TP-Link CPE210, Long Range Outdoor CPE for PtP, PtMP Transmission, 2.4GHz N300

I got two of these to provide internet connection to my detached garage for security cameras. The distance is at least 200ft and the first 20-30 ft go through the attic of my condo and my neighbor's. The first one is in the attic as an AP (access point) (Ethernet to the router) pointing at the direction of the garage (the condo rules don't allow me to put it outside). Like I said, between my condo and the garage there is another condo. The second unit is also in the garage (cannot have it outside) as a repeater. My phone sees the AP from the condo but the Internet is not usable. If I use the second unit as a repeater, I get a solid 5 to 15 Mbps. Mind you I haven't optimized their placement yet, I just placed them quickly to check the connection. I should be able to raise both units a few more feet and potentially improve the signal/penetration a bit. The RF of the units seem very solid and I love their interface. Many parameters to configure and monitor the connection status. The units support as low as 5MHz BW which can help with very long distances, however, my phone wouldn't connect with anything less than 20 MHz (couldn't see the AP). I guess less than 20MHz can be used when one unit is AP and other one a client. Finally, this setup is less than 1/3 of the cost of another WIFI repeater system by CC Vector, it offers a better interface and actually works. The CC Vector gave me a 25% signal but no usable Internet. Update April 20th, 2019: Before mounting the units higher, occasionally the upload speed from the garage to the condo would be practically unusable. I suspect interference from one of the several other APs in the condo complex (the survey tool picked up 96 APs!). I was able to make the connection more stable by changing the channel, and limiting the max speed and bandwidth (again it is very nice to have these options). After that I got around to mount the units higher which helped to make the signal more stable and I didn't have problems since. In order to be able to use a bandwidth less than 20 Mhz and set the unit in the garage in the client mode, I bought a cheap router (TL-WR940N, about the same price as an AP only) that I connected to the client CPE210. Originally, the router was set as an AP but I ended up using it as a router for utilizing data filtering options that were not available at the AP mode. If I had a line-of-sight I would have used the 5GHz CPE units since the 5Ghz band is less crowded. I am pretty sure the 5Ghz signal wouldn't fair well going through multiple walls and roofs. Still, very pleased and I hope they last a long time.

I purchased two of the 2.4 GHz 9dBi antennas. I needed to send high-speed Broadband internet to a family members house who was only capable of receiving DSL. I've had them installed now for a week and I'm beyond pleased with their function. First of all, the setup is super simple. If you get stumped, however, TP-Link has a great tutorial video on their website and YouTube. The main reason for my decision of choosing this product over others was due to a review I read where a user was able to get an excellent signal through woods. In my application, I am transmitting a little over 800' away and mostly through thick woods between our two houses. I am able to reliably get 60%-70% signal with zero reduction data transfer rates. Here are my testing procedures and setup for this system. First of all, I have a Gigabit 1000x40 internet service through Spectrum. Hardline test right off the modem I'm realistically getting 860Mbps-900Mbps. I am using a Netgear Nighthawk R9000 router. As for the CPE link, I do not have ethernet cable ran through my house so on the transmitting end I am supplying a connection between my router and the AP via the TP-Link AV2000 powerline adapter. These are advertised at a theoretical connection speed of 2000Mbs. Realistically I'm getting 436Mbps as you can see from the utility screenshot. When performing a wired internet speed test of the PLA connection I'm getting a download speed of 61Mbps and an upload speed of 40Mbps. On the receiving end, the client antenna had an internet speed check of 61x40. This antenna is connected to another series of Powerline Adapters. This time I chose the TP-Link AV1000 due to its build in WiFi capability. The end WiFi connection speed check is still 61x34 with is very impressive to me. I realize that there is a huge reduction in speed from my connection at 900Mbps but what surprises me is the bottleneck isn't THESE antennas transmitting through the woods. That's the reason for me giving them such an excellent rating. On top of the strong connection from point to point, these antennas also provide WiFi coverage to most all of my 2-acre yard at full signal. I realize they are supposed to be directional antennas, but the signal does propagate outwards. I realize some people might not like the thought of their WiFi signal being within reach of their neighbors, but that's why you use a strong password. I personally like being able to get internet on my phone 500' from my house.

