TP-Link Archer BE550 Tri-Band BE9300 WiFi 7 Router, 6-Stream 9.2Gbps Speed WiFi Router, Full 5x 2.5G WAN/LAN Ports, 6x Internal Antennas Covers Up to 2,000 Sq. Ft., VPN Support, Homeshield, Easy Setup

>Very fast and simple to setup.>Clean and easy to use GUI with tooltips for extra features you may not understand straight away>Small(ish) footprint.>Perfect 6Ghz signal to my Meta Quest 3 VR>Good looking piece of kit, blends in.>Works very well with the Virgin Media Hub 5 and also the older Hub 3.0 which is problematic with various routers due to DHCP/handshake issues.The only negative thing I experienced - Setting it up via LAN portal was not saving changed SSIDs, but it did through the app. Perhaps a fix via future firmware will come...

When next to the router the speed is really good, I was getting 950mbps, however when moved into a room directly below it the speed was really inconsistent, took an eternity to connect and dropped to 48 at best and 4 at worst.Really disappointed.Signal drop off is worse than a Deco Xe75 which I had expected it to out perform. Using the example of the Deco it will give 930mbps next to the router and around 350mbps when in the same room as I tested the BE550 in.

The be550 gets a lot of negative feedback but I found it great. Wireless range is about the same as the ax55 it replaced but the speeds are better. Yes you need to update the firmware out of the box, yes you need to decide on SSID names as you can’t combine all 3 bands and yes some of the settings can be a bit confusing! For me turning on OFDMA made my WiFi speeds worse. Personally I don’t use the MLO band as I’m getting 1200mbps without it. Works well on virgin media hub 5. I have the GIG 1 service and get 1200 download on WiFi 6e devices like my pixel 8 pro and MacBook. Older devices like iPhone 14 get 700mbps in same room. In my opinion it looks good, I was never keen on models either the antenna on show. My top tips: make the 2.4 &5 ghz smart connect and make 6ghz band same SSID as the other one. If you have different SSID thinks like apple airdrop don’t work well

TP-Link Archer BE550I am very impressed by this router. I've been a gamer since the 90's and played a lot of FPS shooter games that require NO packet loss. Well I've never seen everyone of the bullets connect with 0 packet loss.The speed is amazing and the Wi-Fi is also very impressive.The router page on your browser lets you access the menu and all the options you would ever need are here and very well laid out.It may seem a lot of money but for Wi-Fi 7 and the reliability alone its well worth it.Simply instal this router and you shouldn't have any problems with your home network again.

I got this router to upgrade our house WiFi.We were using 6x Deco M5's and a new BT/EE home hub (3 floor house. Thick walls). I wanted to upgrade to wifi 7. So got this and set of deco BE65's.Only to find that this router is not compatible with the Deco mesh system. So it's gone back in its box. It's a very good router. Easy to set up as per all Tp-link kit.On the bright side. I have totally rebuilt our home network. And now have only 3x Deco BE65's connected directly to our BT/EE fibre port. No BT/EE router... and giving us much much faster communications all round the house.If you have a small house.. (1 or 2 floors) and you don't have thick solid walls or lots of metal in the house construction then I would highly recommend this router or its bigger cousin. Just note: if you need to use a MESH extension with it. Make sure you use "EasyMesh" or "OneMesh" compatible MESH units.. NOT Deco MESH units.For our house and needs the Deco MESH system works better for us.Note this BE550 ( and it's more powerful cousin the BE800) do have several extra features and security over the Deco MESH routers.. so may be a better option for some.I did have problems at first with my BE550 dropping connection on my BT/EE fibre connection. But that was a settings mistake. Once correctly set up. Worked great

