Hardware Review Why I returned my TP-LINK Deco BE85 Mesh System (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Within 10 hours, I set up and then returned the TP-LINK BE85 mesh system

THE GOOD


Installation was a breeze and took under 15 minutes for all three units. The app does a great job of guiding you through the setup. As soon as you have the main unit connected, the other two are already programmed to connect. Essentially, they become plug-and-play.

Each Deco unit is rock solid in construction. It has 2x10Gbps and 2x2.5Gbps ports. This is great to have should I ever consider upgrading to a 2GB Internet service, which is not likely, but still futureproofing. The Decos also has a USB port to connect and network an external drive, which I found to be one of the most compelling features.

After installation and network connection, I put the mesh unit in AP mode as two of the units had backhaul ethernet connections.

I have a 1GB Internet feed

I was elated to see significant wireless speed increases across my entire home with no dead spots. My speed increased to an average of 200mbps per location I tested. When I was within 6 feet of one of the wired Decos I would get a 600mbps connection (compared to 312mbps with the Eero). Further away from the nodes, I would see wireless speeds of 250mbps (compared to 54mbps with the Eero).

I should note here that, according to the Deco app, I believe everything was connected to the 2.4Ghz/5 Ghz network so I don't even know if my devices were taking advantage of WiFi 6 or WiFi 7. Since I used the same SSID and password of my Eero mesh, almost everything immediately connected to the new network.



THE BAD


My five Nest cameras disconnected. Surprisingly, my Ring cameras remained connected. I am pretty confident I could have manually removed and then added each of the Nest cameras to the new mesh network, but that is a huge hassle given the fact it can't be done through the Nest app. I have to get up on a ladder and rescan the QR code on each camera which is a major, major hassle. I would have done it, however, if not for the next issue...

My devices were constantly disconnecting and then reconnecting to the network for 10 hours post-installation. This included my iPhone, my laptops, and my Amazon devices.

I did extensive Google research and played around with some recommended changes in the Deco app, none of which helped.

I did come across something that made me decide I needed to return this Deco mesh system...

Countless -- and I mean countless complaints on Reddit and other message boards about network instability with many of the TP-LINK Deco mesh systems.

Don't believe me? Google, "TP-LINK DECO DISCONNECTS" and you will be horrified with the results that you find.

These things are essentially trash. For so many people to have the same mesh network instability that I am currently experiencing, tells me that this is a highly unreliable brand. And, sure, there are many positive reviews on Amazon (as well as bad ones), and generally only people who have issues with their products end up posting a bad review --- but it's still very obvious to me that this is not a reliable product. Many posts I read indicated that customers who returned their TP-LINK looked to move to Eero.



CONCLUSION


I am back on my old Eero system. Everything is working fine, albeit I'm back to slower wireless speeds, which for the moment, is okay.

I would consider upgrading to the Eero Pro 6+ mesh units (at around $300 for a 3-pack on sale), but I am not certain they will give me significant gains as the more powerful Deco units did.

Then there's the Eero Pro 7 Max. It will probably come down to $1k for a 3-pack soon, but it's not getting very good reviews.

Amazon eero Max 7 Review: The Worst Wi-Fi 7 Mesh System | Dong Knows Tech

At $1700 for a 3-pack, the Amazon eero Max 7 is stupidly expensive. Unfortunately, that's the least of its problem.

dongknows.com

BTW, the above is one of the more respected reviewers out there.

I may just have to suck it up, and remain with my 2nd generation Eero mesh system until better hardware gets released.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Something that occurred to me...

To say that I saw an increase of 200mbps may be unfair

5 of my Nest cameras were not connected to the Deco network. That's a lot of bandwidth right there.

So, it's difficult to say exactly what kind of gains I was seeing with the Deco over Eero under similar circumstances.

 

[Nelson Au]

Wow Ron, I had the impression you were gung-ho to upgrade to the wifi 7 standard but then you were not going to do it. I guess your curiosity was too strong to ignore.

