TP Link Deco Replacement S4 3 Pack

My Old Man Scott L Sliwinski say Big Google Fan here, but....

I debated between this and Google's WIFI, and overall it came down to cost. The TP-Link is almost $90 Cheaper (At my time of Purchase) then Google's WIFI.

Layout:
- I have a 2500 Square Foot Home
- 3 Floors
- Verizon FIOS at one end of the house and bad internet at the back end.
- How I set it up, you need to connect one to your main router (Pictured, Note: Once all is connected, you will want to disable your Routers internal WIFI, there is a such thing as too much WIFI)
- Then I hooked one up down in the basement and connected it directly to the PS4 (The PS4 non-pro model only supports a 2.4GHz signal, so hooking this up directly to it with a WAN make it like it's god a 5GHz LAN Connection)
- The last one I hooked up in the Master Bedroom.
- Overall I made a Triangle of WIFI.

Setup:
- Setup overall was simple, plugged the main unit into my Router Directly.
- Downloaded the TP-Link app, and took under a minute for it to detect.
- You need to sign up for TP-Link account
- It created a secondary Network, so most routers do 192.168.1.1. This will make another which you can change. This is important to know because if you are using any devices with a Static address (Like a Network / Wireless Printer or even a Home Desktop, you IP Scheme is going to change)
- Also and VERY important, if you leave it create the 2nd VLAN, for Alot of at home devices it won't matter, but if you Work from Home and you need to connect thru VPN, your VPN will no longer work. Why you ask, this network you've create is now a "Double-NAT". VPN will not work through this type of setup, so you need to create "Flat Network" if you use and need VPN for work.

Performance:
- We have 4 Kids, and like 25 overall devices and I notice blazing speeds no matter the scenario of who was using what.
- the pS4 is the biggest factor, so if there is say a 15GB Game Download or Update, it would have normally have told us it could take several hours to download (Again, PS4 only supports 2.4GHz unless you bought the PSPro). Now with it getting 5GHz and a Direct LAN / Cable connection, my test went from 5-6 hours to 12 - 15 minutes for this large file.

Bad:
The biggest pain for me in this was well, ALEXA! This has NOTHING to do with the performance of the TP-Link at all. We have 6 Alexa Speakers and a few smart Plugs. There is no way in the Alexa app to mass change the WIFI Network or Password, you need to basically go around to each device and almost set them up like they are new. The Speakers set back up pretty easily, but the plugs, the app treated them as new Plugs, not existing and I needed to re-do all our Alexa Routines.

Overall:
I would highly recommend this Mesh WIFI for a home, but like me, if you have some smart home devices (Alexa, Security Cameras, Nest Thermostat), just be prepared to redo all those devices as if they just came out of the box.

My Buddy Michael said Getting better..

--Updated on 11/4/2019:
Parent control is unreliable. Not recommended.

--Updated on 9/6/2019:
Customer service emailed back. Claimed there are "devices limitations", each profile should have less than 16 devices. We only have 3 devices. Still waiting for the solutions.

--Updated on 8/29/2019:
We finally registered the product. Opened a ticket. The product stopped working. When we tried to "Pause" the internet on the mobile app, it doesn't work.
When it shows "paused", actually not paused.
When It shows "unpaused", it actually paused.

We try to register this product so we can get the warranty. TP-Link won't let us register the product. Showing: "Product Not Found. Please Contact Support at (866) 225-8139"

Called the number, they claimed they "manually" added the serial number to their system. And asked me to wait for their email, before get any warranty service. Not email show up yet. Will keep updating.

---Original Review
Why you should NOT buy this:
1. Parent Control not working. It tracks all the traffics and sum them up all together to calculate "Screen Time". Example: you open one website for 1 minutes, the website makes connections to 4 other URLs, it counts 4 minutes. If you do one hour screen time, this device counts it more than 3 times. Very misleading. Besides the basic "time out" function, the other Parent Control functions not working, or I don't know how to use them.

2. Streaming got issues. We have two TVs connections, the streaming lags poorly if we use two TVs at the same time. We don't know which TV connects to which node, but keep buffering/lagging. We don't know what's the issue.

3. Management interfaces. User is not allowed to assign devices to Mesh nodes. Actually user doesn't know which nodes it connects and won't able to pick. Maybe the Mesh is "auto pick the best signal", we still want to see which devices connecting to which Mesh nodes at any given time. Unfortunately, this Mesh doesn't show it. It does NOT come with a website to manage, only the phone app.

