TP-Link Archer A7 router and didn’t want to go through the pain of migrating all my settings to the Deco (lots of port forward rules, DHCP allocations etc) so set this up in AP mode.
I then spent 2 weeks pulling my hair out. In theory, AP mode should work fine – you keep your existing router to do the… well, the routing – and the Decos should simply be plugged into the network and provide wifi everywhere. I wanted ethernet backhaul for all of the APs so configured it with each AP connected to the network by ethernet (confirmed my config was legal via the TP Link website). I’d taken note of the issues that occur when you use D-Link switches, so I also bought a TP-Link switch to replace the one D-Link switch that I already had (the other 2 were already TP-Link).
So here I am, with a TP-Link router, 3 TP-Link switches, and the new Deco system. My entire network infrastructure from the same manufacturer – should work fine, right?
No. I was getting internet drop-outs regularly, from minutes apart to hours apart. You know the kind of thing – Fire TV stick starts stuttering so you go to speedtest.net on your phone to find a brief surge of speed suddenly drops down to zero. Most annoying.
I tried to get some support from the TP-Link website but frankly that was a waste of time.
The return-window was rapidly approaching. The wifi coverage was great, but if the internet simply doesn’t work then what use is that? So I bit the bullet and spent a couple of hours manually copying over all the settings from my Archer A7, and switched the Deco over to router mode. (Hint to TP-Link – how about the ability to save-and-restore settings between differrent routers that you make? Trust me, it wouldn’t be that difficult to implement).
Suddenly it all started to work perfectly. No drop outs, and I could finally actually use the good wifi coverage it provided. To be honest I was happier without needing the old router to be left switched on – less electricity being use and one less thing that can fail – but it was annoying that I had no choice.
I’ve been running with it for a few months now. The only gripe is that certain devices – which are Fire Tablets – sometimes power up and say they’re connected to the wifi, but aren’t able to reach the internet. It’s fixable by turning the wifi off/on on the tablet so not a huge deal, but definitely worth a mention (I’ve seen people on the TP-Link forum who’ve had the same problem).
Oh – and also spent a couple of weeks banging my head against a wireless CCTV camera that used to work perfectly but had started to suffer from disconnects since the Deco was introduced. I had a eureka moment yesterday when I realised that since the Deco doesn’t have external antennae then I can’t tell what orientation it’s at. One quick adjustment of the camera’s antenna and it now appears to be working fine (this is what prompted me to write the review today – it wasn’t the Deco’s fault!)
Prior to owning these I used the wifi from my ISP’s router, and where it couldn’t reach I had wifi powerline adaptors to give a signal in those areas. This meant the typical wifi issue of when walking round the house and going to another room, needing to disconnect and reconnect. I had all of them broadcasting the same network, but I remained connected to the router, or the powerline until it lost the signal and reconnected to wherever was giving the strongest signal.
My house has had a full side extension, and a loft conversion. The side extension has the rooms most frequently used, so are outside the original external wall of the house. The side extension is also where the router is located.
My biggest concern with these was that the signal from the main unit attached to the router was going to be poor once it reached wherever I located the satellite units, and thus would give a rubbish internet signal in the house. However, that ended up not being a concern! Maybe it was the strategic placing of the main unit effectively adjacent the doorway through the old external wall that has allowed the signal to be so strong in the opposite side of the house? Regardless, my wifi is now awesome throughout my house.
I’ve attached a sketch of my house layout (edit in: just noticed that it is made much smaller on here, so you can’t really read it. Sorry), with all the different wall types to show what the signal has to get through. I made the sketch when I was using all 3 nodes of the Deco M4 in the locations marked on the sketch. I’ve also included all the average upload and download wifi speeds I was getting in that setup, with a wired reference speed of 74Mbps download and 20Mbps upload. The most I was getting previously when using powerline wifi was mid 30s tops for download. So as you can see, my wifi is faster all around my house.
HOWEVER, after I did the tests above, I tried playing around with it to see how it would change if I removed the Deco M4 node that is on the ground floor; so only using the two nodes on the 1st floor. To my surprise this IMPROVED my download speeds in every room which was not already hitting 74Mbps. ALL rooms were now hitting 74Mbps except the conservatory area, which went up to around 50Mbps.
I do not have the units on an ethernet backhaul, so it is all wireless at the moment.
So the main lesson here is, do not use more nodes than you have to, as this could actually be detrimental to your wifi network.
I now have a spare node, which I guess I’ll keep in case one of the other two fails.
So as far as the Deco M4 goes, I love it! I now have a full speed internet wifi connection pretty much wherever I go in my house, and the seamless roaming around the house means I can be on a video call with my parents and if I walk to another room I don’t drop the call and have to reconnect! I actually can’t believe I waited so long to get something like this!
