@Subliminal 

I ran the M9 plus, all nodes connected via Cat6. I did have parental controls, anti-virus & QoS enabled. 

Speedtests run from wired devices did not go over 400Mbps. The app speedtest for the internet connection did not exceed 500Mbps either. However, removing the devices and wiring devices direct produced near 1Gbps speeds, so it was definitely something with the M9's.

The only way I could get decent bandwidth, closer to the 1Gbps delivered by my ISP was to move these to AP mode. Which meant no more parental controls, no AV and no QoS capabilities, just dumb access points.

Performance became worse with the last firmware upgrade. I could not roll back to the previous FW due to security updates and TP Link preventing the roll back. TP Link support people could not roll back FW either when they remotely connecting and tried.

TP Link support reviewed logs and monitored my system. They found that the CPU load was high, and memory was nearly fully utilized. As we shut down services (QoS, parental, AV) CPU and memory cleared up. Moving to AP mode cleared the CPU and memory up further resulting in improved performance. 

They advised me that this is a known issue, as the latest firmware is taxing CPU & memory especially when parental controls and AV are enabled. Further, they confirmed that both of these features are run in the cloud, all traffic is sent to their servers and sniffed for viruses and checked against their master parental control lists. This increases latency and further taxes the hardware resources. 

Simply, they advised that the M9's are dated and recommended I move to the X60 as it is running a newer/faster CPU and has increased memory. 

Given it took TP Link nearly a year to trouble shoot and provide support, which had to be done in the middle of the night for me due to their TZ vs my TZ in North America I couldn't spend more money with them for such poor support. Along with the wifi channel issues, which as I understand are persistent in the X60 also. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I am not a fan of all of my data being sent to their servers for inspection to deliver features within my home. 

Latency for me was consistently 10ms, due to the data packets being sent out for inspection to have parental controls and AV applied. It truly effected my network devices communicating with each other. I had a 15-20 second delay connecting to devices such as security cameras, alarm systems, speakers, etc. TP Link verified this in the logs, and showed me that the packet was sent to their cloud for inspection which casued the delays I Was seeing. 

  @David-TP  I have been requesting the same. By contacting the helpdesk via your website multiple times right by now. Not once have I received an confirmation about my ticket or any response at all. I am not happy with the support from TP-Link. 

Although I am getting the answer given here about the difficulty and reasons why Mesh system should not need the user to do manual input, the fact that people believe they need to is reason for improvement. I for one do not want to fuss and do manual adjustments. But the issue is that my 6x M5  that I have put 2x M5 Deco per level just to make sure I have coverage (no gaps) and to have stable connection, but I do not see improvement.. The test shows time over time that the interference level Hight. Why is the Deco not selecting the channels that are free. And No there is little to no chance that there are kitchen appliances and like that on the 1st floor and 2nd floor to interfere. Thus the OS should do better or users should be able to manually override.

  @David-TP 

Well this post was made 2 years ago and we still don't have that option. There are people out here who used fix wireless to get internet and your system has absolutely no problem with just completely trashing the incoming Wi-Fi signal. And it most certainly is 100% perfectly legal to allow the user to set their own Wi-Fi channel in the United States which is where you're going to be selling a lot of this product. I know this for a fact because I own a wireless ISP. 

Treating your customer like he or she is an idiot is no way to do business

Hello,

I am having the same problem as well. I have a Zigbee network which is interfering with the 2.4G network by Deco. Unfortunately I can't switch off the 2.4G completely because some of the smart devices I have don't support 5G and switching the Zigbee channel is not an option because I will need to repair all the devices and I can't guarantee that the Deco will not switch the channel automatically to the same one my Zigbee network is using.

Being able to change the channel is a necessity and clearly the automatic channel selection doesn't work as it is supposed to. Dear TP link, do you have any plans to add this feature or should I throw away my Deco devices and start looking for another solution? If you have plans to add this, can you please provide an ETA?

Thanks

Hey,

What the hell is happening with your R&D,

DECO Xe75 which is supposed to be best one, with all features and more option to users. This is sh$$ of limitations,  and you guys need 2+ years, and cards are stil open.

