Deco X50-PoE

First off, sorry to hear about the lightning strike — that’s rough, glad at least two units survived. Mixing in Wi-Fi 6E/7 with your existing Wi-Fi 6 Decos won’t really unlock their full potential, since the mesh will still lean on the lowest standard. Unless you plan to replace the whole setup, you won’t see a big jump. If your two current units are still covering fine, the safest move is just adding another Wi-Fi 6 Deco to keep everything consistent. Wi-Fi 7 is great long-term (throughput, latency, efficiency), but right now it’s only worth it if you’re going all-in or already have a bunch of 6E/7 client devices. As for the AX-50 Outdoor — it’s solid for extending coverage outside (yard, patio, garage). It’s basically just a weatherproof Deco, so don’t expect crazy speed boosts compared to indoor nodes, but range is quite decent.

First off, sorry to hear about the lightning strike — that’s rough, glad at least two units survived. Mixing in Wi-Fi 6E/7 with your existing Wi-Fi 6 Decos won’t really unlock their full potential, since the mesh will still lean on the lowest standard. Unless you plan to replace the whole setup, you won’t see a big jump. If your two current units are still covering fine, the safest move is just adding another Wi-Fi 6 Deco to keep everything consistent. Wi-Fi 7 is great long-term (throughput, latency, efficiency), but right now it’s only worth it if you’re going all-in or already have a bunch of 6E/7 client devices. As for the AX-50 Outdoor — it’s solid for extending coverage outside (yard, patio, garage). It’s basically just a weatherproof Deco, so don’t expect crazy speed boosts compared to indoor nodes, but range is quite decent.

My go-to recommendation for home mesh with some wired nodes is the Deco X50 PoE. Super simple to set up, WiFi 6 and works fine with PPPoE (which your EE connection will need if you're planning on ditching their router). You get wall/ceiling brackets, and 12v power supplies included in the box, but you can use an inexpensive PoE switch to make AP placement more flexible if you choose. Even if you're using an AP with wireless backhaul, you might find that using a PoE injector with an ethernet cable makes it easier to place somewhere without easy access to AC power. If you could be tempted by full wired backhaul, my quick and dirty but fairly discreet recommendation is grab some white ethernet cable, white CT60 cable staples, and an appropriate staple gun. Makes it super easy to run cables around skirting etc, and is fairly landlord-friendly if you're renting.

It really depends on where you can place the access points. WiFi is not magic and any obstacle like wall, tv on wall, cabinets and furniture will weaken the signal. For the best setup get as many of the access points on Ethernet cable and make sure you at least get Decos with WiFi6 standard, it is way more efficient that WiFi5. I would probably not go with the x10, just because it is the low price solution they make but I could be wrong and maybe it works fine. I have a single X50-PoE in the ceiling of my living room and it covers the entire 160m2 ground floor. It gained about 50% coverage and speed when placed in the ceiling instead of on my desk. You could also check with your ISP if you can skip their router and put your own Deco on there, then you have full control of your setup but that would probably require another Deco unit. You could also look at used or refurbished Decos if you are on a budget, that’s how I got my first 3 x55 and once I saw how will they worked I got the x50 for the ceiling and used the x55 and my parents house.

Yep…I’ve got an X50-PoE at home and installed one at my friends house as well.

You should at least be able to do wired from the isp modem to the first Deco. Get a X50-PoE and place it in the ceiling of the livingroom, if you are lucky it will cover the entire house, it did for me. And if it does not cover place another AP in bedroom 2, that should be all you need.

Yes it's most likely your Mesh that is the bottleneck. I upgraded from Google Nest (5 access points) to TP-Link Deco X55 and X50 (2 access points) and i have way better coverage and speed now with less than half the access points. What really made a difference for me was getting the X50 mounted in the ceiling in my living room, it pretty much covers the entire house alone. Wifi is not magic and any obstacle like walls, windows, tv on a wall, bookshelf or cabinet will reduce the signal, which is why all the different makers of wifi access points have some sort of guide that tells you not to place them in corners, in narrow spaces etc. Do you use a router from your ISP? I've setup Deco at home, at my parents and brothers place, so that will be my recomendation. Go buy it somewhere where you can return it if you dont like it, then you can easily see how many access points you need and what the coverage and speed is.

Yeah I dont really get it, it’s like all the middle range Deco pretty much perform and do the same, TP links plan must be to just swamp the market with white boxes, so that it looks like they provide so many different products, but to the average consumer 80% of them are the same. I have both X55, X50 and X50 outdoor and the only major difference on those is that the X55 support easymesh and the X50 does not and it’s not even listed on their site when you compare units. I found out when I wanted to set a X50 as main unit, then I got a warning that easymesh would be disabled.

Yes! I’ve got a single BE65 as main unit connected to the fiber in my basement, ethernet from basement to an unmanaged PoE switch at my office on high ground floor and PoE to a X50 mounted in the ceiling of my living room and this covers my entire 160m2 old brick house and terrace outside my living room. I’ve then got a x50-PoE Outdoor in my carport for my car and charger. Tv, Sonos, Hue, alarm system and office docking station are all on cable to a switch and I’ve got about 10 IOT on wireless. Looking at the Deco app right now I have 26 online clients. BE65 also supports NAS USB storage and I thought I was going to use it for Apple Time Machine backup but apple stopped supporting that, so now I have a 1TB NAS included in my setup. Works great! Ps. this setup replaced 5 Google Mesh gen. 2 access points and performs way better, more stable, better coverage and 2-3 times the speed.

Best thing i ever did in my home setup was scrapping Google Mesh wifi5 for a Deco wifi6 setup. Went from 5 to 2 units to cover my entire house, 160 m2 old brick stone house.

I got those cheapo deco x50 with wired backhaul, there are better ones. But the biggest difference I made was everything that doesn't move gets a cable. *everything*

+1 for Deco mesh. My house is 3 stories so I went for 3 x X50 and it works flawlessly. My gaming pc is on the top floor and I have it wired to one x50 and the speed is great. Can't remember exactly what I'm getting but it's more than fast enough. The x50 has 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz and you can set which one works for different connections if you want.