TP-Link AC1200 WiFi Router (Archer A5) - Dual Band Wireless Internet Router, 4 x 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet Ports, Supports Guest WiFi, Access Point Mode, IPv6 and Parental Controls

Purchased in summer 2021 and this TP link is still in use as of now. It is stable, strong, defensive, protective; the setting up page of the router/ access point is extremely easy and smooth in process while you have to fill in and tweak some sub settings for customization wise. You would barely have a sense of insecurity and when you do precautions to your home wireless connections with the outside world when security has to be guaranteed in mind and in your mentality of thoughts in the approach of skilfully applying tweaks on most prerequisites and parameters during the set up progress. And what's more, the tethering app comes together with the router as another after establishing a shield of furthered layer of protection. Therefore, you would admire and feel relief with all these stratum and strategies learnt from purchasing this TP Link (I would say for most and other TP Links products as well.) What could be a better product that secures your online safety whenever and wherever you surf and may go where dangerous sites and traps are everywhere anytime nowadays? Buy yourself a safeguard starting from this "TP" that truly and safely LINKS! (Am I overprotective having a phobia of not yet peeling off the outer protective film when it was fresh out of the box? Will this affect the reception of my router? I am perplexed here...)

I used dd-wrt for about 10 years on Cisco E1200 WiFi router with Comcast Internet. This combo had been extremely stable till Comcast forced me to upgrade to 30Mb plan. Computer which are 30 feet away from E1200 drop bandwidth to only 13Mb. I paid for 30 and I wanted 30 so I started doing research. Archer A5v5 can handle more than 10 times my bandwidth, tested to be stable according to review and costs only $29. I always buy two when buying network devices. Use one as a cold backup because I have three telework IT person in the house. Can't do without Internet connection for more than few hours. All looked good yet I truly desire to run dd-wrt on the new device. Research result showed Archer A5v5 is not supported by dd-wrt. Bummer!! Further research lead me to OpenWRT. After a lot reading I found out OpenWRT firmware for Archer C50v5 works on A5v5. Followed the instruction on openwrt.org and I am now running the latest openwrt firmware on Archer A5v5 and all work well. This setting with one WiFi router enabled all my WiFi devices in this 3000SF house to have 30Mb Internet connection.Here is how to get openwrt. Hope this can help people like me.Go to OpenWRT.org, "Table of Hardware" page.1462 TP-Link Archer C50 v5 19.07.7Yes, this is the right Openwrt version for Archer A5v5. A5v5 has the exact harware ask C50v5.Click on the "Device Page" column link archer-c50. This page gives you all the information about download and flash firmware. Make sure you follow the V5 parts because this page contains info for all versions. Some Linux experience will help because you need to build the bin file by merging two binary files using Linux dd command. Of course a Linux VM or computer is necessary. Theoretically, MAC should work too since MAC is a flavor of UNIX. However I have never tried.

Computer and internet competent for more than 40 years, I remain intimidated by the complexity of networks, so I was attracted to this nice little device as a replacement for my old single band router, which my son had installed for me about six years ago. And TP-Link's smartphone app, cutely named Tether, which promised to virtually completely automate that process for me sounded very good. HaHa.Immediately Tether seemed uncooperative (perhaps, like a dog, she sensed my apprehension). Midway in the installation process she said that after the router was switched on all its tiny, cryptic, LED network icons would remain illuminated, but two of the LEDs flashed briefly and then went dark. Then she repeatedly said she could not locate the router and told me to reposition it and put my cell phone closer to it. Since my computer said it had found the TP-Link network the router was transmitting, I decided perhaps those missing icon lights and Tether's failure to communicate were not significant, so I continued to follow Tether's instructions. My computer said it had connected to the TP-Link network, but it would not connect to the TP-Link website that had to be used to complete the installation.I asked Tether to contact Customer Service. She replied that because of Covid-19 TP-Link was now providing telephone support only to business customers, and home users like me would just have to find answers in their FAQs page. I couldn't, but that webpage offered me a "chat" about my specific problem. Which limited me to 200 characters (not words) per question. Each time I would reach that limit my support person, "Carlo" (I think he must have been an amateurish AI program) would interrupt me, jump to a simplistic 200-character conclusion and suggest something inane like "is it plugged in." A complete waste of our time.Email customer service, to which I was allowed to provide an adequate description of my problem, did much better, however. A real human being replied within 24 hours, and after 2 days of occasionally animated dialogue, came up with the insight (apparently considered too obvious and unlikely to occur to warrant mention anywhere in Tether’s and TP-Link’s quite extensive instructions) that Tether had to communicate with the same network the router did. And the router was hard wired to my computer, while my cell phone, and thus Tether, had automatically connected to another network in the building when it saw my old network go off the air earlier in the installation procedure.My new TP-Link network, and Tether, bless her cute little software, are now working as advertised. And, when all was said and done, I actually enjoyed this experience and its eventual outcome: defeating modern technology's latest attempt to force this 88-year old geezer to surrender and retire from battle.