Highly recommended.
Except – no… it wasn’t that simple. I have a whole bunch of smart devices which use 2.4Ghz signal and, although the Deco M4 advertises that it broadcasts on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz it turns out that that doesn’t mean you can actually CONNECT to the 2.4Ghz signal. So after a fairly laborious setup, which involves putting the Virgin Hub3 in ‘modem mode’, and losing functionality of all of the Ethernet ports on the back – in itself a bit of a nuisance – I finally had my Deco M4 Mesh set up. The speeds I was getting were/are phenomenal compared to the speeds I’d previously got. e.g. The laptop in my office went from a 20Mbps download speed to 120Mbps. That sort of thing.
But none of my Smart devices could actually see the network. It downloaded a Wifi management tool and that confirmed that yes, the 2.4Ghz signal WAS there. But nothing would connect to it. After lots of reading up on the subject in the various TPLink forums (fora?!), it looked like TPLink had promised a way to separate the two bands in a forthcoming firmware update. Which would have been great if that hadn’t been written a year ago and it still didn’t appear to be possible.
Eventually, after a LOT of messing around (including re-setting up my Hub3 and Deco M4 numerous times), I came across the fact that you can set up a Guest Network and switch off the 5Ghz band. (It took me WAY too long to find this ‘settings’ menu – maybe I’m old/stupid or maybe it’s unintuitive. Or perhaps a combination of those things). I’ve now got a dedicated 2.4Ghz network which all of my Smart devices connect to, and a dual band network which everything else connects to. It seems to be working great and I’m getting very fast speeds.
I should add – this has only been successfully configured in the last couple of hours, so I can’t really comment on the reliability of it, but I’m not anticipating any issues with it.
I initially had sky broadband (had wifi issue) so moved to Virgin Super fast broadband. Same issue wont get signal to all rooms. Bought netgear extender but it kept dropping and have to connect to different ssid in order to connect.
After quite few research waited for correct time to buy this for 94.99. they are bit huge than i thought (if you have issue with size i would recommend to go with m5) i had no issue with size so i kept them. Size is approx 19cm x 9cm.
Opened the packet connected first deco as main deco next to my virgin router.Download deco app and follow instructions.One network cable goes to virgin router from first main deco. To keep one ssid name i would recommend to change setting on your virgin router to modem mode. By going 192.168.0.1 if you havent changed password they are on bottom of router hub 3. Then select modem mode and enable that.
Then whole process is pretty simple just follow the deco app. App will do the rest. Once one is setup others are easy to add. I would recommend to add all decos next to router and once they are added you can move to other location where you got less or no internet. I have now added deco on each floor. And i do not have any black spots at all. Getting internet in garden as well ( its around 30mbps before i had none) you wont get full speed but you should get resonable to get your things done. I am getting 40mbps in kitchen while with netgear extender i was getting 2mbps.
So i would recommend this to all who have old houses and have plenty of dead spots.
Also if you are parent of young kid and want to control their wifi usage you can do by using the app’s parental control. All deco’s have ethernet port so if you have cable connection that can be done through any decos.
I have experienced couple of time dropage of internet for minute or two but not sure if it was due to deco’s or virgin themselves.
But overall worth buying this and it works seamless. Happy surfing.
Even at close range, we have always found the BT Router to be unreliable as regards Wi-Fi. We do live in the shadow of the Crystal Palace TV Transmitter, so I suspect radio interference is another issue for us. So, trying a Mesh Wi-Fi system was a last resort! I liked the TP-Link Deco M4 solution as it supports 1 gigabit LAN connections and that enhances the speed of transfer between, say, the NAS (on our hardwired network in the lounge) and Wi-Fi devices in the kitchen. The 3-device M4 option is also currently very reasonably priced. That said, I was still more than a tad dubious as previously nothing had really solved our issues. Well, I am very pleasantly surprised – everything works brilliantly.
I disabled Wi-Fi in the BT Router and connected the first Deco box to it with the supplied short LAN cable (in the lounge). I then installed the Deco APP on my Huawei mobile and following the instructions, set the Wi-Fi SSID and PW to be the same as those previously used on the BT Router. It all seemed to work so I installed the other 2 boxes – one half way to the kitchen (spare room) and the other in the kitchen itself. They came up with ‘white’ LED’s after being configured by the App – and we appeared to be all set.
However, I then noticed a couple of issues. Firstly, internet speed from any Wi-Fi device was only about 20% of that we had before. Also, there was no communication between Wi-Fi and LAN devices (eg. We were unable to print or to access the NAS).