TLDR; I've only explored a couple of features in depth. The 64 item device limit under MAC control, which you only discover when you try to enter a 65th, and poor wifi performance coupled with no mesh support for single SSIDs on Guest or IoT networks, means there is little point in me exploring any further.The interface offers little contextual help or info on expected behaviours or limits.Annoying UX limitations are unacceptable for a device of this cost and supposed maturity.TP-Link have properly wasted my time here, don't let them waste your time too.MAC CONTROL and CONNECTED DEVICE CONFIGURATIONThe MAC control list has a hard limit of 64 devices. After that you're stuck. In a world if IoT, this is insufficient for many domestic setups. Why there should be hard limit at all is confounding and reflects poor understanding of user's needs.TP-Link's default MAC control behaviour means you cannot simply view a list of devices on the network, to select and add them to the whitelist, unless MAC control is first disabled.This would be a small inconvenience (turn MAC control off, edit list, turn MAC control back on), if it weren't for the fact that following these steps then enables access to ALL devices on the network, whether you've previously added them to the whitelist or not!Further, users cannot select multiple devices to add to the whitelist at once. Instead each must be selected from a paginated list and added in turn. You must then search the paginated list again, for the next device. When you page through the list, it does not identify whether a device is already added to the whitelist, you just have to remember and trawl through the same paginated list over and over, for each device in turn.The only way to add more devices to the whitelist without having all connected devices automatically added - an awful functional choice that is not explained in the interface - is to add each MAC address and device name manually. This is far more frustrating, slow and error-prone than it needs to be, requiring the user to run about their home to look up and identify each device's MAC address, then note them down for entry, one item at a time, in to the TP-Link interface.Device naming is also frustrating. Access Control is under the "Advanced" tab, where default device names are initially listed. But you cannot edit them from this page. Instead users must navigate away to a separate "Clients" page under the "Network Map" tab, where only the currently connected clients are listed. It is from this list that names can be edited. This information is then reflected back on the MAC control page, where users can then decide how to configure each device's access controls.Listing and editing the MAC control whitelist is frustrating too. The list is paginated with just 6 items per page, sorted from newest to oldest added. You cannot view more or all devices on a single page nor sort them by IP address, MAC address or given device name. You just have to scroll through the list, page by page, over and over, each time you want to find a device to edit.The same pagination and lack of sort options issue also affects the DHCP server list and, I imagine, every other list that might require more than 6 lines (port forwarding, port triggering etc?)IoT DEVICES:There is the option to create a dedicated "IoT" network, but this offers no IP range control nor Internet access control, which would bring the benefits of limiting the access of adding multiple IoT devices, thereby defeating the apparent benefits of bringing them all under a single network.I am not clear what restrictions using this dedicated network puts on devices connected to the dedicated IoT network, because the interface lacks the kind of contextual information dialogues that would be helpful in making configuration decisions.I'd imagine different users would want different behaviours.In fairness, some or all of this may be addressable under "Device isolation" but, again, this isn't explained in the interface, nor is it linked to the relevant IoT configuration in the interface, so I would need to research this before knowing - hardly a good way to make a device accessible or user-friendly.WIFI PERFORMANCE:The Wifi signal offers poor reach in my home compared to the Netgear Orbi it replaces. The signal drops off rapidly across my averaged-sized, brick-built home and doesn't penetrate two walls much over 6-8m.This is poor but, if the software was good I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker if I was able to use TP-Link's built in "Easymesh" network functionality to extend the range of its wifi networks with repeaters. But, on this device, the contiguous single-network name Mesh function is limited to just the main SSID and does not work on any of the Guest or IoT networks.This limitation is not made clear in the marketing that I've read and is insufficient for a lot of wifi configurations. It means you cannot combine the functionality of multiple wifi networks and mesh coverage extension.FEATURES THAT ARE LIMITED:As is typical of many makers today, TP-Link have sought to exploit their customers for ongoing subscription payments. Features that are not accessible without the unnecessary deployment of a data-harvesting TP-Link mobile phone app or a paid subscription include: DDoS protection, port protection, something called "IoT Protection" (not explained), parental controls, visited URL and usage analysis (which I imagine benefits TP-Link as a data harvesting endeavour), and a "Malicious Content Filter".INTERFACE RESPONSIVENESS:Compared to the older Netgear Orbi device I had before, TP-Link's interface is faster and more responsive.SOFTWARE:Almost all of the limitations described above could be addressed in software. This device could be vastly improved if TP-Link were interested. However a quick search shows many others have raised these problems with TP-Link, over a considerable length of time. Clearly they don't care to resolve any of this.I've only explored a couple of features here in any depth. The hard device limit under MAC control and the wifi performance coupled with no mesh support to support contiguous single SSIDs on Guest or IoT networks, means there is little point in exploring it further.Without some thought to UX and configuration improvements, I cannot recommend this quite high en, pricey device, for anything other than quite low end use.Not good enough.