TP-Link WiFi 6 Router AX1800 Smart WiFi Router (Archer AX21) – Dual Band Gigabit Router, Works with Alexa - A Certified for Humans Device

We have spent hours working hard to do research and comparions for the product TP before we came up with this review.

If you have any interest in buying this, we are more than glad to share what we have reviewed for it with you, so that you can learn about useful information such as features, specs, advantages or disadvantages of the product before you buy it. We hope you will find this article helpful and share it if it really helps you.

TP-Link WiFi 6 Router AX1800 Smart WiFi Router – 802.11ax Router, Gigabit Router, Dual Band, OFDMA, Parental Controls, Long Range Coverage, Works with Alexa(Archer AX21)

*Works with all internet service providers, such as Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Xfinity, Spectrum, RCN, Cox, CenturyLink, Frontier, etc.( a modem is required for most internet service providers)

Industry-Leading Support

TP-Link offers 24/7 technical support and 2-year warranty for most home products,1 more year than most networking brands.

Buy with Confidence

Founded in 1996, TP-Link is a global provider of reliable networking devices and accessories, involved in all aspects of everyday life. With a proven heritage of stability, performance and value, TP-Link has curated a portfolio of products that meet the networking needs of all individuals. Now, as the connected lifestyle continues to evolve,the company is expanding today to exceed the demands of tomorrow.

Features & Specifications

JD Power Award - Highest in customer satisfaction for wireless routers 2017 and 2019
Certified for Humans: Smart home made easy for non-experts. Setup with Alexa is simple
Dual-Band WiFi 6 Internet Router: Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax) technology achieves faster speeds, greater capacity and reduced network congestion compared to the previous generation
Next-Gen 1.8 Gbps Speeds: Enjoy smoother and more stable streaming, gaming, downloading and more with WiFi speeds up to 1.8 Gbps (1200 Mbps on 5 GHz band and 574 Mbps on 2.4 GHz band)
Connect more devices: Wi-Fi 6 technology communicates more data to more devices simultaneously using revolutionary OFDMA technology
Extensive Coverage: Achieve the strong, reliable WiFi coverage with Archer AX1800 as it focuses signal strength to your devices far away using Beamforming technology, 4 high-gain antennas and an advanced front-end module (FEM) chipset
Works with all internet service providers, such as Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Xfinity, Spectrum, RCN, Cox, CenturyLink, Frontier, etc.( a modem is required for most internet service providers)
Dimensions: ‎10.28 x 5.3 x 1.61 inches
Weight: ‎1.1 pounds

Pros & Cons

Pros

So far it's been great! Update 2: Firmware issue fixed my dropped connections in the morning. Ran speed tests. Same speeds. Seems to be same signal strength. Update: Well...I've set it to reboot every day now. And oddly some mornings there's just no wifi signal. So I have to go over and reboot it. I'm thinking of updating the firmware package to see if this resolves that issue. I'll post once i have this issue fixed. I bought a Nighthawk prior to this. But the nighthawk was a pain setting up as you had to get an app, create an account, and then I still never saw great speeds even on 5ghz. This thing blows that nighthawk out of the water (and was about $30 more). The nighthawk also dropped my cisco vpn alot. NOT COOL. With this router: Signal is great. I can walk down the street a few houses and get signal (not great, but usable). It works great for our square 2,300sqft house just fine. I bought an extender - but found we didn't need it. Speed is great. I get full use out of my 200mbs connection to my provider. 2ghz I get about 60mbs. 5ghz I get 210mbs. The modem I'm using is a Motorola 24x8. It works well with that. I haven't seen any signal drops. My VPN stays connected all day (which is rather important these days given covid). It runs cool to the touch (big factor as I'm always paranoid about house fires and cheap poorly built electronics). I have it auto reboot every sunday (which is a great feature you can set in the menu). I'm using the firmware out of the box. I did not update the firmware. With routers, I tend to only update the firmware if I see a problem that needs resolution. Setup was easy. Plug in router to modem. Turn modem and router off. Turn modem on. Turn router on. Pair computer to wifi. go to 192.168.1.1 in browser. setup wifi and password. Done. Great interface too on this router. Very happy i brought this. Should my experience turn the other way I'll be sure to update this review.

