So this is going to be a lengthy review and how to in one -- I purchased this because I have a 4000 sq ft house and my; ISP provided ,panoramic WIFI router was spotty at best and barely making it across the house. Once up and running the mesh system delivers a full 2.4/5G signal anywhere I needed it. However, the system itself is set up to be used with a cable or fiber modem. In most cases though, most people have an ISP provided all in one router and modem of some sort. So here is my experience with this system:------First off I have been in the networking/IT field for 20+ years. This system and the walk through instructions are set up to help a person with next to no IT experience. this is good and bad. I figured Id share my experience to help someone out there that may be struggling to get this working.------In my house I am currently using the COX com panoramic router. While the routing works decent, the WIFI on it is terrible! To make matters worse, I was on the newest version of the router the PW8 and the cox WIFI extenders that were available for purchase for about 150 that work with the unit are not available for the new model. My only option was to downgrade to a slower device and buy their mesh pods which was laughable.------If you happen to have a cox panoramic router, your options will be either send it back and purchase your own DOCsis 3.1 modem or find a way to utilize the mesh and circumvent the terrible WIFI-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now the somewhat tricky part. This next part applies to connecting the TP-link mesh to the cox panoramic router, the latest release pw8 version. I am sure it will work for other versions as well---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Doing a little Googling, you will see many websites that tell you "just put your router in bridge mode" . Bridge mode shuts off all the routing and WIFI and makes your router act as if it were just a modem. This would probably work for most routers in most cases but In my case the TP-link mesh would not connect to the internet when my panoramic router was bridged, I will say this again I tried all the ports on it and it WILL NOT connect to the cox pano router in bridge mode.------2. Solution! Do not worry about putting it in bridge mode. Download the DECO app and create an account, take one TP-link node and connect it VIA an ethernet cable to your pano router on an open port. Go through the instructions normally. make sure you select DYNAMIC when it asks you if your ISP provides access to the internet. For me this option was greyed out at first but playing around in the menu fixed it. With DYNAMIC selected hit done or next---3. walk through the rest of the instructions until it tells you to add another DECO. STOP!!! DO NOT ADD THE DECO AT THIS POINT!!! I cannot stress this enough. just "next" through the remaining instructions until you get to the end then go into the main DECO screen on your phone---4. On the DECO main screen, lower right select "more" then "advanced settings" select Access Point mode and let the DECO fully reboot and down load firmware if it needs too. once in AP mode, go connect the second and third DECO(one at a time) and wait for them to flash blue. in the upper right corner of the DECO main screen click on the + button and go to add another DECO5. follow the instructions and then repeat for the third one. --if done correctly the second and third DECO will appear on the home screen and have a solid green light on them.------6. Go into the cox pano wifi router VIA a browser and turn off the WIFI (you can do this first or just name your SSID for the DECO network a different name) I didn't notice much interference at all having both up but turned the pano router ones off anyhow.----In this instance you will still be using the cox pano router as your link to the internet and your DHCP an NAT services. Your DECOs will act as access points which will not route or have ant of the QoS functions but they will still be available on the cox router. The reason you did not hook up all of them back to back before putting the first one in AP mode is because if you do, the AI for the DECOs will put the other two DECOs on a different network (as to prevent something called double NATing) and effectively cut them off from the master and since bridge mode wouldn't work for me this was a very good work around.---------overall I am very pleased with the results --hope this helps some of you