Sorry to hear it wasn’t working for you and others. I’ve had my Deco 6E AXE5300 mesh since July and I’ve not had any issues so far. I still have to try the third node to see if that makes any improvement on my coverage and speed, but so far in just two nodes, it’s been fine. I hope your Eero system keeps working.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Wow Ron, I had the impression you were gung-ho to upgrade to the wifi 7 standard but then you were not going to do it. I guess your curiosity was too strong to ignore.

Sorry to hear it wasn’t working for you and others. I’ve had my Deco 6E AXE5300 mesh since July and I’ve not had any issues so far. I still have to try the third node to see if that makes any improvement on my coverage and speed, but so far in just two nodes, it’s been fine. I hope your Eero system keeps working.

Thanks, Nelson

When the Amazon price dropped 47% on Prime Day, curiosity got the better of me, for sure. I had to know if this WiFi 7 system would outperform my Eeros.

The answer is, I believe it does. The Deco provided much better coverage across the house and when it was functioning, provided significantly faster speeds (though my cameras were not online).

I would have stuck it out and played with the settings some more but after I read dozens of reviews about devices losing connection to these units, it seemed clear to me that I was playing with half-baked tech.

I may upgrade to the Eero Pro 6E should there be a significant price drop for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Otherwise, I think I can live with my current Eero units. I have my laptop hardwired to the backhaul node so I am getting full 1G wired speed anyway.

 

[DaveF]

That’s unfortunate! It must be the new wifi 7 hardware. I’ve never heard about or experienced that with my wifi5 Deco kit

 

[Ronald Epstein]

That’s unfortunate! It must be the new wifi 7 hardware. I’ve never heard about or experienced that with my wifi5 Deco kit

I believe you are spot on.

I have spent days pouring over reviews on Amazon, BestBuy, and Reddit.

All of these ultra-expensive WiFi 7 mesh systems from TP-LINK, ASUS, and EERO are plagued with complaints.

The WiFi 6 systems get better reviews

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I believe you are spot on.

I have spent days pouring over reviews on Amazon, BestBuy, and Reddit.

All of these ultra-expensive WiFi 7 mesh systems from TP-LINK, ASUS, and EERO are plagued with complaints.

The WiFi 6 systems get better reviews

Sometimes it's better to avoid bleeding edge technology and let the bugs get worked out.

 

[Robert Saccone]

Ron I went through some similar issues in the early days of WiFi 6 with some of my IOT devices. I even had to put some of them on a legacy router to keep them online but eventually after some firmware updates for my Asus mesh setup I found things stabilized. But now that I have had a very stable system for the past few years I am really hesitant to upend things again for WiFi 7. Most of the devices that require hi bandwidth I have hard wired on Ethernet now. It’s only the iPads, Laptops, iPhones and IOT devices that are on the WiFi. Very rarely do they tax the WiFi.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

WiFi 7 is still very early in development. Windows 11 just added WiFi 7 support in the 24H2 build, released to the general user on 1 October 2024!

See my earlier post about WiFi 6 problems in 2022. https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/wifi6-802-11ax-issues-and-fixes.374823/

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I am getting all sorts of price drop alerts for Amazon Black Friday deals on mesh systems

These include:

Asus Zen WiFi Pro ET12 ($499 for 2 nodes)
Asus Zen Wifi AX6600 ($398 for 3 nodes)

Reading the Amazon reviews on these systems, I don't think you would blame me for being hesitant. There are rampant complaints about instability.

The Eero Pro 6E 3-pack is back on sale for Black Friday for $349.

The more I look at these systems, the more I am coming to the realization they aren't going to offer any substantial speed improvement. This is something some of you guys have been telling me all along.

I am currently getting 162mbps wireless nearest the router and 90mbps further away. That's with a 1GB fiber connection. Not the best, but with all the cameras and wireless devices I have running in my home, that's still substantial bandwidth to do anything else I need to do.

My Macs are directly plugged into the wired backhaul node so they are getting speeds of 800mbps direct.

