TP-Link Dual-Band AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 Router Archer AX55 | Wireless Gigabit Internet Router for Home | EasyMesh Compatible | VPN Clients & Server | HomeShield, OFDMA, MU-MIMO | USB 3.0 | Secure by Design

Bought this for a short term rental property and it's been working flawlessly. It was easy to set up with the Tether app. I have 1 Gig fiber optic through a local provider and am getting really fast speeds and great coverage for my 1,000 square foot home. Signal reaches far enough into the backyard to my patio at the rear property line about 80 feet from the router placed in the living room. So far, no connection drops and no complaints. It's easy enough to monitor using the Tether app.

This router is no joke. IYKYKTplink really changed the game. Couple years ago a router this nice cost hundreds of dollars.I love clean design. Signal is strong! Setup is super simple. Seriously. The people complaining that it’s complicated - if they couldn’t figure this out idk how they figured out how to write a review on Amazon.I also love the web interface to setup the router. The design is clean and intuitive and very pleasant to use. Also the performance is quite fast compared to all the routers out there with slow as heck web interface!The reason I got this router is because xfinity gave me a gateway that kept dropping the WiFi on my pc. I tried every trick I found online, but nothing worked. Xfinity support was completely clueless!So I decided to try my own router. I threw the xfinity gateway into bridge mode, connected it to this router and set it up - now my internet is really nice!Another thing I really like about using your own router is being able to use the best dns servers rather than the crap your IsP throws at you!10/10 - best router ever!As for coverage I hear this router is good enough for a 3000 square feet house and you want to put it in the middle of the house as much as possible so the whole house gets even coverage. I don’t like using mesh systems because at each node your internet gets 50% slower! So this is the best way to go!

Straightforward to setup, good connectivity and served exactly my needs. I'm in a apartment complex with public Wi-Fi, which inevitably gets bogged by all the other devices on the network. By using the hotspot feature, I was able to offshoot my own network, which not only acts as a extender for better connectivity but privacy as this router also has VPN features, which also seems easy to configure. It's a great value for the money in my opinion, for peace of mind. High quality exterior and decent UI which you can use through a browser or using the Tether app. Highly recommended.

This will not be an in-depth review but will cover some highlights.Pros: This is small and light, which makes it easy to pack for trips. It also has decent speed and range. Now, it's range isn't very far -- on the 5GHz band I was down a bar in strength about 20 feet away, but the range is sufficient for travel use unless you are staying in a massive room or house. It was generally easy to use and set up was straightforward if you know what you're doing. If not, I can see it being a challenge to many people because there are no clear instructions included with it.Cons: Set up was not as easy as it could be. The Tether app helped but pulling up the captive portal never worked from within the app. I generally had to plug the router in, connect to it, add the hotel/public WiFi as the network, and then go on a different device to pull up the captive portal. If you've been dealing with routers and computers for some time, you'll figure it out, but otherwise, the process is much too convoluted.Overall, the router is good. I'm hoping it lasts some years. It really should be priced lower though as a WiFi 6 device. I know competition is scarce but at the 'normal' price there is a better option for a travel router. At the discounted price of around $50-$60 after credits and coupons that was available recently, it's fairly priced for the performance. I think $50 would be much more reasonable as a target price for this.

[updated]I updated from a TP-Link Archer C7. I have an Arris SB8200 modem. Here are a few notes.The AX55 signal strength seems a little better, especially in the 5 GHz band. It also adds 802.11ax and WPA3 security as well as "Smart Connect" which allows you to combine 2.4G and 5G bands under a single SSID and have the router decide which to use with each client. You could just give the separate bands the same SSID with any router. In that case each client would decide which band to use. The router login no longer uses a username, only a password.I have now tried "Smart Connect" with 2 TP-Link routers in 2 different houses and I am not impressed. On both I eventually had to separate the 2 bands. It was especially dysfunctional on mobile devices (phones, laptops, etc.). It doesn't seem to switch bands very easily as you move around. Even stationarydevices seem to bounce inexplicably between the two bands, which can have very different signal strengths.The wi-fi encryption settings can be a problem depending on your equipment. The options are:NoneWPA2-PSK[AES]WPA2-PSK[AES]+WPA-PSK[TKIP]WPA3-PersonalWPA3-Personal+WPA2-PSK[AES]WPA2-EnterpriseWPA/WPA2-EnterpriseI wouldn't touch either WPA or TKIP. Previously I used only WPA2-PSK[AES]. I would have liked to have used WPA3-Personal+WPA2-PSK[AES] here, but I have an older 2.4G printer with WPA/WPA2[AES or TKIP]. It would not connect unless the router was set to WPA2-PSK[AES] or WPA2-PSK[AES]+WPA-PSK[TKIP]. In the end, I set the 2.4G band to WPA2 (only) and the 5G band to WPA2+WPA3.Configuration and Installation-----------------------------------Installing the router was pretty straightforward. I turned off wi-fi on my laptop, wired it (DHCP) to one of the router's client ports, browsed to 192.168.0.1, and logged in (password is on the bottom of the router). Alternatively, you could leave your wi-fi enabled and connect to the router's default SSID, also on the bottom. Doing it over wi-fi is just a bit more risky.I configured it entirely through the web interface using the Advanced menus. I changed the password and IPv4 address and left it with a temporary SSID while walking through all the other settings. After that was done, I shut down my old router, changed the temporary SSID and passcode on the new router to the permanent ones, shut down the new router, and connected it to my modem.I have not as yet found anything I can do with the Tether app that I can't do, and more easily, with the web interface.The router would not connect to the internet when I powered it on until I remembered that the modem has to be rebooted to pick up the router's MAC address. It won't connect to a new router until then. I powered off both, powered up the modem, waited until it was fully up, and then powered up the router. It connected immediately and has been running fine since then.Once connected, I reviewed the internet (IPv4 and IPv6) status and settings. For Comcast, at least in this area, the IPv6 WAN connection type is Dynamic IP(SLAAC/DHCPv6) with DHCPv6 and prefix delegation selected. The LAN type is SLAAC+Stateless DHCP. I prefer to use Google's public DNS servers (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 2001:4860:4860::8888, and 2001:4860:4860::8844), I've set those to override the Comcast-provided defaults.Performance---------------I have 400 Mbps Comcast service with an Arris SB8200 modem. The modem indicates DOCSIS 3.1 service on the downstream side, but not on the upstream side. My laptop wireless NIC is an Intel AC7265 dual-band b/g/n/ac adapter.On a wired connection to the router, I get download speeds of 475+ Mbps. 480 would be the most I would expect given Comcast's typical practice of over-provisioning by 20%.On 5G wi-fi with 40 MHz channels, I get 475 Mbps next to the router and about 20' away in the same room. I get 355 Mbps in the next room, which is 73% faster than with the Archer C7.On 2.4G wi-fi with 20 MHz channels, I get 100 Mbs in the next room and 45 Mbs 2 floors up on the opposite side of the house. That's 25% and 80% faster than with my Archer C7.Those who have unexpectedly slow wi-fi performance and who have "Smart Connect" enabled may be connected via the 2.4 GHz band without realizing it. Another reason not to use that feature.I live in a crowded wi-fi neighborhood with people who think it's a good idea to use 40 or 80 MHzchannels in the 2.4 GHz band. Don't do that. It makes all your neighbors' performance worse anddoesn't really help yours.