I then realised that I needed to set the Deco boxes to ‘AP’ mode (rather than the default ‘Router’ setting – as my BT Router is still our DHCP server). I did this easily and then noticed a firmware update was available. That took about 5 minutes to automatically download and install (using the APP). I then powered everything Off/On (including the BT Router) and it all burst into life. Everything works perfectly and connection speed is excellent. Also, for the first time, we can roam around the house with a mobile or tablet with no loss of connection.
I have even found that the ‘middle’ (spare room) Deco box is not 100% necessary. If I power it off, we still get a usable (if just a tad slower) connection in the kitchen. However, I have left it in situ for speed and redundancy purposes. We also have no need for the optional ‘backhaul’ LAN connection.
So, thus far I am very pleased indeed. I don’t write many 5-star reviews but this kit has far exceeded my expectation and one month later it is still working reliably. For the first time, we also have usable 5 GHz (and not just dodgy 2.4 GHz) Wi-Fi in the kitchen!
As such, I am so glad I didn’t pay over twice the price for some of the competitor’s kits. This does everything we need.
Notes.
– When switching to ‘AP’ mode, some of the set-up options are no longer available. However, that’s fine as they are mostly still available on the BT Router which, in our case, continues to manage our network.
– Set-up can only be undertaken using the Deco App on a mobile. ie. There is no option to access admin pages via a browser. That may be an issue or annoyance for some. The App is not particularly intuitive so finding some settings can be somewhat tiresome….
I got this to resolve a wifi issue in an old victorian house which had red brick following some construction work and then on top of this, large steel beams following removal of chimneys. The end result, perfect wifi upstairs, fairly good downstairs but go into the living room where the above issues were, and the signal quite literally dropped to 1-0 bars.
How they managed for so many years is a wonder however other attempts were made such as new routers, plug-in signal boosters but eventually all failed to improve enough for a decent video call…these days, this is important.
So we installed these.
Setup is very easy. There is no master/slave unit so just grab any and use that for the router. Ensure you have done the prep work like downloading the app first.
Once it has found it, you give it the usual details like what ssid should be called, passwords etc and thats it. AFter this, you grab the next unit, place it, add it via the app and go onto the next.
Placement will depend on your house – What I did was get a wifi analyser app and just walked round once the first unit was installed to work out the deadspots. You want the unit before it starts dying where the signal is still high.
Once all 3 were installed, I plugged in the laptop directly to the router and ran a speed test while on cable (not wireless). Took note, and then did the same speedcheck on wifi at various points of the house – and most importantly, the lounge. I got pretty much the same results all round so this was job done…almost.
I remembered the original router also had wifi so I disabled this – it was no longer required with the M4s in place.
Now, you can roam around the house and connect to the strongest member seamlessly. What is also good is it allows you to create a separate guest ssid isolated to your main network.
The app is also great in controlling who can have access, who does have access, what they are doing, how much they are uploading/downloading etc.
Still early days but after 2 weeks or so, no dropouts, no sudden dying of the points, and still fast internet all-round
I have a 4 bed house, with my router downstairs front left. My study is upstairs, back right, so they couldn’t be further apart. The stock router from my ISP is AWFUL. I used a cheap Negear range extender for a while, speed was shocking, and the signal strength only held up for 3 weeks before it died completely. I was going to look at powerline adaptors to get ethernet to my laptop, but I have other devices upstairs that struggle with WiFi.
So after a recommendation from a colleague, I stumped up for these and I’m so glad I did. I got the M4 triple pack for the same as other retailers sold the double pack. Amazon also let me spread it over 5 months so it doesn’t hurt the pocket.
Set up was a piece of cake, the App is very intuitive. Those who are not tech-savvy should not be afraid of this item. One gap I did notice was that to retain your existing wifi name and password, you have to disable wifi on your existing router. I do not have a button for this so had to go into Admin mode on my ISPs router. However once set up all your existing devices connect straight away.
I did think I may have to have the 3rd device somewhere in the middle ground, but in fact the signal between the two in the far corners of my house is fantastic. It “only” measures 2/3 bars, but has not dropped once in 3 weeks. I also get the full speed in speed tests, not the vastly reduced speed I saw with the Netgear range extender.
I like the roaming feature too, you can see which of your devices are connected to which Deco, and they switch between whatever gets the strongest signal at the time. I have around 20 internet enabled devices (laptops, tablets, mobiles, firestick, chromecast, echo’s…) and they all connect and perform wonderfully.
There are other useful features on the app – you can prioritise devices if you wish (Streaming devices etc), attribute devices to users and rename them to help you identify what is on your network (you get notifications when a new device connects too,and you can blacklist them if you don’t know them). There are also parental control features (which I haven’t used as my little’n has a kindle fire with parental controls on), but it gives me confidence she could have a better tablet and I could use those features.
