Can I have a suggestion which one will be better for a 4 bedroom single floor home. Around 3 laptops and 10 small gadgets. 100MBPS NBN plan at home.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home AI-Driven Mesh Wi-Fi 6System
D-Link Australia AX1800 Dual Band Seamless Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System 3-Pack COVR-X1873-AU
Or, anything else better then these within a budget of $400.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Tenda Wifi AC1200 model. We used them and were really good. However once I had 30 devices on my network, I needed to go to Unifi.
I think TP-Link Deco M9 plus would be better because it's tri-band, having a dedicated band for backhaul. It's only AC rather than 802.11ax, but I think it's the pick if coverage is your priority.
I've been using the x1873 via ethernet backhaul since December last year. It has been working fine and generally no issues, but sometimes I find my phone (iPhone 12) lags when changing between nodes and/or has random slowdowns. My wife has had the same issue on her S23. Generally it's been a good system though and everything that's plugged in via ethernet points works perfectly.
The app and set-up is very bare bones and basic though, not the most intuitive. I got the 3-pack for $200 via work so it was super cheap but if I was buying another system and had to pay the going rate, I'd probably look at something else.
You are going to get a lot of people insisting (if not demanding) that you get tri band and wi fi 6.
obviously tri band + wifi 6 is are worthwhile but they cost; so consider whether they are useful. In my view tri bad is a good to have and wifi 6 is a 'nice to have', but but wi fi 5 is perfectly fine for most people and lots of devices you currently own may not use wi fi 6 anyway. However, it will future proof you and, naturally wifi6 if you are one of those people who needs to feel confident that they can stream at 9.6 Gbps, rather than 3.5 Gbps even though their internet connection only gets 100Mbps… (yes, yes, that is simplistic, no need to IT-splain it to me)
Any of the TP Link Deco systems work well and are very easy to set up. You will need at least 2 satellites given the size of your house (ie you need the '3 pack'), and you can add satellites if you need later on. Pick the one that best suits your budget and go from there.
FWIW I have the M9/AC2200 and it work really well in my 4 bed house, including simultaneous streaming, on line gaming (LoL) plus multiple smaller devices (and I have 2 teens so you can imagine the internet gets used a lot and intensively). Every couple of months one of the satellites disconnects but you just unplug and plug it in again, wait a minute and it reconnects.
Totally agree with this comment. Most people probably don’t have the devices that are even wifi 6 compatible.
Might have a laptop that is wifi 6 and something like the Amazon Firestick Max but for either of those devices do you probably need the “additional speed” probably not.
Will you need it in a few years if you are someone who buys new devices every couple years, perhaps. I was playing around with some gl.inet routers that have wifi 6. Did I notice any improvement over my Telstra modems Gen 2s. Not at all especially on 100/20 FTTB.
If you have FTTP and running 250 downloads maybe look at it then. But in short. Go with the M9, buy some of those nice wall mounts for it and away you go!
Remember Mesh you want tri band. It’s not wired connection but it’s the next “best” thing. I would pick that every day over wifi 6.
deco x55 has 3 eth ports which could come in handy one day. I wish i had bought that isntead of the x60 a few years back (well it would have been x50 back then)
I think its worth noting that Wifi 6 isn't just great for bandwidth (especially when you consider there are some fast Wireless AC), but the improvements in a many-device environment is worth considering, especially if you want it to last (e.g. adding more devices over the next few years). I recently grabbed the TP-Link Deco 3x Wifi 6 devices as a replacement for my Google Wifi, and while the bandwidth is technically similar, I am finding that it's smoother overall as an experience across the house just in terms of handling the multiple demands for connections. I'm on gigabit FTTP, and I'm getting close to ceiling on wifi (my router is an Opnsense firewall, so the Deco just handles wifi connections only).
I really doubt that the "many-device" thing is purely down to Wifi 5 vs 6 and would have assumed that most Deco packs would automatically be better than Google Wifi regardless of standard.