We have installed this for over 1.5 years now so this review should be able to give the real user experience. 1. Speed. We have 300 fiber, but this antenna only gives us about 10M, but it's probably due to our situation, we have 2 big trees in between and a big transformer, I imagine that interferes a lot; But 10M is more than enough for our use case; 2. Range. Our setup is cross 300 feet (roughly 100 M), again we have lots of interference in between so this is still good; 3. Functionality. As long as it works, it's super reliable and we didn't need to adjust anything or reset, basically set it and forget it; 4. Durability. 6 months after it was put in service, the server (sending) side died, the light is still on, but there is no way to get into the web UI, contacted the TPLink CS but couldn't figure it out, it's bricked for no reason; eventually we bought a replacement and have had no issues ever since; 5. Mountability. Super easy, a zip tie is all you need. 6. Warranty. Warranty is generous, however customer needs to pay for the shipping which cost more than half of the unit price. We threw away the bricked unit instead of going through warranty claim because of that. Overall, it's a good product, as long as it works.

8/1/21 Got clear email back from tech support. definitely the way to contact. The units are talking to each other great and will save about $1,000 per year from having to have additional Internet in separate building on same property. The sending unit is protected and will give an authentication error when connecting, BUT, it appears it is a security feature if you need it. Moving back to 5 stars as this system really solved a large issue and saving a lot of money. There is a learning curve, but worth it once you have it figured out. NOTE: USE THE VIDEO and figure out how to set IP to the units. Recommend a second computer for video as the first is hooked to units when pairing them together. 7-30-21. Updated to 4 stars. Tech support is almost on existent. Chat support "Consult button" does not work. Was on hold 15 minutes to speak to someone in order to get transferred. At 40 minutes had to hang up. We purchased a second set of units because we were happy with the first and deciphered with the video how to set things up. It is throwing an authentication error from the sending unit and cannot figure out why, so have nothing. It would sit at a 3-star and averaged out with my 5-star to 4 -------------------------------- May 2021 So, it took a bit of study and thank goodness for the YouTube video how to set up. It helps to hav a computer that you can change the IP address to the units, plus a second computer to watch Youtube. When connected to the units the computer cannot do YouTube at the same time. Biggest challenge was configuring the computer to connect. Once connected, was easy. The sender is out doors and receiver is indoors in rafters. I am getting almost 50 mps download speed at 600 feet. I did try the single unit and had about 5 mps download. SO, the receiver was a very smart move. I mounted the sender under my porch (I have a walkout. SO about 7 feet off the ground and line of site to building I wanted to send signal to. I now can set up wifi security and have connect to my phone. Basically, you can use one unit to really push your signal, but having a second unit catch and push into its own router really works well.