4. Bottom line:
--If all you want is to boost the speed, this is good value product.
--If you want to see the activities, or any management features, don't buy this product.

For the price, it's a good buy. I will keep it. However, I will NOT recommend this to my friends.

My Buddy Maribel Young tell us Living our internet speeds!.

I am extremely happy with our M4 system! The installation was extremely easy and our speeds are amazing. In our “dead” zones, speed tests showed that we were lucky to get 25 mbps now we are at 300 mbps! Super awesome!

My friend Frank S say This is the best Mesh system at any price!.

I’ve tried 2 other mesh systems, this by far the best system. This is a great system and the price is amazing!

My Old Chap RickWAllen said This S4 MESH 3-Pack did As advertised😃. Very highly recommended. BEST WIFI App Ever🏆 ✔️🎖️🤩.

{S4 Deco 3-pack, April 2020}
My 2600 ft2 house is quite long in one direction and is 3 levels. And half of it is a 1949 all steel metal walls and ceiling "Lustron" kit home. Tried numerous name brand WiFi routers extenders over the years and constant problems, dead areas, no Internet etc. Frequently rebooting routers, extenders. This S4 Deco Mesh WiFi is first system to provide perfectly functioning, 5 bars signal strength WIFI to every part of the house. And it was the easiest to setup. And has a smooth easy Smartphone App for doing everything.

This product has been much better than expected. No more stalled Internet and rebooting routers extenders etc. No more having to stsrt up my desktop and open up control panels for extenders and routers, using complex clumsy pieces of software for SSI's and passwords.

In a few weeks I'm going to throw out my old Wi-Fi routers and extenders and celebrate. Yay 😃😃

Guest Wifi is a breeze to create, turn off, rename, change PW. All on the Deco Smartphone App. No more complex control panels on my desktop.

I believe TP Link has opened up a whole new generation of trouble free Wi-Fi, easily installed, modestly priced, for big complex homes.

I wish I could personally thank the TP Link engineers for all the trouble they have saved me and my family. Years of Wi-Fi trouble and aggravation, all gone, solved in 1 hour of installation last Tuesday. 🤩😎😃

My Buddy Amazon Customer say Best value mesh router.

Very good speed and it's better than the one provided by our internet provider.
Easy to install just follow the app
Now all of us are happy as the whole house, garage and backyard is using one ssid

My Old Neighbor Raymond R. Talk Powerline makes a difference in old house.

Replaced an apple airport network when I had to work from home because its an old adobe and
brick house Southwester house with a modern addition in back. We were getting up to 150 mbps in the addition but my office was getting less than 5 mbps at the other end of the house. Read the reviews on Amazon and other sites and the choice seemed to be between a more expensive 3 channel mesh system or a cheaper two channel system. Then I spotted this PowerLine version for a bit more than the 2 channel system that specifically mentioned that it worked with thick walls. We have brick, adobe and plaster walls between the cable and my computer. Installed the new network and I'm getting 70-90 mbps in the office now. It works well and it was setup in less than 30 minutes as I played with placement of the two remote units around the house.

My Buddy dr.corso experience So Far So Great.

I purchased this system this week because the router that I had was around 8 years old and I figured it was time for a change. In addition there were a few annoying dead spots around our house that I wanted to get rid of.

I focused my search on the new 'mesh' systems since they are reported to minimize those dead spots. I did some research using a few different sources online and found that T-Link was one of the best reviewed systems and found that the Deco 9 specifically was indicated for 'thick walls'. We live in a fairly new 4000sqft house with steel beams and multiple levels which seemed to have limited our old router. Given that this system is indicated for houses up to 6000sqft houses I thought that it might be overkill, but thought better to buy too much than run into the same issue that I was having. In addition this system is reported to use the houses existing wiring as a "belt and suspenders" form of communication between the base units secondary to wireless signals.

Upon receiving and unboxing the system, the set up was a breeze with the app that I downloaded on my phone. The primary unit is in my basement which is where the internet and modem is located. The other two units are on the main living level and were set up very quickly with no issues.

We have been living with the system for 4 or 5 days now and all of the dead spots from the previous router are gone. The signal in general is much stronger throughout the house and everything is running noticeably faster.

