In today’s TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review, everything we’re discussing is about TP-Link’s whole home WiFi system.
It utilises the current WiFi 6 technology to deliver great enhancement in speed, coverage, and total capacity.
It won’t necessarily blow your mind performance-wise, but it’s fast and user-friendly for all your needs.
If you think this is something you need to better your home WiFi’s performance, you’ve come to the right place.
This TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review will share details about its design, features, performance, and lots more. It will help you see its efficiency and why it’s a must-have in your space.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi Packaging
Before looking into the specifics, our TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review will focus on its packaging. We got the Deco X55 triple pack to test, and when they arrived, they were kept in a standard-looking cardboard box.
The package sports a white and blue theme which is supposedly relaxing to the eyes. But with all the information laid out on it, it’s really not that visually pleasing for us.
The front of the box displays an image of the product. Above it, WiFi 6 is displayed while Deco’s branding is showcased on the upper-left corner.
Next to “Deco”, you’ll find words noting what the product specifically is, then below it are its primary features. If you’re buying from a physical store, you’ll find extra details about the product along the box’s sides and rear. You can check these out before heading to the counter.
Inside the box, you’ll find the Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi along with other items. Don’t worry since all of these are kept securely and in an organised manner. So, none of the items will incur any damages while in transit.
Other items you’ll find in the box include an RJ45 Ethernet cable, three power adapters, and a quick installation guide.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi Review – Design and Functionality
The Deco X55 is more than a router since it works well with adding style and aesthetics to your home. Its pure design that’s simple yet all-embracing gives off a premium-quality feel, making it a perfect addition to your home.
No matter what theme you have in your home, the Deco X55 will blend perfectly with the aesthetics.
If you aren’t familiar with Mesh WiFi, it’s a whole home WiFi system that’s mainly designed for eliminating dead zones. But that’s not all since it also functions to provide continuous WiFi all over your home.
It allows devices in the network to have greater coverage & speed for a better and more reliable connection. Mesh WiFi systems have a number of access points compared to classic routers that broadcast WiFi from just one point.
Also, Mesh WiFi is designed for different types of homes, specifically the mid-size and larger homes. Often, these places have issues such as incomplete or weak WiFi coverage. And when dead zones or slow WiFi are experienced, people usually go for extenders.
The thing about these is that they don’t really provide fast speeds or adequate connectivity throughout your home. But with Mesh WiFi routers, these are designed to fully cover homes that are up to 6,000 sq. ft. Even if it has two or more storeys, an unusual layout, or interior brick walls, Mesh WiFi routers are key.
TP-Link’s Mesh technology’s adaptive path selection dynamically chooses the best band and route for your data. This guarantees fast connection in all areas of your home.
The nodes all measure 4.49” x 4.3” (H x W) each and don’t provide low profile aesthetics. However, they are still shorter compared to TP-Link’s Deco M4 nodes which measure 7.5” x 3.6”.
Each node has three Gigabit LAN ports, power jack, and a reset button underneath the base. Beneath the hood, you’ll find two internal antennas, a 802.11ax circuitry, and a 1GHz quad-core CPU.
The Deco X55 is a dual-band AX3000 system that’s capable of throughput speeds. It can reach up to 574 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 2,402 Mbps on the 5GHz band. Deco X55 makes use of all the latest WiFi 6 technologies like the WPA3 encryption, signal beamforming, and band steering.
With the product, you can experience continuous coverage even in one to three-bedroom homes. Plus, it’s designed to connect to over 150 devices which makes it pretty convenient.
HomeShield from TP-Link
TP-Link’s HomeShield technology is integrated into the Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi. It uses a kit of features that help you customise your home network with strengthened security. With that, you can fully manage your network, protect your sensitive data, and limit the access of other users.
The following are the features of TP-Link HomeShield:
IoT Protection in Real-Time
HomeShield detects IoT devices and immediately monitors their security performance once they join the network. It has a firewall that blocks unauthorised access, protects against cyber threats and attacks, as well as encrypts your data.