UPDATE #4 tpLink finally sent me their replacement unit (which is a different model that works on the 5 GHz band). I installed that and so far that model is working. Also, do NOT try to use their Pharos management platform. I have another pair of these CPE210 radios that have also started acting up so I was going to try and find a means to reboot the AP end daily (it seems to fix issues when you reboot them frequently). The one way of doing that is to use the Pharos management system and schedule a reboot. Well, after installing "Pharos" it totally screwed up my network, and the remote appears to have RESET all the CPE210 units. Within 30 mins of installing that garbage I removed it from my computer and network. Again, stick with something like Ubquiti since their gear WORKS! UPDATE #3: In their effort to redeem themselves, tpLink sent me a replacement unit to try. I was told it would be an RMA and I would not be charged. The back n forth with support on the serial number of the return unit ended up taking 2 weeks, pushing the return outside of their return window, so they CHARGED ME FOR THE "FREE" REPLACEMENT! This company is a JOKE! I have converted every one of my customers over to Ubquiti. I will not use this garbage any longer. Save yourself from the BS I went through and buy a different product if you want to build reliable communication links. UPDATE #2: Dropping this to 1 star. As mentioned before, I used dozens of the CPE210s to link various sites to transmit video camera traffic. They worked fine - for about 12 - 18 months. However, as mentioned before, every site is dropping the connections and I cannot get a clear answer from support as to why. I have now started swapping the CPE210s out in favor of equipment from Ubquiti which works flawlessly. So, if you want to avoid the utter frustration I went through spend a little more on something that is robust and proven in the field. UPDATE: As I wrote in my original review, I have had ongoing issues with the root AP dropping the radio on the CPE210s. This is not unique to one install. I have 5 different sites where I have used the CPE210s, and they appeared to have worked fine for about a year. But lately the issue with the root AP dropping the radio is becoming a DAILY occurrence. I have to login to the root AP (which tells me the unit is running since I can always login to the AP) and do anything that involves engaging the radio (change channel, perform a WiFi survey, do a Spectrum Analysis - anything that involves engaging the radio) and the thing starts working again. I have had extensive back n forths with tpLink on this and so far NO ONE at tpLink can offer a plausible explanation as to the cause. I could understand if this were happening at one location, but every site I have used them, they have worked fine for a year, and then they exhibit this problem. I have multiple sites using products from other manufacturers and I am not seeing this sort of instability in their products. My units are on latest firmware, optimized for performance per tpLink, etc. I am getting very close to ripping out the 20+ units I have installed at various sites and going with a different product! I have installed numerous CPE units to link cameras at various customer sites. By and large, they work, BUT, I have had situations (at different sites) where the root AP needs to be rebooted since it drops the link to the remote station(s). I have tried all sorts of things to address this, changing the channel bandwidth to 20 Mhz form 40 Mhz, elevated the root AP antenna higher etc. The issue seems to happen when outside air temperatures get cold. I cannot get a clear explanation from tpLink on what might be causing this. Their support is supposed to be 24/7 (that is what it says on their website anyway) - I have had occasion to try and get on a chat session with support early in the morning and.....crickets, nada, no response. After waiting an hour for someone to respond to a chat request I just gave up. My advice is if you are implementing something commercial or important, find another product as my extensive experience with tpLink's CPE products has not been exceptional. I use Ubquiti in some implementations and I NEVER had these issues with their equipment.

Over the years, have setup many routers/access points/repeaters. I have a particularly difficult setup in this case with many acres to cover with cameras' with the routers being in direct sunlight and pouring rain situations. I was replacing a high performance router that got zapped by an electrical storm with a couple of these. Blowing out a 300 dollar router vs a 40 dollar router is a no brainer. But I knew going in, that these weren't going to perform as well. Mainly because they are fairly directional. instead of omni. I only needed 2.4ghz for these cameras. And they are all HD. Traditionally this is a pain in the butt because you only have so much band width to allocate. Usually you don't get to know what the router thinks about this on a individual basis. But this router has a SUPERIOR gui in it. For one, it responds nearly instantly. Whereas most other routers there's an annoying delay. It has an excellent graphing analytics, and group and per station real-time readout of signal/noise ratio and bandwidth used. This may seem unimportant to the casual user. But this is very important to know what each station is consuming and how well it's performing "live". I was able to fine-tune each camera's res/framerate to fit within the 300mbps this unit can handle. And to know the strength "live". In fact, the gui was obviously designed by a no-nonsense expert engineer. He put exactly and "only" what was needed on each and every page. You can fine-tune this baby up like a well oiled machine. As well as all the modern optimization techniques possible. The prices was good enough to buy a couple of them instead of one super one. These are POE so you can hang several and chain them around without resorting to ethernet switches. The antenna doesn't beat a super high performance router. BUT you can put it up a pole and get the same result. Since it is semi directional all your power is going where you want it. If that's not what you want. Its inexpensive enough to hang another one going the other way. Which then DOUBLES your bandwidth to 600mbps. These are obviously designed to work together. And if something blows one out. No big deal I am going to buy a carton of them now. What I have written here applies to people setting up large scale camera systems. If your just looking to get some wifi to watch youtube and netflix you will be fine. It's a very capable little thing. But it's strength lies in it's ability to co-exist with others, with a pricepoint to make that economically feasible.