I would expect our experience to remain very positive and we are very pleased with our choice. Would highly recommend.

My Old Man Chris said Back to great WiFi.

I don't know what happened. I used to have an Apple AirPort Extreme. It did OK, but not great. I then upgraded to a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 in May 2016 after I saw how incredible her WiFi speeds were at her home. It was wicked fast here. Everywhere. No matter where I went in my 2-story home--inside and out. Then over the course of the past 3 years firmware updates to my Nighthawk rendered my WiFi more-or-less useless. Sometimes it was fast-ish, but for the most part, it was slow or completely dropped the signal. I ended up hard-wiring my main MacBook Pro to the router just to be able to have decent speeds -- and that's with the Nighthawk literally 4 feet away from it. Yes, I even tried moving the Nighthawk to a different place and also resetting it to factory settings and making sure I had the latest firmware.

I'm over it--and trying extenders with it.

Over the past year I've been hearing more about mesh WiFi systems. I was going to get Google's. Then the Eero (which Amazon now owns). Google's didn't have the best reviews and Eero's was just too pricey. So that lead me to giving TP-Link's a shot. Great reviews, and my home is just under 3,000 sq, ft. so if theirs is rated to cover a 5,500 sq. ft. home, I should be good to go. Well, almost. Amazon was super lazy in getting it to me. I'm used to fast deliveries now, and when it took 2 days and then a 3rd because of shipment problems, it was a bit frustrating from the start.

Once it did finally get here, I opened the box and actually laughed when I saw the setup guide. It literally is one page in English that tells you to go and download the app and go from there. So I did. I didn't have a great time with setup because I was using an early beta of iOS 13 (for those who are also trying to do this, DON'T. The app won't be able to find the Deco). I grabbed my iPod Touch which still has iOS 12 on it and that worked. This also was the same problem for adding the other two Decos. Don't play with the beta, kids.

After finally getting that straightened out, I still had some issues with the Deco communicating with my Spectrum router/modem. The cable they included wasn't the right one so I just used the one that I was previously using between my modem and Nighthawk (a yellow one). I still had to keep turning off the modem and the Deco to get it to work. After trial and error, I was finally able to get the app to find the Deco, the Deco to get an Internet signal, and I was off and running. It's a bit crazy that all 3 Decos are the same, so it doesn't matter which one acts as your "base station" or is used as a mesh node. It's amazingly minimalistic without ANY buttons. Two ethernet ports, a place to plug in power, and a reset button. That's it. Everything is controlled with the app.

I now no longer have to tether my MacBook Pro to my router for decent speeds. I get acceptable bandwidth (200+ Mbps down, 20 up--which is what I am paying for). All my IoT things now work faster and more reliably (most notably my Wyze cams), and after setting up the other two Decos throughout my home, I have amazing speeds ranging anywhere from 20 Mbps outside to 100+ Mbps no matter where I go throughout my house and garage.

As for the iOS Deco app? It's "ok". It needs a dark mode and some UI improvements. Not the easiest and most intuitive thing to navigate. It's nice to see I've got 40 devices and what kind of bandwidth they're using realtime so if things get so, I know who to go and shut off!

My Fellow SF said Very fast, great coverage and works seamlessly.

I had an Amazon eero three point mesh router that constantly gave me "connected, no internet" problems--because I believe the router often would not assign an IP address to a connected device. Happened with IoS, Mac OS and windows. It also would not connect certain Internet-of-things devices like my Ring doorbell or a webcam--perhaps because these devices were 2.4 ghz only--but the eero does have both a 5 ghz and 2.4 ghz network, so not sure what the problem was (form internet searches, I know I was not the only one having problems connecting the ring to the eero).

Did some further research, bought this tp-link product, and both problems I had with the eero went away. Coverage and speed are fantastic. Setup very similar to the eero. eero's form factor and app may be slightly more polished, but that is not a substitute for the fantastic functionality and instant connectivity of this tp-link router.

When you are looking at mesh routers, you might want to give extra point to the ones made by long-time networking companies, like netgear (orbi) and tp-link, as opposed to the ones from amazon (eero) and google (nest). Apple got out networking two years ago.

One small point--when power cycling the router and modem (hey, sometimes you have to do it), you have to disconnect the ethernet between the modem and the router as well, not just the power.