The guest network feature good as well. You can ‘shake to share’ on the app to send the connection details to anyone that visits. We also have a little framed ‘Welcome to our home’ sign with guest wifi details which will be a nice little touch when people stay.
I can’t comment on tech support as I haven’t had to use it, although it is in the rating system.
So overall, absolutely cannot fault this product. It’s entry level mesh wifi looking at other prices, but suits me perfectly. Also I still have the third device should my needs grow in future.
At first I had the wi-fi signal boosted by a wi-fi repeater. This worked sporadically for the past four years, but often the family would complain that they couldn’t access the internet even though they had a wi-fi signal. Switching the repeater off would fix the problem but then left us with a weaker signal.
So I decided to take the plunge with mesh wi-fi, especially after reading all the reviews about how it improved people’s connection problems. These things can costs a lot of money (compared to my 30+ existing router), so I went for the TP-Link Deco M4 (3 pack) for just 100. This was a good compromise – cheap, but with a lot of features and good reviews.
Setup is easy. Everything is done systematically from the smartphone app, so no silly faffing with web browser addresses. From reading other reviews I was expecting the smartphone app to assist me with optimum placement of the units (such as a signal strength guide), but all the app does is suggest putting the units in clear space away from large electrical appliances, which is pretty obvious!
I wired the first unit into my main router, making it the main mesh unit, and turned the router’s wi-fi off. The second unit was placed diagonally across the other side of the house near the conservatory (giving a good signal in the garden), and the final unit placed upstairs in one of the bedrooms. This seems to have everyone covered, especially our Samsung smart TV in the bedroom which has a very poor wi-fi receiver.
There are two options when setting up the system: either full router mode, or as basic wi-fi-access points (with the original router continuing its usual network management role). I tried the access point mode initially, but that losses a lot of functionality:
– No bandwidth usage monitoring
– No Quality of Service controls
– No parental controls (my son doesn’t understand that internet use at 2am is bad for his sleep)
– No Alexa integration
– No IFTTT integration
So I tried router mode, which gives me all the fancy gizmos in the smartphone app. This appears to work OK, although it can cause connection problems with ‘double NATing’ (where both the router and mesh wi-fi try to control how network addresses are accessed). There are two solutions to fix ‘double NATing’:
– Switch the original router to bridge mode, effectively making it a dumb ISP modem, and letting the main mesh unit perform all the router tasks.
– Put the main mesh unit in the router’s DMZ, bypassing the router’s NATing. This can be done in the router’s settings.
I decided to put the main mesh unit in the DMZ. This is mainly because I also have a remote access point (RAP) to access my work’s network when working from home. The RAP needs to connect to an active router via ethernet, so I had to use the main router with all its spare ports (the mesh units only have two).
Even though my original router is ‘behind’ the mesh unit it is accessible via its original IP address, so I’m still able to manage my ISP connection and other important settings.
The system works well with my existing powerline adaptors too. My son’s PC does not use wi-fi, so needs a wired connection. So too the Sonos speaker in the kitchen, which suffers from interference from the microwave. The Deco M4s can use ‘ethernet backhaul’ to connect together, giving a faster connection between the units. If I had purchased one of the Deco P range I could have used the powerline adaptors for the backhaul as well, but as the wi-fi backhaul is adequate I’m not fussed.
Previously it had been mentioned by others that there was no web browser access to the Decos. It looks like that has now changed. The web portal can be access via the IP address of the main unit, using the same password used in the smartphone app. Bizarrely though, there are some things that can be done in the web portal, but not on the app, and visa-versa:
– The web portal shows how clients are connected (wireless or wired)
– Only the web portal shows the system log and time settings
– Only the app can be used for adding units and users, or setting QoS and parental controls
A web portal is available from any of the unit IP addresses, but the satellite units have even less functionality.
Alexa integration is a bit of a gimmick. The options available are very limited, such as (de)activating the guest wi-fi or turning the LEDs on/off. It’s clunky as you have to instruct (and then wait) for the TP-Link skill to launch before starting any mesh instructions. IFTTT integration is also limited in its use for me. Most IFTTT applets just notify or log when a (new) device connects to the network.
So far, so good. No lost connections, and smooth seamless switching between units as we move around the house.
Problem was I couldn’t predict how efficient a powerline would be if the attic is on a difference ring main to the Virgin box. There’s also the issue I’d read about where powerline adapters holding onto a weak signal because they can’t hand over the connection to a closer unit even if you’ve moved within range of it.
We’re on Virgin Media with a 300mb connection (via the SuperHub 3). It was giving about 280mb about 4 feet from the router but 10mb in the attic of a modest 3 bed Edwardian house.
I couldn’t know if 2 units would cover the 3 floors but with the price of one Deco M9 costing 169 I decided to stump up an extra 110 to ‘be done with it” and get the 3 unit set.
