Decided to dump my Netgear and liked the options of the Parental Controls for cutting off at bedtime...

 

Be550 looked a good match so installed in three days ago.  Must say I am finding the problems bad enough I am wondering if it a dud and I should return it.

maybe someone here can help me out with what is wrong.

 

1. Advanced Parental Controls

starter the trial and subscribed yearly.  It appeared and set up the profiles for my kids and assigned devices.  Switched off the WiFi features off their devices to hide MAC addresses etc...

Hour late it is gone,  the subscribed features have gone.

 

See I still have the subscription,  tells me I need to assign the subscription to a device... okay I do that assigning to the Be550...

go back to the profiles...   no change

 

give it a breather and try again,  adding to device... no change. Now done this four times.   Sounds like this device likes to untether the subscription,  any ideas?

 

Also saw the bedtime was not being enforced,  but I assume that is related to the above issue.

 

2. WiFi flaky

went with the default setup,  merged 2.4G and 5G,  seems to work...  but not with any access point or extender.  Especially my cheap nasty TPLink RE (N300) refuses to reach the internet.  Same with my old Orbi mesh,  no internet.

 

even tried this with the RE trying to connect beside the BE550 while I can see the internet working on the nearby PC.  The issue is definitely between the router and the RE.

 

New connections will connect but also get no internet,  they will not show up on the Admin page as devices despite being allocated an IP address (though wondering if that is just the lease not expiring.

the device is not listed in the ARP table either though...

 

Ring devices mostly work,  my doorbell refuses to connect,  despite the WiFi supposedly being good... my outdoor cameras with far worse signal do work... 

 

With the unworkable parental controls and unreliable WiFi,  this feels like a lemon.  Should I return and get a replacement or can this be fixed with some config changes?