Deco M5

What it is: It'll give you a single Wifi Network across your property. 'Wifi boosters' force you to have multiple networks to join. My TP Link Deco plugs into my router, and is my 'main' wifi network. The router still puts out a network, but nothing uses it. Other benefits - their software (apps) are great and you can whip up guest wifi networks easily, or networks for use by 'suspicious gadgets' that need the internet, but you don't want them on the same network as your phone and PC. We've got 3 nodes in the house - one in the router, then two upstairs. You might get away with 2. I've got the M5s, but maybe the S7 (AC1900) might be a good fit - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B8DXJ8XP?th=1](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B8DXJ8XP?th=1)

So, we've finally been graced by Full Fibre Broadband and after years of getting a whopping 13mbps 😏, we now have 530mbps Ookla speed reading from our modem router (Vodafone Powerhub 6) 🙌 EDIT: We're in UK 🇬🇧 We use Deco M5 mesh which pulls 450mb at about 10ft away from the main unit wired into the Vodafone router down to about 80mbps in the furthest spots in the house from 2 other M5 units (and most importantly my 14yo gaming mad son's room) which is a bit pants given the speed we can get closer to the router Very blessed as we are to live in a large old farmhouse with thick walls, this doesnt help my wifi predicament 🤣 I appreciate that other than hardwiring satellite units around my house we'll never achieve that 530mb speed all around but there must be something that can help boost it more? Before I go out and blindly spend £££s on something that won't be much better....does any kind soul have any advice (go easy on the tech speak though, im not as much as a tech dinosaur 🦕 as my husband, but I have my limits 🤣) TIA!

I appreciate the time each of you have taken to reply, thankyou.. we do own the property and could hardwire the house, however it is a period property with much "period" decor such as decorative coving, and multi level stairs 🤦‍♀️ which makes it tricky to chase wires into walls to get up to ceilings. It has however, given me some food for thought in preparation for when we next decorate as there may be an option at that time to pull a connection up into the floorboards and at least get a couple of points upstairs to place in individual rooms As @hdelared commented, it may be a short term option to buy a newer Deco to wire to the modem as I need another anyway to launch it further into the kitchen . Really appreciate the help all, and if nothing else has improved, at least my son has better speeds and actually as I've found today a ping of 9! Which he is over the moon at too! It was about 70 before FF.

I live in India. I've used a pair of Deco M5s from Act Broadband as one of their plan had this feature . After one month of usage, I had to request the ISP to replace them. They did with a new pair of Deco M5s. And after one month of usage, I had to cancel the whole mesh subscription plan because the Mesh routers had lots of issues after a month of usage - on both the attempts. Love using TP link products, but somehow I no longer trust the Deco series. I'd love to hear your review when you use the Deco series.

Are you wondering if using wifi 7 for the backhaul would be more performant that the Ethernet backhaul via MoCa? If there are obstacles to the wifi signal, the high frequency bands will probably not be very efficient, hence wifi 7 would not help much (for the backhaul) compared to wifi 5. Deco M5 use either Ethernet, either wifi for the backhaul. Deco BE65 will combine Ethernet and wifi for the backhaul. You did not explain if your current bottleneck was the ISP connection, the MocA backhaul, or the wifi signal between Deco and devices.

The main Deco must be wired to its source of Internet. I would return the Archer, indeed, and build a mesh only with deco units.

3 Deco meshes in the family, purchased in 2020, 2024 and 2025, all working perfectly.

Deco in AP mode disables a lot of the features like QoS, and per device settings too. (if i am not wrong). While the app does not have advanced customisation capibility, it works just fine for what I need, allows editing DHCP settings, port forwarding, and NAT settings as well. I use in router mode, since the ONR is quite slow. However, if your netgear is faster than your M5, use that.

Upside of living in an old farmhouse: I love those buildings. If it has been there for 100 years, it will probably be there for 100 more (with maintenance, of course) Downside of living in an old farmhouse: Oftentimes the walls are lath & plaster. That stuff EATS wireless signals. It gets even worse if anyone has ever used chicken wire when plastering the walls. Turns the whole house into a Faraday cage where no wireless signal can escape. The Deco M5 supports "Wired Backhaul", where, instead of sacrificing half of your wifi signal to link all of the mesh units together, you can run network cable. Even old cable can do the trick, over short distances. (*I have Cat5e cable in my house, and all of my systems connect at 2500mbps. I can max out my 2.3Gbps fibre internet connection.*) If you, or someone you know who is good at running cable, can run Cat5e or Cat6 network cables to the other two M5 units, you will notice a drastic increase in performance. Personally, I like having at least one cable running to each room in the house, all to one centralized spot near your router.

Power line was not stable in my house with frequent needs to restart. It just did not work good enough. Mesh (Deco M5) gives much better results. It all depends on your situation

OP said "other than hardwiring". For a lot of people pulling ethernet is just not an option, period. Yet that's the most given answer. Very annoying. Maybe upgrading the M5 to a more recent version of Deco might add some speed. I'm contemplating that myself but can't find any reviews of that experience.