To cut to the chase, I’m thrilled with the difference the Deco M9 system has made, it’s like putting a nitro engine into a milk float!
Easy to set up, you’re walked through the process with an app on the phone – note, if you don’t have a smart phone you can’t get it working! It’s a pity there isn’t a browser interface as well.
Slow Wi-Fi is like having a magic lantern where the genie never comes out no matter how much you rub the lamp.
While speed still varies depending on local demand; I just tested it in the attic at 4.00pm, Easter Monday, a day after setting it up; it read 376mb download / 37mb upload!
Don’t know how the numbers breach the Virgin package like that but that genie can’t get out fast enough, it’s so exciting, I’ve already forgotten how much it cost.
It’s an eye watering price to achieve what your already supposed to be getting from the internet provider but If you don’t find a way to distribute the signal you’re not getting value from the monthly fee.
FYI I use a 10 year old computer as a remote music server via Roon but couldn’t get music to play for more than a few seconds before it dropped the connection.
There was the possibility that the computer was just too weak to deliver the stream on demand which would have meant paying for a NAS or an Intel NUK, either would have cost about the same as the Deco system. Now I know that it was the wifi not the computer which caused the problem.
Firstly, really easy next day delivery from Amazon as per the usual standard. The TP Link Deco devices were purchased not only to help boost the wifi signal around the house for a couple of deadspots, but to provide a better wireless signal generally.
In January 2019 we decided to get rid of conventional broadband and fibre solutions and move to 4G home broadband. We purchased a TP-Link MR6400 4G Router and a 12 month sim only Unlimited data from Three.
Initially we were super impressed with the speeds and the reliability of Mobile Internet as a home solution. We were excluded from any phone line issues that people in our street still tackled with standard broadband providers, or issues with the lines direct to older houses. We live in a good area for broadband generally with a steady 30mbs download, however the further away you are from the FTTB (Fibre to the box) the worse your internet was, we were these people im afraid and usually got a consistent 15-20mbs.
However we noticed after a few months, speeds were slow, ping response from the 4G box was rubbish. Initially doing some reboots of the box resolved some issues, but not all. We have recently just moved to EE unlimited sim only data plan hoping we would see a dramatic difference, to no avail. Albeit inconsistent due to the 4g Router issues, the speed is faster with EE at up to 90mbps.
So i came to the conclusion that the 4G Router must have an internal issue that effects the wifi signal it sends out, effecting the speed.
I purchased these and as previously mentioned above, they arrived in great time. The box is well packaged and the product itself seems a good standard.
Plug and play standards meaning i simply unboxed, power lead and ethernet into the back of my 4G router and hey presto. Download the iOS or Android app and go through the simple step by step instructions.
Renamed the Deco to the name of my already implemented wifi (Dans Fibre), and all my devices previously linked to the router that was called (Dans Fibre) just linked to the Deco. (This also saves alot of time not going through all those devices you have and pairing to a new wifi name with a new password)
10 minutes and my first deco was out the box and receiving 4G EE mobile data and sending it out to the house. Signal and ping speeds were massively better, however i needed to route into the 4G Router 192.168.1.1 and turn off the wireless which then allowed the Deco to be the only wireless signal we could see. Which proved my theory right about the box having an internal issue. Ping speeds were back down to a healthy response instead of the randomly fluctuating 200ms 178ms etc. Im happy with low 30ms ping speed.
Continuing with my setup i placed another one upstairs and paired via the app, bang fast reliable internet upstairs.
These really are simple to use, and albeit i know my way round most computer technology, im definitely not a network guy, but seriously these were an absolute breeze, and have temporarily fixed my internal wifi issues.
I will still need a replacement 4G router, but that will only make things better.
For what these are designed to do, they do a fantastic job. It boosts the signal around the house really well, and the intelligent switching between Deco units to provide the best signal is great.
Ive only scratched the surface with some basic use, but i like some of the built in features within the app that let you prioritise device bandwith and speed, and parental controls, guest networks etc. Its great to see who is using what also including who is using all the bandwith downloading netflix 24/7.
If you have home broadband or a 4G solution, this will work just fine.
My situation may be different to yours for use, it may be the same. But i couldnt find any reviews that related to using in a 4G Environment.
I hope this review helps other would be 4G Solution people. Roll On 5G!!!
Live in large old house 4600 sq ft with solid brick walls over 3 floors. Virgin Media Dud3 on ground floor living room. Could not stream in upstairs rooms where speed through 3 walls was 2 to 5 Mb/sec. Dropouts were frequent.
Slowest recorded speed on uppermost floor (where I have not put Deco disc) is now 240 Mb/sec.