(Also running OPNSense and separate APs, old Wifi 5 ones but no issues with device roaming or multiple clients… not that I have enough home devices to push the boundaries on concurrent connections)
Wifi 6 is not only more efficient in the handling of multiple devices internally, but also in terms of congestion and competition within the wireless spectrum itself (e.g. neighbors, noisy devices, etc). Depending on your setup (and your environment) this can be noticeable quite a bit, particularly around latency (since I am renting, I cannot wire the entire house so latency becomes the most noticeable metric - not bandwidth).
In my use case, there are plenty of wireless devices, and plenty of neighbors nearby with competing devices. The Deco has the exact same theoretical bandwidth and coverage as my previous Google Wifi almost exactly, but I was experiencing issues in with latency that almost felt like the internet wasn't working at times, but speed tests would confirm that it was. Most of my devices other than my Nintendo Switches and a few IOT devices also were equipped with Wifi 6 hardware, so it was a no-brainer for my scenario.
My point here is just to have some thinking around your current environment, as well as what your environment might be. If you have lots of devices, competing radio or noisy devices and you want latency to be as low and predictable as you can, it's worth considering Wifi 6. If none of those things matter at all, then do whatever you want, but it's simply worth considering before you outlay hundreds of dollars. Most people look at it strictly as a "Wifi 6 has more bandwidth" but there is so much more to the standard than theoretical bandwidth which is often ignored
Google Wifi is kinda famous for being pants, it's fairly likely that almost any other hardware would have been an improvement. If you're going to shift both the brand and the standard, you can't just point to the standard as being responsible for fixing problems.
I've been playing around with wifi gear for years. Last place I lived in, I could identify over thirty 5GHz networks and close to a hundred at 2.4Ghz. But the weird thing is, wifi worked pretty well (regardless of which standard). Latency in my mega-congested environment would fluctuate a fair bit- anything from 2 to 20ms for the most part, with occasional higher spikes.
In fact, I'm fairly convinced that good quality gear is more important than whatever standard it adheres to (within reason). I've stuck to Wifi 5/ac APs, and in my tech friend circle we have moved to 6/ax or stayed on 5. Besides one guy with range issues (concrete/rebar apartment that was recently resolved with an extra node), everyone is pretty good. We're all on a mix of decent consumer brands (Asus, Orbi, Deco) or corporate gear.
TP-LINK TL-SG105 - 29
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X Advanced Gigabit Ethernet Router - 98
Ubiquiti UniFi Wi-Fi 6 Lite Dual Band AP - 186 x2
8Ware Cat6a UTP Snagless Ethernet Cable - 30m Blue 19
something like that
Needs a poll….. But out of those 3, go TP-Link Deco M9 plus
I am a massive deco fan. I started with the m9 plus (3 pack) have since used deco x55/50/68 with the 68 being the main router. Dead easy to setup and two of the three satellites use ethernet backhaul. The other is in a tin shed about 40 meters away and still works well in the shed. I have since upgraded to the Deco xe75 three pack from TGGC for $597 - unbelievable value compared to Orbis in my opinion. Which would I recommend for you? It depends. Depends on type of internet connection used, size of house, amount of devices etc. If I was you the Deco x68 3 pack often goes on sale for approx $380-$390 and that is a sweet spot because it is triband, wifi 6 and greater bandwidth than the M9 Plus and x55
Where can u get the x68 3 pack for 380? Im keen on the xe75 from tggc. But im not sure if its overkill for my usage or is a x20 for 283 or x50 for 345 enough? Im moving into a new property and the dsl jack is at the office at the back of the house and im not getting coverage from the rooms. Tia.
I haven't looked at your specific listed items as I'm not familiar with the best bang for buck units atm, just want to stress the fundamentals - if you have shit back-haul your mesh will be shit and you'll hate it.
Wired back-haul is the best option, then dedicated wireless back-haul channels if you don't have your house wired, but absolutely avoid anything without dedicated back-haul channels as they will be a disappointment.
For example I'm still on OG Google WiFi (AC1200 or something pissweak) with gigabit wired back-haul and its going great with my 100/20 connection with around 30ish devices (lots of IoT crap in a small house), so you don't need WiFi6 for a NBN100 connection unless you want to future proof or have a lot of internal higher bandwidth needs or something.
Orbi for $380