Deco XE5300

I bought Wi-Fi 6 routers (AX53 and AX23) for my mesh system, and these are fast enough for a 1 Gbps internet connection. When I have a faster internet connection, I'll buy routers with 10 Gbps ports. For now, Wi-Fi 6 is fine for me, at least for years. "Future proofing" is just throwing money out of the window.

I have set up a Deco system for someone, specifically the XE5300, was very easy to set up for them and was able to get them on custom DNS which is all that was really needed, I need to get back and check the app again for them, I know TP Link is added encrypted DNS to some units and would prefer to get them on my ControlD setup via DoH.

No not really, there just is not much you can really do to the devices in the app, just set it up and that is about it, there are some advanced features but nothing that would break anything. You can choose which band to have mesh over, you can also hardwire them to each other, or use them in AP only mode.

In two houses now I have used TP-Link — they have been very very reliable for me. Am currently using 3x XE5300 (AXE5300 set from Costco) I got from Costco on sale last year’s Black Friday or the year before. Have been great. I’ve got them configured in Access Point mode, and connected to my Spectrum Router with the router’s WiFi turned off. Current I’m using the 6GHz channel for backhaul. In a previous house I used TP-Link Deco M5s throughout my large country home (3700 sq ft) plus additional Deco M5s in one small outbuilding (guesthouse) and one large outbuilding (office, storage and workshop) plus a outdoor pool and large deck area. I had the large outbuilding connected to the main house via a Ubiquiti high speed point-to-point wireless. And had all the M5’s connected to Gigabit switches for wired backhaul and PoE. Again M5’s were in AP mode. And the house was served by a 1GB bi-dir fiber feed from the Internet provider. Overall a great set up. If I were installing today in a new to me house, I’d get the TP-Link Deco BE11000 3 pack on sale at Costco right now. In both houses I had 70+ clients including apple PCs, Windows PCs, smarthome (Google, Apple & Amazon), music (Apple Homepod Minis), plus iPhones and Androidn phones & tablets. No issues at all, and support roaming across the mesh.

It’s funny you should ask that. I originally bought a 3 pack of the BE11000 about 9-12 months ago when it was on sale at 339.99. After getting home and looking up reviews at that time (which I had not done before buying), I returned it unopened because of all the reported issues. This time given the price I decided to give it a go. And I also knew TP-Link would have issued some firmware updates in the meantime. I have Spectrum ISP service with a Spectrum Router. Deco’s running in Access Point mode. Main Deco connected to the router by Cat 6 cable. I’m using the 6Ghz channel as back haul for the mesh between the three Deco’s. I had three Netgear GS108 Ethernet switches throughout the house for some wired connections (now down to just one). And I may replace the last one when I have a little time since I now have seven wired ports between the router and the main Deco. I do have the 6Ghz network off (so it will be used as backhaul) and have the MLO Network off. I do have a guest network defined that when the XE5300 mesh was active seemed to have 3 very old Smarthome devices that connected to it — 2 Wemo smartplugs and a very old camera - they were configured on a different SSID (which I made the guest network when I moved to this house), and haven’t bothered to reconfigure since they are old 2.4Ghz devices. Otherwise the guest network is not used.. I also still have the 5Ghz WiFi on the Spectrum router on with a different SSID (which I know causes a spectrum/channel overlap/contention — but am a old network engineer and I just don’t worry about), as Spectrum provides no way to disable WiFi on the router without calling them every time to turn off and on. And I keep it there for backup in case the TP-link net goes down fully — it never has gone down for an extended period, and I have the main Deco plus the middle BE11000 on UPS’s. Also FWIW I used the Deco app’s capability for the upgrade to replace a Deco unit, unit by unit, keeping the same network config, and just swapping in the BE11000 and removing the corresponding XE5300. Anyway, since I installed it, it has been rock solid. I work from home and the network has 60+ devices connected (90%+ are WiFi) including an assortment of Apple devices (iPhones, iPads of various types & eras, HomePod Mini’s, multiple Apple TVs, and MBAs and MBP), Windows laptops, OOMA boxes for VOIP, a POE VOIP Telset, a couple of printers, some translation devices for Smarthome, and a number of SmartHome devices, including Alexa, Google Home, and Siri. Various WiFi cameras (Nest & Google — wired doorbell and battery standalone), Smart plugs, & smart lights). I also have one August WiFi SmartLock and 3 Yale SmartLocks (all owned by Yale now). Anyway the SmartLocks and the Google Home screens are usually the canary in the coal mine for me when the WiFi network has “gone down” and is re-establishing — usually a 3–5 times a week when I had the XE5300 mesh. Since I upgraded to the BE11000s (about a week now), the SmartLocks have not lost WiFi connection even one time (BTW they are all with 25-30 ft line of sight of a Deco access point, with no more than one interior wood studded wall between the lock and the Deco. BTW I put the BE11000 units in exactly the same locations as the XE5300s had been - basically just a virtual straight line down the center of my house from one end where the ISP connection comes in and the other end of the house.

As a counterpoint, I have a Deco XE5300 system that is rock solid. I recently decided to invest in moca adapters to let me move my server & hubs, as our cable comes into the house in a really weird place. I’ve found the Deco system really easy to use and configure and quite reliable. OP I don’t know if it’s your specific units, or if you have suboptimal placement, or not enough units, but I don’t think there’s some fundamental flaw with this product like which makes it useless.

Recently moved off my TP Link Deco Mesh X5300 system. Was working great until I was getting consistent drops from a few different smart devices. I went with UniFi Dream Router 7! So far so good. Now converting all of my smart home devices over to Home Assistant with a HomeKit bridge to enable items in HomeKit.