TP-LINK Deco M9 Mesh Wi-Fi System Review & Comments

I have personally had the Linksys Velop, Google WiFi and now the TP link deco M9 systems and only the M9 system worked as advertised, without hickups or performance troubles. I don't have a wired backhaul. With these systems it's very much a test it at home advise. The Orbi's work great for some, and bad for others. Same with Google WiFi. I could not get any speed with that system, while others praise it.
 
I've got a Velop with 2 nodes with a wired backhaul. Generally it's been pretty solid and the WiFi coverage is just about right for my setup.
I'm sure I looked at the TP-Link system, but can't remember why I dismissed it. I have other TP-Link gear (switches mainly) that are superb.
 
I personally have a two node Google wifi mesh - and it's been singly one of the best investments I've made. Backhaul is over wifi, and performance and reliability of both units is excellent. No more wifi blackspots or ugly EoP wifi extenders. Mesh wifi is definitely the way forward.
 
Have an Orbi RBK53 and no problems. Good wifi coverage across the whole house, 5 bed rambliung cottage, and seems rock solid, no reboots etc.
 
I had a plan to order a mesh wi-fi system today and it was between this and Google Wifi - coincidentally saw this review and thought it was a sign so I've ordered a set :D. House is a brick walled victorian semi - and the router is at the front of the front room - so we've had to rely on powerline adaptors for any kind of coverage in the main family room at the back of the house. Given we have "up to 200Mbps" broadband (which we do get if wired direct) it's pretty galling to speedtest at 5 or 6Mbps at the far end of the house.

Ethernet is in walls, so that can be used for backhaul once terminated and tested, but for now will try it out WiFi only.
 
Sorry but.

Why are proper wireless tools being used to measure the results?

Seems a little meaningless to review something without being able test correctly.

I can understand that you are reviewing based upon users not having the correct understanding or tools to measure and analyse there homes before deploying. But as a review I would want to see accurate measurements using the correct tools and methodology.

Without them your results and conclusions are meaningless.

Other reviews on this site use the correct tools to test. Seems a shame not to continue this in anything being reviewed.
 
Firstly.. Thank you for not jumping on me... I was trying to be constructive but its easy to piss everyone off :)

iPerf or other tools like it only test the raw speed for A to B which has its uses but in a wifi review, I would like to also see:

whats the RF in the environment.

What does the device (ideally more than one) see.

What does something like a Sidekick see when you do a survey. (Assuming your using something like Ekahau)

What is the antenna spread

What is your device reporting to connect at? is it a 3x3 or 2x2 how well did your device maintain this?

Whats the Antena db

How did you place the AP's to get the best coverage (height, distance from walls, ceilings, I want to know about reflections etc)

How many AP's do you actually need to give a primary and secondary signal at -65 (assuming this is your benchmark) compared with what the manufacture claim (you mentioned coverage - what does this mean in the real world. 2.4 at -75 is a really, really long distance.

Does the backhaul over wireless negatively affect the speed of a device? by how much compared to wire.

How many SSID's can be created and the negative effect of those. layer 2 isolation (does it work?) can you open it up? what control over layers do you have i.e. 2,3,7

Since this review is talking about mesh... I would like to see what is TP-Link using for handover r? some strange built in logic? how well does it work? how does it work? any controls / negative effects / tweaks to improve / dropped packets etc.

Can you change the minimum connection rates?

VLANs?

What were the channels used - because? - what options etc
what was the channel width used - because? - what options DFS etc

A comparative heat map is useful between different AP's in the same area.

iPerf from a location I can see on a map with more info from above has more use because I can use that data to guess how it would work in my house...

Saying speed from point 1 was x really does not mean much if the RF environment is rubbish, you have co-channel interference, the AP is doing something strange, your neighbor(s) decided to move there wifi/channels/width

You cannot compare wifi from different vendors that way.

sorry.

I have just been through reviewing wifi for my own home and it took serval AP's from different vendors and lots of time (and patience from the rest of the family) and lots of documentation to narrow the choice down to one...it was not the one I expected either.

Edit: And noticed your comment on Free :).....

OK forget the above to some extent

Edit2: OK.. you can still do quite a lot of whats above. For free(ish) but it would be worth contacting Ekahau to see what they can do (7 day license for the review).. they also do a free ish trial which would give you an insight to much of the above + some of there free tools are very good, just limited.
 
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Edit: And noticed your comment on Free :).....

OK forget the above to some extent

Edit2: OK.. you can still do quite a lot of whats above. For free(ish) but it would be worth contacting Ekahau to see what they can do (7 day license for the review).. they also do a free ish trial which would give you an insight to much of the above + some of there free tools are very good, just limited.

Thanks for the post and the suggestions.
I will look into Ekahau and see if they have an option for reviewers.
 
Maybe it's just me :)

If no one else cares about that sort of info... I am happy to admit I am wrong about this sort of review on this site.
 
Always worth having a pre-determined set of measurements for product comparisons in reviews, especially if the same house and locations within it are used.
 
Always worth having a pre-determined set of measurements for product comparisons in reviews, especially if the same house and locations within it are used.

