The TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Mesh System is affordable and comes as a three-piece Wi-Fi mesh network system designed to cover your home in Wi-Fi 6 brilliance. It’s straightforward to install and you can manage it remotely via your smartphone It comes with lots of goodies, including a lifetime subscription to TP-Link’s HomeCare parental controls and anti-malware tools.
However, despite delivering good throughput connectivity, it still falls behind the blazing speeds and feature set you’d find on our more expensive Editor’s Choice, the Asus ZenWifi AX XT8 Wi-Fi System, or even its higher-end sibling TP-Link Deco M9.
TP-Link sells its Deco X55 AX3000 mesh Wi-Fi set through major third-party retailers, including Amazon. The Deco X55 is currently well stocked and you can often find it on sale at reduced prices and is sold in glossy black and white as either a two-pack or three-pack.
What is Mesh Wi-Fi
Mesh Wi-Fi systems are wireless networks that combine a Wi-Fi router with one or more mesh satellites to expand the coverage area of a single Wi-Fi network. In a Mesh Wi-Fi system, all connected devices are seamlessly channeled to the router or satellite with the strongest WiFi signal in the given area.
This makes mesh Wi-Fi very ideal for large homes and businesses where a single router will not deliver adequate coverage. More importantly, Wi-Fi systems give users great flexibility to place satellites in different areas for optimal Wi-Fi coverage, subsequently eliminating the issue of Wi-Fi “dead spots” throughout the place.
Modern mesh Wi-Fi systems are super simple to set up as they come with dedicated apps while also letting users eliminate dead zones by filling in any gaps in the home coverage. Once installed and configured, you can benefit from faster Wi-Fi in every room in your home as well as in your backyard.
Design & Features
The TP-Link Deco X55 comes in three identical white cylindrical nodes with black tops that provide up to 6,500 square feet of coverage. A 2-pack system covers 4,500 square feet and a 1-pack system covers 2,500 square feet. Standing at 4.5 inches tall and 4.3 inches wide, the nodes aren’t as discreet as the Deco M9 Plus nodes (2.5 by 5.7 inches) but are still smaller than the TP-Link Deco S4 nodes (7.5 by 3.6 inches). There’s an LED indicator on the base that illuminates blue during the setup, solid green when working, and glows red when the node is experiencing connectivity errors.
The back of each node has three gigabit LAN ports and a power jack (that’s an extra port over the TP-Link Deco X60), and there’s a reset button on the bottom of the base. Missing are the USB ports you get with the Asus ZenWiFi AX XT8 Wi-Fi system. Under the hood are three internal antennas, a 1 GHz Dual-Core Qualcomm IPQ0518 processor, and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) circuitry. The Deco X55 is a two-stream, dual-band AX3000 system capable of throughput speeds of up to 574 megabits per second (Mbps) on the 2.4 GHz band and up to 2,402 Mbps on the 5GHz band.
It uses all of the latest Wi-Fi 6 technologies, including 1024 QAM, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) data transmissions, WPA3 encryption, MU-MIMO simultaneous data streaming, band steering, and direct-to-client signal beamforming. The X55 doesn’t offer a dedicated radio band for wireless backhaul but it does support wired backhaul via one of the LAN ports.
Additional features include anti-malware tools such as Malicious Content Filtering for all connected devices, Intrusion Prevention, and Infected Device Quarantine. HomeCare QoS settings offer several optimized presets including Standard, Gaming, Streaming, Surfing, Chatting, and Custom. Here you can also allocate individual clients high bandwidth priority with set bandwidth allocations. You have the option to set the bandwidth allocations manually or the Speed test utility can do it automatically.
You can manage the Deco X55 via TP-Link’s Deco mobile app or with a web console but the latter lacks access to many of the management options that you get with the app including parental controls, QoS, and anti-malware settings. Once you launch the app, you’ll see an Overview screen with the name of the network and its Internet status as well as a list of currently connected devices. All other options are straightforward and are meant to ensure your home connectivity is as flawless and secure as possible.
Setup & Performance
As we’ve stated, setting up the X55 is pretty straightforward, takes only a few minutes to get up and running. All you have to do is download the Deco app and create an account. After that, you just tap the Let’s Begin prompt, then select the X55 from the list of Deco models, and follow the instructions to power down your modem. After a few seconds, the node’s LED goes from yellow to flashing blue, indicating that it’s ready for setup. Subsequent steps are a breeze, you can give it node location a name, and after a quick 5-minute firmware update, you’ll be fully up and running.
The TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 delivers good throughput performance, in as much as it doesn’t manage to keep pace with more expensive Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems or many of the mesh-capable gaming routers and general-purpose wireless routers we’ve tested. The X55 manages 759 Mbps on proximity (same room) tests, which is certainly faster than most Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) mesh routers we’ve reviewed before, which average the 560 Mbps range. But it remains behind the Wi-Fi 6-based Linksys Velop MX10, Netgear Orbi RBK852, and Asus ZenWiFi XT8 routers by more than 100 Mbps.
On the 30-foot test, the X55s average of 295Mbps is a bit slower than competing mesh systems, but not too much. The ZenWiFi XT8 leads the pack with a score of 351 Mbps. The X55 satellite node doesn’t fare so well either – garnering 522 Mbps on the proximity, and 390 Mbps on the 30-foot test; the ZenWiFi XT8 node stays top of the class once again.
Keep in mind that the Deco X55 is a dual-band system and therefore doesn’t benefit from a secondary 5GHz band to handle backhaul, something that the other leading systems readily provide, including the Netgear Orbi AX600 RBK852, and the Asus ZenWiFi AX XT8.
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Review: Verdict
The TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 Home Mesh WiFi System is affordable, has a sleek design, and does wonders in painting your home with true Wi-Fi 6 brilliance. While it may not be the fastest in its class, it’s very easy to install and manage and comes with really worthwhile perks, especially the free lifetime parental control and malware protection for your network and clients.
The 3-pack TP-Link X55 covers a lot of real estate (6,500 square feet) and pushes good signal strength in testing. That said, the Asus ZenWiFi XT8 remains our Editor’s Choice, offering superior throughput performance and more robust features, including LAN ports, USB 3.1 connectivity, and a secondary 5GHz band that can be dedicated to wireless backhaul.
Recommended Configuration
TP-Link Deco AX3000 WiFi 6 Mesh System(Deco X55)
$169.98 in stock
The Review
TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000
The TP-Link Deco X55 AX3000 is a seriously speedy Whole Home WiFi System that uses the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology to eliminate weak signal issues in your home. While it isn’t the most powerful around, it’s easy to use and comes with a lifetime subscription to TP-Link’s HomeCare security tools.
PROS
- Super-fast Wi-Fi 6
- Simple setup with the Deco app
- Plenty of LAN ports
CONS
- Only one Ethernet cable in the box
Review Breakdown
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ARS SCORE