I can live with this until the next big thing in technology comes along. It just doesn't seem like these Mesh systems are doing the trick. The WiFi 7 mesh systems get worse reviews.

 

[SpankyOatmeal]

I had the BE63 for a short time, worked well, and changed out to the BE85, three pack. While it took me some hours/half day to learn the BE63 setup process and get things working well, only about two hours for the BE85, largely due to long Ethernet cabling identification issues.

We have about 30+ devices connected up and all xfered from the BE63 to the BE85 on their own, with only a few that needed to be told which satellite to use. Has been up for a week or two, and all stable.

So far so good. Coverage is nice, larger foot path, it seems, than the BE63. We upgraded from 100MBS to 1GB fiber just after installing the BE85 setup, and used an SFP+ adapter to free up one of the network ports.

So far so good.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I had the BE63 for a short time, worked well, and changed out to the BE85, three pack. While it took me some hours/half day to learn the BE63 setup process and get things working well, only about two hours for the BE85, largely due to long Ethernet cabling identification issues.

We have about 30+ devices connected up and all xfered from the BE63 to the BE85 on their own, with only a few that needed to be told which satellite to use. Has been up for a week or two, and all stable.

So far so good. Coverage is nice, larger foot path, it seems, than the BE63. We upgraded from 100MBS to 1GB fiber just after installing the BE85 setup, and used an SFP+ adapter to free up one of the network ports.

So far so good.

Hi, Jeff!

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for letting us know about your setup with the BE85. I am happy that you are having a far better experience than I had.

Would you please keep us updated over the next few days/weeks on how well that mesh system continues to perform for you? Do you have any NEST devices? They refused to work with the BE85 and I didn’t bother to try and troubleshoot why.

I am now looking at getting the newly released Eero Pro 7 which has a 3-pack for $700. Amazon will probably have a $100 price drop during PRIME DAY.

 

[John Dirk]

Hi, Ron,

Just seeing this so I know I'm late to the party.

As I've commented about before, I've historically taken a hard stance against Mesh systems, deeming them overpriced and generally incapable of providing full coverage for larger, multi-story dwellings. Instead I've worked hard to add wired Ethernet wherever possible.

For devices or areas where wifi was the only option, I strategically placed four separate AP's throughout my home and used unique 2.4 and 5Ghz SSID's for each, which allowed granular control over which device connected to which AP. This approach worked but required significant oversight. One of the things I've been trying to teach myself over the past year [as a newly retired individual] is "just because I can do something doesn't mean I should continue doing it." The management and oversight of this setup had become a tedious chore. It was time for something new.

After much research I zeroed in on the Asus ZenWiFi Pro ET12 AXE11000, which was selling for about $600.00 on Amazon at the time. Based on reviews, I didn't expect the system to cover my 5000 sq ft home without the addition of a 3rd node, so now I was looking at $800.00 total. I was about to go ahead and order this 6E system when, while on a routine visit to Costco, I ran across the TP Link Deco X5000 on a clearance price of $119.00. At that price, and with Costco's rock-solid return policy, I figured I had nothing to lose.

I've had the Deco X5000 in place since last November and I have to say, it has caused me to eat my words regarding what a mesh system can do. I have one node on each of my 3 floors. With my 1Gbps Internet service, I get about 500Mbps pretty much anywhere in my home and upwards of 700 Mbps when I have line of sight to one of the nodes. The management interface isn't perfect but it's pretty good and probably more than adequate for most.

The Deco X5000 is a WiFi 6 system and WiFi 6E was the new kid on the block at the time. That's why it was so cheap. For my needs, this was and remains fine. 6E provides the dedicated "fast lane" channel but only for compatible devices. Wifi 7 is the next major upgrade but people should plan carefully when adopting it as backwards compatibility is somewhat limited. I suspect this may be what you ran up against with your Nest cameras. If you try to connect anything predating WiFi 5 [2.4 Ghz devices] to a WiFi 7 router, it has to be an open [no security] connection, as these devices generally cannot use WPA2 [minimum requirement for most WiFi 7 routers] or the current WPA3 standards.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Hey John!