I set up Deco as router and put Virgin Hub3 as modem only, which is the default recommended setup.
Setup quick and easy if right sequence is followed, so for benefit of those who may do it in future………..
1. MOST importantly, do the pinhole reset on your Virgin Hub3 by 20 sec+ press on pin hole button just below lowermost ethernet port on back of Hub. This resulted in an improvement of my router speed tested with laptop connected to lowest ethernet port on Hub. It will restart as router with WiFi as default from Virgin.
2. Connect to Hub interface by typing address 192.168.0.1 in browser. Use password (8 digits) on bottom of hub. This is not the same as your WiFi password.
Select ‘Modem Mode’ and tick modem mode box and accept. Note if you do not have a computer to connect by ethernet to the hub then you would have to pinhole reset to return to Router mode with WiFi from hub.
Allow the Hub to reboot into modem mode…..it is complete when only magenta light is showing at base. Any other ethernet cables you have connected to hub will now not be getting any signal as it has lost it’s router function. Only the lowermost ethernet port will be active in Modem mode. I confirmed that modem mode was active by getting full advertised speed of 547 Mb/sec with laptop connected via ethernet cable.
4. Kill power and reboot Hub3 again…it will go into modem mode with the magenta light on.
5. Kill power on Hub…..begin TpLink sequence
6. Make sure Deco app is installed on your phone and you have registered an account. Connect Deco disk to be used as router to lowest ethernet port on hub by Cat6 ethernet cable or better. I did not use the bundled cable with the deco set because no markings on it so was not sure of performance. Got 5 Cat7 cables for around 10 on Prime. Connect power source to Deco and plug in. At this point Hub 3 is still OFF with no power.
7. Follow steps on Deco app on your phone until blue flashing light appears on your Deco. The Deco app will then find the Deco disk. AT THIS POINT POWER UP HUB3 and let it go into modem mode. It is very important to have deco connected to Hub and in blue flashing mode when you power up the Hub3.
8. Hub 3 will start in Modem mode and Deco will get internet signal from Hub modem and create WiFi network.
At this point you are invited to name your network and create password. If you intend to use same credentials as your original Virgin WiFi network it would be best to delete it from your phone so that the TpLink app can establish the connection for you as a new network . All your other devices with the saved credentials will connect automatically as before.
9. Take your other 2 Deco disks to their desired locations and follow steps for adding a new Deco until they show green lights.
I followed the above steps and got it to work first time.
The extra reboot of the Hub in Modem mode and making sure Deco is powered up, connected and waiting before you start up the Hub are very important.
Hopefully you will have no problems and enjoy benefits of great WiFi signal throughout your home.
EDIT: 3 weeks on. Stable as ever. No reset needed. Photo is of Speedtest run during daytime in room most distant from Hub3. Previously no signal there, now 250+ MB/sec. Fantastic bit of kit.
JAN 2023. Now 3+ years on and still excellent. Absolutely no WiFi issues in this house where we were struggling previously. 200 Mb / sec or better in every room.
I gave the Deco M9 Plus Mesh WiFi 5 stars… and now that I have been using it for a while, I must tell you how wonderful this product is. If I could, I’d give it six stars!
I have now stopped using powerline networking through the house, as the three Decos give me the full speed of the Virgin router throughout the house. My main computer (as far from the router as it can be still gets fill speed. I have never seen anything like it! Don’t think about Devolo Magic 2 or any of that stuff – just go straight for the Deco M9 Plus. You will be delighted with the performance and the quality of the system, the app, and the way the product is presented. They are well worth the price.
Here’s my previous review…
The TP-LINK Deco M9 Plus (3 Pack) is currently expensive, but I needed something to eliminate the very slow and intermittent wifi I was getting from a combination of our Virgin Media Router and a Powerline 1200 device with Wifi from Devolo.
Firstly, when you open the box you realise that this is a very high quality piece of kit. The three Deco devices are actually quite heavy, and the way they and the cables/power supplies are packed is exemplary. The nice thing is that installation is all driven by the TP-LINK DECO app downloadable from the App Store in my case (iOS).
The app is excellent. It has a lot of functionality beyond what you need to install the devices. The installation was simple (step-driven on the app) and the three Decos were soon working as a mesh with one password. and one user ID – no more having to login to the hotspot in your vicinity.
Once I had the devices installed, I did a speed test using the button in the app to initiate it, which uses OOKLA, and the devices were picking up the full speed of the router. This is incredible as I have just replaced my Devolo Powerline network devices that were losing lots of bandwidth (350mbps in, 25Mbps to each device!). The TP-Link M9 Plus devices are very fast – faster than I am now getting with TP-Link 2000 Powerline devices (which do however install without fuss).