Great performance but beware "smart connect"! Great performance - WiFi 6 is real, distance and signal strength were much better than with a new comparably-priced WiFi 5 high-performance router. Setup is made unnecessarily difficult in that requires the user to type in the default password or scan a QR code. However, the font for the default password on the bottom of the router is so small it is almost impossible to read. The quick-start instructions say you can scan a QR code, but fail to note that the QR code is not on the box or on the router, but instead on a little separate slip of paper in the bottom of the box. Review update: after a few days wifi seemed very slow. Testing revealed that the problem was TP-Link's "smart connect" feature. As with any dual-band router, you can set the slow 2.4GHz band and the fast 5GHz band to the same SSID. Normally this would allow your device - laptop, phone, etc - to choose which band to use. Smart Connect is supposed to optimize network performance by allowing the router itself to decide which band each device should use. But what Smart Connect actually does is the reverse of optimal: it only allows one device to connect to 5GHz, and kicks everything else to 2.4GHz! Even if that one 5GHz connected device is idle, every other device is locked out. There is a long thread on the TP-Link user forum about this bug in several TP-Link routers, with users complaining and TP-Link tech support people just saying "that shouldn't happen"! In any case, to fix it problem go into the web-based network settings page and turn off smart connect. You can then manually give the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands the same SSID, but keep the check box for Smart Connect in the off setting. After this little adjustment, everything worked great again.

Great for Oculus Quest 2. Long review but hopefully helpful: Bought this to replace an aged Airport Extreme and give my Oculus Quest 2 a better WiFi connection. So far so good. Set up was okay but I had some trouble getting the Ethernet light to go green despite all the others being green and I was unable to get online via wired or wireless connection. If you reboot your modem and this device, go make coffee or something when it is starting back up because the router takes a while to restart. The light finally went green but it did feel like it took an inordinate amount of time. I understand the frustration that comes with setting up these new things and the rage factor sometimes enters the picture. If it does: unplug the cable modem and the router, leave everything unplugged for 5 minutes, plug in the cable modem and wait until it is fully booted up, plug in this router and walk away for a bit. Give it 5-10 minutes and hopefully you'll be good to go. The interface looks a bit dated and clonky but most do. Seems the least priority is given to creating a clean, attractive interface for all these things, but coming from an Airport Extreme where you have essentially no features to work with, this is a dream. The ability to edit the names of the clients is something I was never able to do before and it really makes a difference. I wanted something with the ability to kick clients off the network while I am using the Quest to ensure it has no bandwidth competition with devices that are not in use at the time the Quest is being used, but then put them back on without having to jump through hoops, re-entering passwords and such. I have a lot of devices on my network and while they may not be in use, they are still hovering around and eating up some bandwidth even while idling. This router allows that in an easy peasy way but the icons used are confusing. First, if you go to the Network map, clients section, you will see a list of all the clients on your network. You can click the pencil next to the name of the device and change it to make life easier. On the right side, if you click Block, that client gets blacklisted and cannot connect to the network. If you click View Blacklist, you will see all of the blocked clients and there is a garbage can icon on the right. This is a confusing and poor icon choice because most people would think that this will remove the client entirely. It doesn't. It simply puts the client back on the whitelist. It's a great thing to have, for example: Let's say you have a Zoom meeting and want to ensure that there's as little connection issues as possible. You can block all other clients on the network that are not needed and have all the bandwidth to yourself for your meeting and when it's over, just click the garbage can on each device in the blacklist and poof! they are all able to connect again. I am not really understanding the point of the QoS feature on this device because in the past when I've set up QoS in a work environment, you are able to directly allocate bandwidth to devices. Ideally, this would be what you would use if you had a Zoom call rather than kicking clients off for a time. With this router's QoS, you have two choices: On or Off. Each device listed has a Priority switch that is turned on or off. You can turn on the Priority switch for one, some or all devices, but there's nothing else, so you have no idea how bandwidth allocation is implemented here. Under the On/Off switch for QoS, there is a bandwidth allocation box for both upload and download with each set at 1000. You can change this number, but again, it doesn't tell you how it will divvy out that bandwidth to the clients. If you only have one device with the Priority turned on, you are left to wonder what that client is getting as opposed to other devices on the network. That's kind of a shame because you can prioritize a device for Always or for a couple of hours. Would seem the perfect set up for a Zoom meeting as you can give Priority to your device for a set amount of time and the router will release that restriction at the end of the hour or two or whatever you chose without you having to interact with the admin page at all. Unfortunately, you cannot enter times: i.e,. Priority from 10 a.m. to noon. You can choose Always, 1 hour, 2 hours, or 4 hours. I'm not sure what people are talking about regarding monthly fees for Parent Controls. I don't have kids, but opened it up and you can add a child's computer as a device, block certain keywords from being searched online and limit the days/times that your child can get online. I didn't see anything about fees or payment for those features. I have noticed more zip in my Quest 2 since setting up this router and am quite pleased with it so far. I set up a 5ghz network set to AX only for the Quest's exclusive use, a 2.4ghz Guest Network for all the Echos, Kindles, switches for lights, etc., and a 2.4ghz network for laptops, iPads, etc.