Always good to hear from you. Hope you are doing well.

Your last thoughts were the ones that I found most interesting…

So, the limitations of backwards compatibility on the new WiFi 7 devices is what is causing issues with my Nest devices?

I’d hate to consider TP-LINK again, but if I go with their cheaper WIFI 6 devices, you think the Nest cameras would work?

That still in mind, I’m wondering if I go with the new Eero 7 Pro if there will be issues with Nest cameras connecting to them.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Hi, Ron,

Just seeing this so I know I'm late to the party.

As I've commented about before, I've historically taken a hard stance against Mesh systems, deeming them overpriced and generally incapable of providing full coverage for larger, multi-story dwellings. Instead I've worked hard to add wired Ethernet wherever possible.

For devices or areas where wifi was the only option, I strategically placed four separate AP's throughout my home and used unique 2.4 and 5Ghz SSID's for each, which allowed granular control over which device connected to which AP. This approach worked but required significant oversight. One of the things I've been trying to teach myself over the past year [as a newly retired individual] is "just because I can do something doesn't mean I should continue doing it." The management and oversight of this setup had become a tedious chore. It was time for something new.

After much research I zeroed in on the Asus ZenWiFi Pro ET12 AXE11000, which was selling for about $600.00 on Amazon at the time. Based on reviews, I didn't expect the system to cover my 5000 sq ft home without the addition of a 3rd node, so now I was looking at $800.00 total. I was about to go ahead and order this 6E system when, while on a routine visit to Costco, I ran across the TP Link Deco X5000 on a clearance price of $119.00. At that price, and with Costco's rock-solid return policy, I figured I had nothing to lose.

I've had the Deco X5000 in place since last November and I have to say, it has caused me to eat my words regarding what a mesh system can do. I have one node on each of my 3 floors. With my 1Gbps Internet service, I get about 500Mbps pretty much anywhere in my home and upwards of 700 Mbps when I have line of sight to one of the nodes. The management interface isn't perfect but it's pretty good and probably more than adequate for most.

The Deco X5000 is a WiFi 6 system and WiFi 6E was the new kid on the block at the time. That's why it was so cheap. For my needs, this was and remains fine. 6E provides the dedicated "fast lane" channel but only for compatible devices. Wifi 7 is the next major upgrade but people should plan carefully when adopting it as backwards compatibility is somewhat limited. I suspect this may be what you ran up against with you Nest cameras. If you try to connect anything predating WiFi 5 [2.4 Ghz devices] to a WiFi 7 router, it has to be an open [no security] connection, as these devices generally cannot use WPA2 [minimum requirement for most WiFi 7 routers] or the current WPA3 standards.

John,

I have a similar Deco setup for our Michigan home, and for the most part it's worked well for our two story home + full basement. I have three mesh nodes, with two placed on the main floor and the 3rd on the 2nd floor. I get adequate coverage in the basement without a node placed there, even though having great WiFi coverage in the basement is not a concern for us.

My only complaints with the Deco have been (1) its Internet of Things (IoT) implementation isn't a "best practice", as that network is not completely isolated from the main wireless network (it shares the same address space), and (2) the management app for my Android phone has been a little flaky. So far, the latest firmware update for the routers seems to have finally addressed issue #2, although it has only been a couple of weeks since I installed that. Issue #1 has fallen on deaf ears despite several users (including myself) raising our concerns on the tech support forum. My only solace with this stance is that very few mesh systems even offer a separate IoT network (I want to save the guest network for when our great nieces & nephews visit).

I am now considering buying a separate, single router for our South Carolina condo. Network response seems to have become a little sluggish with the router provided by the ISP (the offer it + the cable modem at no additional monthly cost). It doesn't support WiFi 6 at all, nor can I change any of the router settings except for the SSIDs and passwords. I find that I get better performance by changing the DNS to either Google or Cloudfare's servers, as the smaller ISP DNS servers are pretty slow in comparison (we have Wide Open West in Michigan and HTC in SC). Netgear has a couple of routers on Amazon that are priced well that look interesting.