100% Network Protection
HomeShield blocks new malicious sites that go live to protect your network by instantly preventing access. It detects and blocks potential threats and repairs network vulnerabilities.
Powerful Parental Controls
The parental controls of HomeShield allow you to set user profiles by age. It lets you easily set a profile for each user based on age and customise the online time limits and allowances. You can also assign devices to profiles so rules extend to both individual devices and family members.
HomeShield also has content filtering that enables filtering and blocking inappropriate content to your children. You can set keywords like violence, sex, and drugs to restrict your children from accessing these kinds of content.
With this robust parental control, you can ensure your family’s healthy digital habits by setting a bedtime schedule. This feature will limit the entire household’s internet time.
If you want to grant your kids a reward, you can give them extra online time anytime with Time Rewards.
Comprehensive Reports
HomeShield offers more detailed reports that will help you completely understand your home WiFi and all connected devices.
With comprehensive reports, you can check the websites that users visit. Plus, you can check newly connected devices and track security performance. HomeShield also gives browsing advice based on your family members’ time spent online.
Customisable QoS
Quality of Service allows you to assign bandwidth to your most used devices to keep them running optimally. These feature simple controls so you can easily prioritise your devices for a better online experience.
Device Priority
Device Priority lets you select the devices that should have the fastest connections. You can also set a prioritisation schedule for each connected device at different times of the day.
Convenient Personalisation
HomeShield is at your fingertips. You can create personalised network settings for each family member via the Deco or Tether app. These mobile applications are available via Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
What we’re looking at next in our TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review are its key features. These are the elements that make it one of the best options for speeding up and enhancing your WiFi.
Key Features of the TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi
Extremely Fast WiFi 6 Mesh
The Deco X55 is equipped with the WiFi 6 technology, allowing it to deliver outstanding boosts in speed, coverage, and total capacity.
Whole-Home Coverage Wi-Fi to Work as the Dead Zone Killer
Deco X55 enhances broader whole-home WiFi coverage with stronger and clearer signals enhanced by Beamforming and BSS Colour. Wireless connections and Ethernet backhaul (optional) work simultaneously to connect Deco units properly. Thus, offering excellent speeds and seamless coverage for all.
Adding another Deco is the only thing you need to do if you want more coverage. It’s as easy as that.
AI-Driven Mesh – Continuous Learning and Optimisations
The product is integrated with an AI-Driven Mesh that helps deliver smart WiFi that follows you wherever you go. That’s without any interruptions at all.
It instantly learns and adapts to your network’s environment, user behaviours, and client quality. Advanced algorithms account for different factors so the product offers ideal mesh WiFi that’s specific to your home. No matter where you’re at in your home, everyone will enjoy seamless and smooth streaming at the highest speeds possible.
Consistent Roaming with a Single Wi-Fi Name
TP-Link Mesh means that the Deco routers all work simultaneously to create a unified network. Your tablet or phone immediately connects to the Deco with the fastest connection, establishing an extremely seamless WiFi experience.
Secure Your Home Network with the Aid of Experts
Customise your home network with boosted security via HomeShield’s kit of integrated features. So whether you’re determining network security holes, blocking sites, or scheduling your kids’ online activities, HomeShield has you covered.
It will provide you with the tools needed to entirely manage and organise your network.
Quick Setup with the Deco App
The Deco app will make things a whole lot easier for you. Just install the app, follow the on-screen instructions, then you’re all set. Deco will do everything and take care of the rest, setting up and getting your network running in just minutes.
Easy WiFi Management
Managing your WiFi has never been so easy whether you’re at home or away. Via the Deco app, you can see all connected devices, prioritise networks, set up a guest network, and more.
Convenient Voice Controls
You can conveniently control the Deco X20-4G with simple voice commands by pairing it with Alexa.