Yes, that's what I have at the moment. Always happy to add additional tests if they are free of course!
 
I've been using four of these M9 Deco units for about 2 months now, and for the most part I'm happy with them - some things I love, other things I find hugely irritating .

I have a bit of an irregular setup. The unit by the modem (at the front door) and the unit farthest away (in the office at the opposite end of the flat) are connected over 1Gbps ethernet for the backhaul, and the other two units are purely wireless - typically anywhere in the flat I'll get 300-400Mbps with no noticeable dead spots. Just doing a quick test transferring a large file from the PC in the living room to my office Macbook gave me a solid 520Mbps for most of the transfer. So speed-wise, no complaints. (Although my flat is all on one floor without too many thick walls, which no doubt helps.)

As for gripes, I have quite a few although no huge deal breakers. I'm a home automation nut, and personally find all the automation support in the Deco completely useless. As you'd probably expect, you have no control over any of the router's automation functionality except through what the app gives you access to - and that boils down to limited support for a small selection of devices, with a very narrow set of tools to construct behaviours based on whatever devices you've managed to add. (I'm sitting here with a pile of various zigbee sensors and I haven't been able to get a single one working correctly with the Deco app.) With the right kit, it might be straightforward to do some simple stuff like making a light switch on when you return home - but I can imagine anything more advanced is likely to be a struggle. It's just frustrating when you know all the tech is there but there's nothing useful you can do with it. I use Home Assistant for my automation setup, and that brought another issue to light - IP address reservation. The M9 only supports 16 reserved IP addresses (which seems like an absurdly needless limitation), which is a problem when a lot of my automation devices require a static IP to function correctly. (The Hue hub, Google Mini speakers, etc.)

That brings me onto another annoyance - IFTTT support. Given that this router is really billed as a home automation platform, to me that kind of suggests that it's going to open up all your devices to endless possibilities with IFTTT to create routines to do anything you can imagine with lights, sensors, and IoT gadgets around the house. Unless I'm doing something wrong or have massively missed the point, that isn't the case at all - you can create triggers based on devices joining the network, leaving the network, or when a new device connects for the first time. And that's it. My mind isn't exactly fizzing with ideas for exciting functionality that I could build off the back of that, but maybe I expected too much.

A few other miscellaneous notes:
- The USB ports, while unused, are powered on - handy for powering my Raspberry Pi.
- I've never had an issue with intermittent disconnection or rebooting issues, but I have noticed that sometimes when I power off a unit at the mains, I have to wait a good five minutes before I plug it back in otherwise it appears dead. No idea what the reason could be for this, but all my units have this problem. (Although not an issue unless I'm constantly unplugging and moving them around.)
- I only briefly looked at the Alexa support, but it seems pretty worthless to me (and I'd imagine to most people). If I recall correctly it's mostly things like toggling the priority mode for different services/devices, toggling guest WiFi, and things like that.
 
Yes, that's what I have at the moment. Always happy to add additional tests if they are free of course!

But the data has to be meaningful and provable. A speed test means very little without the other relevant data to back it up.

Most corps with medium to large Wifi deployments will not be running at 80 or 40MHz they will set the APs to 20MHz to provide a larger number of channels (providing its a microcell architecture) to limit co-channel when you compare the speed test of an SSID in 20MHz to 80MHz you could then argue the speed of this £600 AP is rubbish compared to a home AP. however, you are not comparing apples to apples.

Lots of home AP's cannot be changed (can the TP-Link in the review?)

You could argue that there is a big case to make all wifi 20MHz if you have neighbours... but this goes against the selling of speed with wifi...and the reviewing
 
@JJW how about using the Pi with PiHole and using the DHCP server on that to control static IP addresses

Yeah, if I hit the limit I'll use another DHCP server, it's just an extra step of hassle that I'd rather avoid. Currently using 8 out of the 16 available IPs so hopefully I'll be ok.
 
...

Most corps with medium to large Wifi deployments will not be running at 80 or 40MHz they will set the APs to 20MHz to provide a larger number of channels (providing its a microcell architecture) to limit co-channel when you compare the speed test of an SSID in 20MHz to 80MHz you could then argue the speed of this £600 AP is rubbish compared to a home AP. however, you are not comparing apples to apples.

Not to mention we tune the transmit power down - yes down - to create smaller cells and encourage clients to roam more readily and reduce the co-channel interference (meaning we can cram in more cells with fewer devices in each and thereby lessen contention which can actually increase the throughput ("speed") of any given device. It's complicated.)

I've opined in the past, and suffered the flames for so doing, that unless you have a proper RF shielded test facility with calibrated test equipment (not to mention break open the devices so you can see the antenna and orient them correctly for testing,) one cannot give any kind of objective opinion on the radio signals from any device. Such facilities are expensive, which is why no-one - including the trade - does it. (I weep internally every time I pick up one of the trades and find "this month we've group tested the latest batch of Wi-Fi AP's - Dave took five leading models home and had a play with them last weekend." At about that point I stop reading.)