I needed to get wifi from main house to guest house - a distance of about 175 feet (according to Google Earth). I ordered 2 N300's. One that I received was clearly a returned item - packaging was torn, printed user manual had someone else's handwritten notes in it, including their username and password. Kind of annoying, but for $42, I decided to see if it worked before sending it back (it did). The hardest part about installation was running the cable. I mounted the main house access point above the router closet, next to a parapet and used an existing conduit to run cable. It was harder than I expected, but after an hour of screwing around, I successfully pulled the cable. Set up was simple except that your router must have an ip address of 192.168.0.1. Mine was set as 192.168.1.1, so I had to reset it in order to communicate with the access point. I was afraid I would lose connectivity with existing devices after changing the router ip address and then back again, but that problem did not occur. After setting up the access point, I was able to change the gateway's ip address back to 192.168.1.1 and assign a new ip address to the access point (not in that order). installing the guest house access point was similar. I added a wireless access point in the guest house to distribute wifi there. Note that you cannot directly use the N300 for internet access, you need some kind of access point or switch. Download speed via wifi in the guest house is around 60mbs, while at the router in the main house I get 500mbs+. Advertised speed from Xfinity is 600mbs. So a significant loss in speed in the guest house, but should be sufficient to run a couple of cameras and stream one tv. One weird thing: as soon as the setup was working, an existing Nest Cam would not connect to it's long-time existing wireless access point. Eventually, I reduced the "transmit power" (on the wireless tab) for both of the N300's from 27 to 15 and that seemed to fix the problem. TP-Link tech support was responsive, but doubted that their devices could have interfered and did not believe that reducing the transmit power solved the problem. However, if I turn the transmit power back up the camera again works only intermittently. It's only circumstantial evidence, but to me it's pretty compelling. Bottom line: the N300's worked largely as advertised, with reasonably simple installation and setup requirements. They do what I needed.

Having always struggled to get a good wifi signal at RV parks due to all the metal and outside conditions I needed something to bring the wireless inside my RV. I did struggle with the correct setup but in the end with help with someone on TP-Links forum I used AP Client Router. The documentation says that is for connecting to a WISP which confused me but it is the correct setup. Once connected I simply plugged a Google WiFi device into the CAT 6 cable I used to set it up and it just worked. I can now use my Fire TV, phone, everything over wireless. Even my Plex server. The only change I would make if I were to do it again is go with 5 Ghz instead of 2.4. The signal is less prone to outside noise but I am still happy with the 2.4 Ghz. I should also add I did use a WiFi analyzer to find the correct MAC address of the RV parks radio I wanted to use because this device picked up good signals from radios further away. UPDATE 10 months later: The unit is constantly going offline. It started 3 months ago and is just getting worse.

ITS WORK VERY GOOOD

Recently expanded the network on a farm to reach all outbuildings and create a wifi/cctv network where there is no phone signal. Excellent devices. The first two purchased have been in place for 18 months wto tith no need to reset and have braved snow and the longest hot summer. Very happy with TP-Link range and would recommend the EAP / CPE range to small business, mid size offices and cafes without hesitation. Awesome value.

Primero compré una que transmite en 5mhz y en la instalación descubrí que la borma mexicana cambio y era incompatible con el servicio de Internet que se brinda en el país. La cambié devolví sin complicaciones, ni cargo de envío y me devolvieron en unos pocos días el dinero. Luego adquirí este par y puedo decir que estoy muy contento con las antenas, una transmite la señal y la otra la recibe, desde una distancia aproximada de 60 metros con nada de perdida.

No funciono. Intente múltiples configuraciones y no repetía el Internet, hable con el soporte técnico e intento configurarlo con una conexión remota y no pudo.

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