TP-Link Deco X20 Mesh Wi-Fi System Review & Comments

[Greg Hook]

TP-Link's £295 triple unit Deco X20 mesh Wi-Fi system promises whole home Wi-Fi coverage including seamless roaming, greatly reduced lag, anti-virus and parental controls.
Read the review.

Write your own review for TP-Link Deco X20

 

[Lapstre]

Thank you for the review. Did you also measure ping rates from Router Vs Deco unit, PC Vs iPhone12?

 

[kbfern]

I was interested till I went to Mr Bezoz site and saw it's now £423 more than a bit of a jump from the £235 posted at the end of the review

Amazon product

 

[steviedr]

Amazon pricing fluctuates a lot, it will be because they’re selling out, Currys, Very, all the usual suspects had them at £229 (but all currently out of stock)

 

[bogart99]

steviedr is spot on. Amazon mirrors others prices and availability. I got my Netgear mesh setup for a bargain price from Amazon, I just happened to be looking in the right place at the right time.

 

[Greg Hook]

I was interested till I went to Mr Bezoz site and saw it's now £423 more than a bit of a jump from the £235 posted at the end of the review

Amazon product

That's not from Amazon though. Presumably they are out of stock.

 

[mushii]

Given the lack of wireless backhaul and current price increases (launch offer now over?) These are fairly run-of-the-mill units compatible in features and price to other similar manufacturers. No real USP here.
I have always had good results with TPLink gear and used it because it was price competitive. I feel their prices are starting to creep up and they are losing their attraction.

 

[Toon Army]

I am more than happy with my BT Whole Home MESH set up and living in an older house with brick internal walls, managed to hard wire two of the three units to the router underneath floorboards etc so there is no annoying wiring on show. This improved the coverage even further rather than having a simple wireless set up.

 

[noiseboy72]

We've got the cheaper version of these with slightly lower throughput and 3 of them comfortably cover the house, with 2 teenagers constantly streaming up yo Twitch, while watching a move and monitoring their feeds, while mum and dad have intensive Teams calls and test online software... We have 1 of them hard wired to the router and the other 2 are just dotted around the house. No issues whatsoever with them, never having to restart them or reconnect. The only thing we have to be aware of is that in the event of a power cut, they boot up before the internet has reconnected, and some phones then won't automatically connect to them until a manual re-connect has been initiated.

The simple fact is in most scenarios, these units just work! I fitted a set at an office we were refurbishing prior to getting the Extreme WifI 6 APs with radius server up and running. We actually get better coverage with the TP-Link Decos than we do from the APs - despite the installers using all sorts of mapping tools to assess the best position for them and them being hard wired back to our gigabit network. 5 APs are needed to do the job of 3 TP-Links. We have retained the TP-link units to cover a couple of staff rest areas -the coffee lounge and pool room, so that staff can use their personal devices during work breaks.

 

[MikeKay1976]

Amazon pricing fluctuates a lot, it will be because they’re selling out, Currys, Very, all the usual suspects had them at £229 (but all currently out of stock)

I suspect it is also because Amazon have (or had yesterday) their own brand of Mesh units on deep discount.

 

[MikeKay1976]

really good timing on this review thanks. I am quite keen on a mesh system however it seems the vast majority of uk isps dont allow you to put their router in bridge mode, and my understanding is if you set up with such a router having a double NAT will cause grief.
I am no expert on these so am wondering if anyone can give their thoughts. I currently have a vodafone fibre modem router but am considering going to sky.
indeed I think virgin are one of the few who do allow it (and I cant get cable where i live)

ideally would rather not have to buy a new modem, as well as one of these, esp as most ISPs wont offer support then.

 

[kbfern]

I ordered an Amazon 3 unit eero mesh system yesterday @ £162 great deal

 

[Greg Hook]

really good timing on this review thanks. I am quite keen on a mesh system however it seems the vast majority of uk isps dont allow you to put their router in bridge mode, and my understanding is if you set up with such a router having a double NAT will cause grief.
I am no expert on these so am wondering if anyone can give their thoughts. I currently have a vodafone fibre modem router but am considering going to sky.
indeed I think virgin are one of the few who do allow it (and I cant get cable where i live)

ideally would rather not have to buy a new modem, as well as one of these, esp as most ISPs wont offer support then.

I have a BT router and had no issues with these or any others I have reviewed.

 

[noiseboy72]

really good timing on this review thanks. I am quite keen on a mesh system however it seems the vast majority of uk isps dont allow you to put their router in bridge mode, and my understanding is if you set up with such a router having a double NAT will cause grief.
I am no expert on these so am wondering if anyone can give their thoughts. I currently have a vodafone fibre modem router but am considering going to sky.
indeed I think virgin are one of the few who do allow it (and I cant get cable where i live)

ideally would rather not have to buy a new modem, as well as one of these, esp as most ISPs wont offer support then.

These can be set as access points from within the app, so they will play happily with most routers. They are designed for home use, so I wouldn't be too concerned about their operation. We have had no difficulty connecting between wired and wireless devices using the Decos.

 

[steviedr]

Im in a similar position @MikeKay1976
Im really needing to sort out wifi in the house. I have Sky as my isp and their router is fine for Ethernet but shocking for WiFi. I’ve had multiple units and they are up and down all the time, will be happy to turn WiFi off on my primary router and let this solution take over. I’ve read with the current BT mesh system ap’s, sky mini boxes can be a problem, I think you can hardwire them to the ap (if your ap has an Ethernet port) to get around it.
BT are bringing out their new smart hub 3 in the next few months, so might see how it reviews and jump ship/stay with sky as the Ethernet is fine and purchase something like this to sort out WiFi / extend signal.