So basically I am utterly delighted with the performance and ease of use of the DecoM9 PLus devices. I think they are worth the money. Note that the M9 Plus devices are the fastest – don’t go for M5 or P7 devices. An unless you have a smaller house, get the M9 Plus three pack for maximum coverage. Dead spots in the house were everywhere – and now we have none.
If you want the best whole house Wifi coverage at high speed, I can confirm that the TP-LINK Deco M9 Plus three pack is worth the money. You can also buy holder separately for 28 that allow them to be neatly hung over the power supply plug on the socket.
Lastly, the quality of the TP-LINK Deco App is top notch, and you will be very pleasantly surprised how it can operate electric plus smart devices that turn standard lamps on and off. I have several by TP-LINK, and they work well. So well done TP-LINK. You are my new IoT/WiFi/PLN supplier of choice.
I had a few different Mesh systems in my shopping basket and had been doing research on YouTube, umming and ahhhing over whether to get one. My family members had been moaning a bit about our wifi being rubbish and when these came up on a daily deal, I bit the bullet.
They arrived promptly as usual with Amazon Prime. Box was larger than expected and immediately they seemed like a quality product. The units are a little bigger than expected – about the size of a bottle of wine without the neck.
Instructions are basic to say the least. However, they only really serve to get you to download the app which takes over the entire process. You have to use the app, this is the only way to interact with the system so download it on the main users smartphone (I call this the “Master Device”).
It looks like you can assign other app users as co-administrators but I haven’t tried this.
You need to set up a TP Link account to use the app.
I already had one as I have an HS100 smart plug and it recognised my details and logged me in without issues.
This account is not a locally stored account, it is a cloud account which means that you can access and administer the system when you are away from home.
The app guides you through connecting the first unit and sets up the SSID and security for your wifi.
I turned the wifi off on my ISP’s router before connecting the Deco via a network cable. I then gave the Deco unit the same SSID and password I had previously used. All of my devices started connecting straight away.
The app then asks if you want to connect another Deco. Click yes and it talks you through setting up the next unit, which is as simple as plugging it in to the mains and letting the app find it and set it up for you!
I had a three pack, so followed this process twice.
I was quite quickly prompted to download a firmware update. You MUST do this as many of the features that are advertised are only available after the update.
NOTE – This update will only affect the unit your “Master Device” (Administrators Smart Phone) is currently connected to. It doesn’t tell you this. I walked into another room where one of the other units was and got prompted to download the update again once my device switched to the stronger signal. Make sure you go round all three (if you have the three pack) and either wait for the prompt, or go to the settings menu and “Check for Updates”.
Once all three are connected and updated, you get to play around with the app!
The main screen shows you all of the connected devices.
You can view each Deco and its status and it will show you which devices are connected to each unit.
For every device, you can edit its name to give it something more user friendly.
You can assign each device to an Owner too. For each owner you set up, you are able to control their access through Schedules as well as “Pause” connectivity for all of their devices an the touch of a button. Great if you want to stop kids playing Xbox or watching YouTube on tablets after 10pm for example!
The app produces notifications when a new device joins the network. If one of my sons friends comes around and connects for the first time. I can quickly give the new device a name that identifies it to me and assign it to my “Guest” owner profile. (You can create a separate guest network if you wish, though I don’t wish to do this).
We have a few Amazon Firesticks, so I gave them priority over other devices on the network to ensure smoother streaming. You need to know your download speed, then you set how much of it should be reserved for priority devices. Anything added to the priority list then shares this portion of your bandwidth.
Techie bit:
My ISPs router was quite basic and I was not able to switch it to bridge mode.
The Deco units come out of the box in “Router Mode”. You can switch them to “Access Point Mode”, though this removes much of the functionality as all they do is pass connections to your ISPs router to manage.
If you want to use all of the clever stuff in the app that I mention above, they need to be in router mode.
My Decos are on a different IP range to my ISP router. My ISP router provides one single IP address to the main Deco unit. This Deco is then the DHCP server for the rest of the network. I have one network lead coming out of the deco into an un-managed 8 port switch as I have some devices that need to be hard wired.
The three Deco units use the default wireless backhaul to talk to each other.
I was concerned that my two sons Xbox’s wouldn’t like this set up and present “Double NAT” errors due to jumping through two routers, each serving network addresses. For reasons unknown to me though, they don’t! They connect to Xbox live without issue and online gaming has not been a problem.
We did encounter one hiccup when one of the boys connected the network lead to his Xbox (which connected it to the unmanaged switch). Even though it was still getting its IP address from the Deco system, it didn’t like this and DID complain of a double NAT. Switching back to wifi fixed this straight away.
So – Not sure if modern kit/protocols are able to address double NAT, but I am pleased that I do not have to switch the Decos to AP mode to overcome it!