All Decos Work Simultaneously
The Deco X20-4G is compatible with all Deco models, so forming a mesh network has become easier. Just add more Decos to expand your coverage.
Specifications
Our TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review will divide this section into two. One will be for the wireless specifications and another for the technical specifications.
For the wireless specifications, the Deco X55 uses Ethernet broadband transmission technology and has both ISM and UNII bands. The wireless LAN standard is IEEE 802.11ax while maximum ISM and UNII frequencies are 2.40GHz and 5GHz, respectively.
Looking at the Deco X55, you’ll find a total of two antennas on each. Then, they have two internal antennas as well. 38MB/s is available for its total wireless transmission speed while encryption standards are WPA2-PSK, WPA-PSK, and WPA3-personal.
When we speak of its firewall type, it uses the SPI version; plus, it also has a WiFi Mesh system.
For its technical specifications, this dual-band WiFi 6 has two RJ45 network ports and a broadband RJ45 port. It also makes use of a Gigabit Ethernet technology
Hands-on with the TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi
This is where we focus on the product’s performance in our TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review. It was advertised as an excellent product that does the job but does it really?
We’re sharing our hands-on experience with the product and how it fared during our tests. This is something extremely vital since we want our WiFi router to be efficient and functioning for its purpose.
TP-Link’s Deco App
This allowed us to immediately and easily install, as well as manage, the Deco X55. It allowed us to monitor WiFi connections from anywhere while also making changes via our tablet or smartphone.
It’s possible to access the program via mobile app or through the web. However, the latter lacks access to numerous management options that are present on the app. These include quality of service, parental controls, as well as anti-malware settings.
Installation and Use
Setting up the app was a breeze so we had the Deco X55 up and running in no time. We started by downloading the app then creating an account. Then, we clicked “Let’s Begin”, chose Deco X55 from the model list, then followed instructions on powering the modem.
We linked a Deco node to the modem via the provided LAN cable. Then, we switched on the modem and Deco node to auto join the network.
Once we launched the app, we saw the “Overview” screen with the network’s name and internet status displayed. Other than those, there was also a list of currently linked clients on the screen.
When we tapped the internet icon, it led us to a screen displaying all the connected mesh nodes. After tapping on a node, it brought us to a screen with real-time upload and download speeds. It also displayed currently-connected clients on that specific node.
This area was also where we could switch off seamless roaming for any available client.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi’s Performance
We’ve used the Deco X55 for more than a week to see if it performed adequately based on TP-Link’s claims. And it actually gave us decent scores on our numerous throughput performance tests. But compared to the pricier WiFi 6 Mesh systems we’ve tried, it had some trouble keeping the pace.
The results we got during our same-room/close-proximity tests were much faster compared to WiFi 5 Mesh routers we tried. However, it trailed by a few numbers when comparing it to WiFi 6 Mesh routers.
Then we had band steering enabled. This allowed the TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi to provide strong signals in almost all parts of our area. However, it did get a bit weaker in the farthest corner of the work area.
We’re assuming we got these results since that specific room had more walls between it and the Deco X55. This is compared to the other rooms we’ve checked during our tests.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi Review Summary
To wrap up our TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi review, we can say one thing. The Deco X55 is a great product and it’s something we’d definitely recommend.
The TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Whole Home WiFi isn’t as speedy as the pricier WiFi 6 Mesh routers around. But despite that, it’s extremely user-friendly, easy to manage, and is packed with a couple of notable perks.
This router comes with parental controls, malware protection, and offers up to 6,500 sq ft of network coverage. Plus, it supports Alexa voice commands which makes everything more convenient. During our tests, it showed good signal strength and we were satisfied with its overall performance.
The Deco X55 is a whole home mesh solution that effectively eliminates dead spots. It provides fast connection, is easy to use, and comes with HomeShield for your security. With that, we highly recommend this product if you want to extend your home’s network coverage.
To get your hands on this router, find a store near you via the company’s store locator.