 

[bogart99]

I had a Sky router years ago and wifi was useless then, sounds like not much has changed.

 

[THX1138UK]

No wired backhaul! - major downside.

Roaming between WAPs (wireless access points) is dependent on so many factors - the biggest factor being the wireless device you are using. Some devices will cling onto their current WAP long after they can see a much stronger signal from a neighbouring WAP. How this is handled and when they will let go, is outside of your control - it's down to the wireless chipset and OS.

I continue to be a strong advocate for installing CAT 5e around the house and using a wired connection whenever possible. If you can limit Wi-fi usage to things like 'phones, tablets & home assistants that is by far the most reliable method.

An inexpensive device such as a TP-Link TL-WA850RE (£15.99) works really well as a WAP.
It fully supports wired backhaul, and provides 300 Megabits per second (2.4 GHz). A few of these around the house and you've got a very reliable solution for a fraction of price of a mesh system.

Many of the 5 GHz Wi-fi speed advantages aren't usually realised due to its very poor ability to penetrate walls and ceiling.

All the Home Mesh solutions are expensive for what they offer.

Regards,
James.

 

[steviedr]

Brick house, wired backhaul isn’t happening, so will need one with a decent wireless backhaul, the Asus zenwifi looks good but as it’s all thing wifi6, pretty expensive

 

[noiseboy72]

No wired backhaul! - major downside.

Roaming between WAPs (wireless access points) is dependent on so many factors - the biggest factor being the wireless device you are using. Some devices will cling onto their current WAP long after they can see a much stronger signal from a neighbouring WAP. How this is handled and when they will let go, is outside of your control - it's down to the wireless chipset and OS.

I continue to be a strong advocate for installing CAT 5e around the house and using a wired connection whenever possible. If you can limit Wi-fi usage to things like 'phones, tablets & home assistants that is by far the most reliable method.

An inexpensive device such as a TP-Link TL-WA850RE (£15.99) works really well as a WAP.
It fully supports wired backhaul, and provides 300 Megabits per second (2.4 GHz). A few of these around the house and you've got a very reliable solution for a fraction of price of a mesh system.

Many of the 5 GHz Wi-fi speed advantages aren't usually realised due to its very poor ability to penetrate walls and ceiling.

All the Home Mesh solutions are expensive for what they offer.

Regards,
James.

Are you sure about the capabilities of that wifi extender you linked to? I have one somewhere and it caused more trouble than anything else. I thought it only support Bridge mode - where the Ethernet port can be connected to wired devices, not back to the router. I never found a way to change this.

My experience is that the Decos do give a significant performance and reliability increase over using off the shelf WAPs. I know that some of them use beamforming and packet forwarding only to the AP the device is using, so the bandwidth overhead is reduced. They also seem to do a better job of handing off devices from 1 AP to the other, but I have no proof of that.

I had a network of Waps prior to moving over to Mesh. This consisted of a number of Netgear and TP-link routers (5 in all) set in AP mode and connected via Powerline and wired connections back to the router. It was complex to configure, reliability was poor and devices refused to roam, despite SSID, passwords and frequency bands being set the same. Mesh cured all of these and I really would never go back.

*Edit: The reviewed devices do have wired backhaul, they are just not tri-band wireless with dedicated wireless backhaul. My experience is that with just 3 units, this does not cause any slow down. We have a symmetric 100Mb internet pipe at work and even with 40 people connected and using the system, I was still measuring a wireless speed of 90Mb 20' from the nearest AP!

 

[petrolhead]

I live in a 1930s 3 bed semi and after being fed up with crap wifi I bought one of these. its in the hall and,covers the whole house very well
Amazon product

 

[tickedon]

Are you sure about the capabilities of that wifi extender you linked to? I have one somewhere and it caused more trouble than anything else. I thought it only support Bridge mode - where the Ethernet port can be connected to wired devices, not back to the router. I never found a way to change this.

My experience is that the Decos do give a significant performance and reliability increase over using off the shelf WAPs. I know that some of them use beamforming and packet forwarding only to the AP the device is using, so the bandwidth overhead is reduced. They also seem to do a better job of handing off devices from 1 AP to the other, but I have no proof of that.

I had a network of Waps prior to moving over to Mesh. This consisted of a number of Netgear and TP-link routers (5 in all) set in AP mode and connected via Powerline and wired connections back to the router. It was complex to configure, reliability was poor and devices refused to roam, despite SSID, passwords and frequency bands being set the same. Mesh cured all of these and I really would never go back.

*Edit: The reviewed devices do have wired backhaul, they are just not tri-band wireless with dedicated wireless backhaul. My experience is that with just 3 units, this does not cause any slow down. We have a symmetric 100Mb internet pipe at work and even with 40 people connected and using the system, I was still measuring a wireless speed of 90Mb 20' from the nearest AP!

Agreed. Used to have this kind of setup at my parent’s house, it cause them (and thus me!) a whole lot of trouble.

Replaced with a mesh system and no complaints at all. Has both wireless and power line backhaul so perfect for their old house with extensions and very thick walls!