Summary:
My units have been running for a few weeks now and our wifi has been transformed.
Yes we have had a drop out, but I couldn’t tell you if this was the Deco units or our internet connection through our ISP, but I think you have to expect this once in a blue moon.
Signal is strong throughout the house, including through a double skinned brick wall into our extension.
We even get a decent signal in the garden.
I get consistent speed test results no matter which unit I am connected to, so the wireless backhaul between the units is obviously up to the job.
If you have stuck through to the end of this review, you are obviously serious about buying – DO IT!
I would definitely recommend this product.
Our broadband supplier is vodafone. The broadband connection into the house is good, their supplied router is beyond hopeless. Really poor signal strength and frequent dropouts. Parts of the house had no signal at all, in the room where the router was the wifi signal would just drop numerous times in the day and no amount of changing channels or letting it adjust channels automatically seemed to resolve that. I received this product yesterday. First impression – the units are packaged adequately and look reasonably neutral and unassuming as they should. They were a bit bigger than I expected. Roughly the size of two tins stacked on top of one another but mostly these will be hidden out of sight behind units etc anyway. Maybe not the best laboratory conditions but probably typical of most users.
SETUP – was simple enough although it is not quite as simple as being plug and play it isn’t far off. The app appears to be very good both in terms of initial setup and then management of the devices. I turned off wireless on the original router in order that the initial tp-link device acted as the router. The setup of the first device then simply requires to be connected into the LAN on the original modem/router and plugged in. I set the SSID and password to be the same as the existing one it was replacing and, in that way, all existing devices would automatically connect with no need to adjust their connection settings. On setup of the first device it became quickly apparent that the range was already significantly better than from the existing router. I added one more unit downstairs, and one upstairs. Adding the additional devices was extremely straight forward – just tell the app you are adding a new device, plug it in, wait for the status LED to start flashing and then proceed on the app and the connection is made. Perhaps a little more info on placement would be ideal i.e. should you always aim to place devices where you register a full strength signal on your phone or is it ok to extend that more to gain maximum range. That wasn’t totally clear to me but my ideal required positioning meant that I was setting up where it was showing strong signal anyway and I assume that is the best way to ensure best speeds.
PERFORMANCE – With all three devices now in place I register a full wi-fi signal in every room of our 4 bed house. Speed tests conducted throughout the house show close to maximum expected through our line (78 mbps down) and so far everything has worked flawlessly with no dropouts. Streaming is fast both through internet services (iPlayer, Netflix etc.) as well as though local network from my plex media server. Assuming it remains this way then I am extremely happy that this has taken our broadband from being slow and unreliable to a smooth operator. I’ve used powerlines and extenders in the past, and whilst they had their place they are no substitute for either the performance or the simplicity of use we’re getting through this mesh system. It just works. For every device and throughout the house. It is also good to know that, should you require to add additional units, then all deco models are compatible with one another. I don’t feel a need to add a unit right now as whole house is covered but now I’ve seen how well these works I might get one to put in the kitchen with the view to extending wifi signal further into the garden. I read one review on here that said that these units do not work with Amazon Echo/Alexa devices. They do. In fact they state they are compatible with Alexa on the box and their is a tp-link Alexa skill that can be used although the benefit of doing so seems minimal.
THE APP – A final word about the app and the additional controls that come with these units. Firstly the app is well presented. It guides you through initial setup very smoothly. Once set up you can monitor which devices have connected, which are online, the data pull for different devices etc. You can blacklist devices or set certain devices to have high priority over others either full time or temporarily (e.g. if bandwidth is an issue you might prioritise a movie streaming to your tv for a couple of hours). You can easily turn on and off a guest network and easily share connection details. The parental controls aren’t something I need right now but will in the near future. You can register users and set their level of appropriate access (and adjust that as necessary). You assign certain connected devices to a user and then control when those devices have access. I can’t speak to how it actually performs but it looks a simple and neat solution and certainly better than anything available through the ISP supplier. I was particularly pleased that, with one unit in the bedroom, that there were settings for the status LED. Whilst fairly unobtrusive I don’t want an LED permeating through the darkness but at the same time I do occasionally want a visual indicator as to whether the device is working/connected. No problem – you can set the LEDs to either be on, off, or scheduled. I have them switched off between 10:00 and 07:00.
I don’t have too many complaints about my ISP but the supplied router wasn’t up to the job. All in all this has been a simple solution that has essentially fixed what I considered to be a broken internet service so it’s five stars from me. Only time will tell if it remains stable and if the devices are reliable. I’ll update this review should anything change.
UPDATE – almost a couple of years on and the system is going strong. I can’t recall a single issue. I bought a further unit to try to stretch more signal out in the garden and that’s worked great.