Lay people (and I'm sad to say far too many IT professionals) do tend to obsess over "Wi-Fi signal" (ironic, since there's actually no such thing,) more specifically "Wi-Fi Signal FROM the router/AP" as if it is the only thing that matters. Of course, the marketing hype feeds that narrative (though one suspects the ad. copy writers don't know what they are talking about.)

I'll drop in my usual boiler plate that, Wi-Fi transmit power is limited by law and most kit is, and always has been, at of very close to the permitted maximum. What differences there are, are not worth worrying about. (Unless maybe you are a radio ham or electrical engineer.) If you can get hold of a datasheet, I'll bet most of them cite Tx power of 20/23 dBm - ie the legal max. I suspect most professionals network managers buying AP's spend all of 10 seconds worrying about Tx power as we know it's all much of a muchness and every vendor claims their's are better everyone else's. By definition, they cannot all be right.

In any case, (more of my boiler plate) Wi-Fi is a two-way radio "conversation" like walkie-talkies, not a one way "lecture" like television. It's like sound, for two communicating peers to be able to converse, they both need to be able to hear each other. If they cannot, and they are already as "loud" as permitted, then all you can do is move closer together, which generally means putting up more AP's closer to where the clients are. It's not for the fun of it that on big site we put up hundreds.
 
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I have just been through reviewing wifi for my own home and it took serval AP's from different vendors and lots of time (and patience from the rest of the family) and lots of documentation to narrow the choice down to one...it was not the one I expected either.

Edit: And noticed your comment on Free :).....

OK forget the above to some extent

Edit2: OK.. you can still do quite a lot of whats above. For free(ish) but it would be worth contacting Ekahau to see what they can do (7 day license for the review).. they also do a free ish trial which would give you an insight to much of the above + some of there free tools are very good, just limited.

Would you mind sharing which system you opted for yourself? Given how thorough you are with testing and your attention to detail, I for one would interested to know which one ticked the most boxes for you! I'm in the process of looking to install a mesh system at home myself so if it was a particular make/model that I may have not considered so far I'd definitely add it to my list!

Thanks.
 
I am always happy to add a particular test to a review, if it is something I can achieve without having to pay too much for it. The Lanspeedtest software I have purchased myself as it was only about £10 I think.
 
I liked the look of one of the MetaGreek (the InSSIDer guys) products called Wi-Spy/Channelyzer which IIRC looks at the actual RF spectrum - but last time I checked it was over 800GBP, so I won't buy buying that one with my own money! :D
 
Would you mind sharing which system you opted for yourself? Given how thorough you are with testing and your attention to detail, I for one would interested to know which one ticked the most boxes for you! I'm in the process of looking to install a mesh system at home myself so if it was a particular make/model that I may have not considered so far I'd definitely add it to my list!

Thanks.

For me, it came down to what compromise at what price.

I bought several brands but Ubiquity, BT and Zyxel were interesting for several reasons.

Depending on the environment, devices, and budget you have I found all AP's tested offered something but the negatives sometimes outweighed the positives.

My favorite was the Zyxel using the free Nebula cloud. But it had its negatives (email notifications the biggest one (paid option) and layer 2 isolation). Highly recommend checking it out for testing. Unexpected as I have never tried anything from this brand before.

For me, the biggest disappointment was the Ubiquiti AC Pro with v4 firmware with Apple 3x3 laptops (worked fine with Windows 3x3 laptops). I did contemplate the Ubiquiti AC Pro HD as there free controller software is great and as I understand the issues have been fixed with the new model, but it was way over budget for the number of AP's needed and pound for pound I would have been looking at comparing it with Aruba, Fortinet etc. I use a couple of Ubiquiti products and found them very good at what they do and previously used there older AP models running v3 firmware. This is the brand most people seem to recommend whenever anyone asks which one they should get and does have a very loyal following.

The BT whole home is an odd one. Cheapest out of all the brands I bought (for 3 AP's), but non-configurable, basic and really needs a wired backhaul (it does work wirelessly just not as well as it should). It has many negatives: It has no DFS, no way of dropping the wide channel, No SSID (outside of name and password) control, and No ceiling/wall mount/POE options but it does give solid, stable wifi cheaplyish.

I found issues with all mesh AP's that I tested that did not/could not use wire but again its all a question of what compromises you can/have to put up with. I was also in the process of wiring my house with CAT6A so the location/POE etc had no effect on my purchase options. After testing so many I knew any system I was putting was going to have to have wire and factored that in.

Good luck with your search - I recommend a reseller you can easily return :)
 
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For me, I went with the Ubiquiti Amplifi HD mesh WiFi. Stupidly easy to set up and has been rock solid.

I’ve got the main AP on the ground floor, then another on the first and the last in the loft.

I doubt I’d its the fastest, but I’ve had zero issues with it since setting up (literally a few minutes job).

The other thing I like is that there’s no wires on first and loft, the units simply plug into the electric socket and the antenna is magnetically attaches. Perfect as the kids can’t break them :)

Will probably upgrade it once wifi6 is more mature but they do perfectly fine for now.

I put in cat6 cabling but haven’t bothered using it. Ironically my TVs only have 100Mb wired connection so the WiFi is actually faster!
 

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