 

[John Dirk]

Hey John!

Always good to hear from you. Hope you are doing well.

Your last thoughts were the ones that I found most interesting…

So, the limitations of backwards compatibility on the new WiFi 7 devices is what is causing issues with my Nest devices?

I’d hate to consider TP-LINK again, but if I go with their cheaper WIFI 6 devices, you think the Nest cameras would work?

That still in mind, I’m wondering if I go with the new Eero 7 Pro if there will be issues with Nest cameras connecting to them.

It's a good probability as, generally speaking, Wifi 7 routers require at least WPA2. To rule this out you could try an open [no security] connection for test purposes. If it works then you have your answer. The only Nest cam I have is integrated into my Nest Max display. The display supports a 5Ghz connection but I still have a lot of trouble with the camera on the rare occasion I try accessing it.

 

[John Dirk]

John,

I have a similar Deco setup for our Michigan home, and for the most part it's worked well for our two story home + full basement. I have three mesh nodes, with two placed on the main floor and the 3rd on the 2nd floor. I get adequate coverage in the basement without a node placed there, even though having great WiFi coverage in the basement is not a concern for us.

My only complaints with the Deco have been (1) its Internet of Things (IoT) implementation isn't a "best practice", as that network is not completely isolated from the main wireless network (it shares the same address space), and (2) the management app for my Android phone has been a little flaky. So far, the latest firmware update for the routers seems to have finally addressed issue #2, although it has only been a couple of weeks since I installed that. Issue #1 has fallen on deaf ears despite several users (including myself) raising our concerns on the tech support forum. My only solace with this stance is that very few mesh systems even offer a separate IoT network (I want to save the guest network for when our great nieces & nephews visit).

I am now considering buying a separate, single router for our South Carolina condo. Network response seems to have become a little sluggish with the router provided by the ISP (the offer it + the cable modem at no additional monthly cost). It doesn't support WiFi 6 at all, nor can I change any of the router settings except for the SSIDs and passwords. I find that I get better performance by changing the DNS to either Google or Cloudfare's servers, as the smaller ISP DNS servers are pretty slow in comparison (we have Wide Open West in Michigan and HTC in SC). Netgear has a couple of routers on Amazon that are priced well that look interesting.

 

[John Dirk]

Hey, Scott,

My X5000 has a IoT Network option which I haven't really had the time to dig into yet. I'd assume it creates a separate IP space for those who use the Deco as a router, which I do not.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Hey, Scott,

My X5000 has a IoT Network option which I haven't really had the time to dig into yet. I'd assume it creates a separate IP space for those who use the Deco as a router, which I do not.

You know what happens when you assume...

Deco's IoT network uses the same IP address space as the main network -- even though it has a separate SSID. You isolate the devices individually using a device isolation option. As I said, it's not a "best practice" for creating a separate IoT network.

I still went ahead and set it up, and have each of my IoT devices isolated. I figured, at least the devices have a separate SSID/password from my main devices in case one gets compromised, and it sets the foundation for a real IoT network in the future. The biggest pain in the butt is reconfiguring each of the IoT devices for a new SSID/password. I had to reset each of my smart plugs and switches and reconfigure each manually. At least that is done now.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

It's a good probability as, generally speaking, Wifi 7 routers require at least WPA2. To rule this out you could try an open [no security] connection for test purposes. If it works then you have your answer. The only Nest cam I have is integrated into my Nest Max display. The display supports a 5Ghz connection but I still have a lot of trouble with the camera on the rare occasion I try accessing it.

Been doing a lot of research on the new Eero WiFi 7 mesh systems and apparently, according to user reviews, the NEST cameras and products work very well with them. Of course, this is yet to be seen in my case.

EERO is the mesh system I will stay with given its reputation for solid performance and stability with NEST products.

The system I am eyeing is the EERO 7 MAX, though it's still too expensive ($1,360 for a 3-Pack). It should drop to $999 sometime later this year (PRIME DAY) and at that point, I'll pick it up.