1. Not being able to configure channels

2. Unable to see, how much data is used by devices in realtime(I was able to do this with a very old onhub google router)

3. No way to turn wireless bachhoul completely,  with that you can give a option to create multiple SSID,

I would really love to move all of my IoT devices to different SSID and different channel, this way I can have one channel only for non-IoT devices,

4. A single onhub router was covering  1200sqft with better coverage, with 2 of Deco XE75 has hard time penetrating a wall near it. 

5. No way to set up VPN's

6. Creating guest network over wired backhoul and switches, made me a network engineer (though using the TP Link gigabit switches)

7. App based option is too horrible lot of clicks clicks, even to delete a device i would need almost more than 6 clicks.

David-TP wrote

Hello all, sorry to respond late.

 

We have already noted all of your requests about choosing the wireless channels manually on the Deco system and they have been forwarded to the developers, they will publish new official firmware in the near future, not too long to wait, which will optimize the current channeling picking mechanism, it is suggested to wait for the new updates and confirm if that will help address any of your concerns.

 

@David-TP , having the option would help, as the choosen channel not always is the best for every enrironment. In my house the higher channels are jammed somehow and we could not find the reason. So most radios uses channel 1 to avoid that interference. And are the only ones that work. My Deco sees noone on the higher channels and choose them, so my devices cannot connect whatsoever. Until we solve the interference problem (and I am not sure if we will be able to find it), I must use another radio where I can manually choose channel 1. Deco is useless here. Unfortunately.

I think it is time to give up on TP-Link completely. I loved all of my TP-Link products in the beginning, but between their home automation and networking product limitations, it's just not worth re-investing in thier products to fix my problems. 

I have been having sporadic bandwidth problems for quite some time, and finally figured out that the problem is my M9 Plus mesh environment. It is cutting my bandwidth in half, actually that is an understatement, it's less than half of what I get when direct connected to my provider. I have repeatedly "optimized" my network, but to no avail, it always reports "perfect" then almost immediately says my network is congested and needs to be optimized. If I could change the channel manually, it might help, but I can't so I will be moving on once I figure out what manufacturer I want to support next. Such a waste of my time and money. 

  @DevAuto I am convinced the bandwidth issue has a lot to do with the fact that all traffic is routed throught TPLink's cloud servers to deliver QoS, Antivirus, and the content filtering for child protection. I too blamed the wifi channel for a long time.

TPLink support had me disable these features and my bandwidth issues improved. Still not full 1Gbps I see from my ISP equipment but I did see an improvement from 200-300Mbps to 400-500Mbps. For me this was killing video calls, even as the only user on the network at the time. Support also told me the CPU & Memory on the older Deco's is at peak utilization with recent firmware updates. Their advice, upgrade to the latest TP Link technology, which as I understand also pushes all traffic through their cloud.

I did go Google, not the newer Nest style, the original but with the most recent release. I needed/prefer the wired backhaul capabilities. My slowest bandwidth test has been 760Mbps with my kids streaming on their devices, me on a video conference, and the TV's all streaming. (Set up for a test) I consistantly see 800Mbps-1Gbps throughput on speed tests from all capable devices. You cannot control the wifi channel, however the automated algorithm works flawlessly. I do see my devices change channels automatically to unused channels, and have not expereicned any performance issues to date. Coverage with 2 pucks if far better, no dead zones in my home, garage, backyard, or even across the street at the park! I have a third node to install... But why? 

BTW, all of my home IoT device manufacturers traced the data packets when I was troubleshooting. They all pointed that all data was leaving my home LAN, going through TP Link's cloud, and back. This killed performance on wifi enabled Harmony remotes, delaying all TV controls by 10-20 seconds. Same with my thermostat, Ring cameras, Sonos speakers, etc. Remove TP Link, no more buffering streaming services, no more delays in TV commands, and live video from my cameras. Best decsion I ever made. 

Really? We are still talking about this?

This company is worse than Samsung.

I doubt they even READ this topic.

Probably just stop in and paste in the same response from 2 years ago when anyone posts here.

Try to find a better platform than one that is not supported.

  @Arrow22 

The problem is, there is no better platform unless you spend thousands of the Netgear system.

I  revisited the Google system as per another posters recommendation and it is absolutely terrible.  I took it back. 

Amazon's offering is complete rubbish too so that does not leave many others to choose from.  

Tell me another platform other than the ones listed above, that do not require you to sell a kidney to afford it and I'll give it a go.