Many legacy devices have unreliable connections to deco wifi
Hello,
I have 3 XE75Pros and 2 x S7, all with the latest released firmware. I've had these for maybe a year now, adding the XE75's a bit later.
Up until that point, I had all my wifi devices, cameras, etc., on a standard wifi router. 2 over the years. Nothing really ever missed a beat. But, I figured I'd upgrade to DECO for a few reasons, but since then, many of my devices are basically junk. They either will not connect at all, have a hard time connecting, or connect and disconnect, never to reconnect after a short period (60 minutes to be generous, though it seems fairly random). Some devices are pingable, with about 75% packet loss and high ping times. Go back to a simple standard Draytek router/wifi and all these problems go away.
Rather than try and troubleshoot them, I figure I might start a thread naming some of these devices. Maybe TPLink Engineering can locate and try them! Maybe others can contribute to the list.
So, here we are. Devices I have that no longer work on DECO, but work on Technicolour and Draytek routers/wifi, without issue. (yes, some are old, but that's not the point!)
Logitech Squeebox radio - I have several. Can't use them any more. Constant buffering and they lose connection requiring a power cycle to reconnect.
D-LInk tl-sc3130g camera - Fails to connect. Does connect once in a blue moon, but rarely. If it connects, stays connected for a few days, then goes away, never to come back.
D-Link DCS-932 camera - Connects rarely. Not as bad as above, and once connected generally stays that way for a few days. After that, requires a power cycle. Throughput is poor.
Early generation Google Chromecast devices - Had various attached to TV's - None are usable any more. They connect, but the connection is so intermittent, a few minutes of video and they are broken again after some buffering issues. Most are unplugged now. Unusable.
Samsung M2020 wifi printer - Every time I use it I have to go through multiple power cycles, WPS, to reconnect it. Never had that issue in years with 2 other routers prior.
TP-Link C-100 camera. Connects sometimes, but mostly will be unreachable. It is 6ft from a DECO s7 with an ethernet backhaul to a XE75Pro. HW v2. Latest FW. Weirdly, sometimes this camera is pingable from some nodes in the network, but not others. I believe it depends on which AP you are connected to. (yes, I've tried disabling mesh, tying it to ap's, etc., and it does not help)
My DECO's are set to AP mode. I have 1 S7 in ethernet backhaul mode, connected to an XE75Pro that has a wifi backhaul to the main unit connected to the internet router, which is another XE75Pro. There are 5 units in total. Here is the map
Maybe that gives someone at TP-Link an idea of the issues and something to look at. I am sure many others have similar issues. Perhaps they could speak up here and let us know. The most annoying to me is my Squeezeboxes. I miss my whole house audio so much that I will likely drop the whole DECO network soon if they do not come up with some firmware updates to address it. I have to say, my DECO experience has been expensive and had very poor results vs expectations. Quite sure I am better at this stage going back to a single decent router, or 2 routers, without any sort of MESH. I live in hope however, despite the huge number of DECO's now released/planned and all the complexity that brings. FW releases for fixes have not been quick to appear. I do hope TP-Link can improve here (a lot!).
Thanks.