Cons

Good router BUT with a terrible flaw that brings it down to 2 stars. Read more below. No time wasted, i will procede directly to pros and cons: Pros (with a HUGE *): 1. Good 2.4 and 5.0 speed 2. Good ethernet speed (1000mbps) 3. Good software features Cons: 1. The huge * itself, which is POOR RANGE. Now allow me to elaborate. I was trying to setup an extender which is about 15 meters away, with only a glass door in between and clear line of sight. I go to the extender position and look at the signal strength and WOW 5 bars, almost no signal lost (at least i believed) even in my garage where wifi has never reached i got 1 bar. So theoretically this had GREAT range. But no. As soon as my extender connected, the connection dropped and SSID even dissapeared. That was weird, so i pulled out my cellphone thinking the extender was bad. Same result, got 5 bars signal but as soon as i connected, connection dropped and SSID disappeared. Tested 2 more cellphones, 2 laptops, a Nintendo Switch, all to which gave me the exact same result. I closed in to the router with all devices and with a whole day of testing concluded that the signal could be reliably held with ANY device being 5 meters or closer. Thats right, 5 meters. Then i thought, maybe my house is over a iron ore or something. No, i bout a $20 linksys ac1200 and could easily reach the extender 15m away and even more with a stable and reliable signal. Curious is that at about 20m, this router does "appear" to have more signal strength than the ac1200, but as soon as connection is attempted, connection drops and SSID dissapears. I would have given it 0 stars, but i guess anything in a 5m radius works well. but totally a BAD ROUTER if what you are looking for is range. If all your devices are 5m o nearer then i guess this is good for that. Tried all firmwares on the support page and nothing fixed this issue.

Seemed great at first, but has turned out to be terrible. It worked fine when it was new and we didn't have many devices on it. But as we transitioned devices over from our old WiFi router, it has become unreliable. Constantly has issues with devices that refuse to connect until it is rebooted. No wonder the firmware has an option for a daily reboot! Also if you're thinking of using the built in VPN software, don't! The OpenVPN version is ancient and uses outdated protocols. The PPTP server has an admin/admin login that gets automatically added periodically. You can delete it, but it will come back. Useless! Unfortunately we didn't realize how terrible this device is until after the return period. Don't buy this!

Updated- after one year not same as first install. Updated; After one year, this router is not performing the same as first time installment. I have 200 Mgb service and can get it out of modem this speed but even next the router I cannot get the same speed. I am not sure if this is because of recent firmware updates but I am not happy with the router like first few months. Also number of active connections are less than last year which drains the bandwidth but performance of this router is significantly deteriorated Reducing it from five to two stars. not planning to buy TP link products in the future I have been using Netgear routers for the last 5 years. I was always suffering with the low speed, dead spots in my 1800 sq ft house. Lastly I was using Nighthawk AC2700 which is their best selling product. I mean I had no complain in first 700 sq ft next to the router including extender. But beyond that it was all disappointment. Even with range extender I was losing almost 70% of the speed which I was paying for. I normally do not change Router very often and this one I set up a year ago. But my pain iwas becoming so big after Covid when everyone was home and needed the bandwidth for their zoom, web ex meetings and they were driving me crazy since they were not supposed to be home during the day time. I said enough is enough and switched to TP link after reading the reviews. Wow there is a huge difference. I always thought I had also problem with the range extender. But with TP link I get the same speed at the farthest corner of the house in 5G. That is fantastic. highly recommended over Netgear and all the others

How to Buy The Best TP?

Do you feel stressed figuring out how to buy a good product of TP? So many things to consider? Don't know how to choose? Still doubt if it fits or not? We know that all, and we've done what you should have done for a research of the product TP from which you can learn how to get the best TP.

Before taking deep into the details, let us start with some questions as follows that everyone should have before a purchase of TP.

Is it worth buying the TP?
What benefits does the product TP offer?
What to think about when buying the product TP?
What makes the TP to be the best?
Where can you get information as this on the product TP?
Why and how do you need the TP?

You may have many more questions than the above in regards to the TP. To help you make a choice that meets your needs and satisfies you most, just read as more info and reviews as possible, no matter good or bad.

You can do that by going through reputable and trustworthy online platforms, communities and customer/product reviews, so as to get the possible best TP.

Based on real customer reviews and satisfactions, we use an optimized algorithm to put together objective data into a list of pros and cons as well as product features and specifications as such a good guide for you to follow that you can buy the best TP.

What Major Factors We Depend On To Create A Buying Guide

Brand. For the product of TP, each brand you know or you don't know has its own visibility and reputation, some brands may provide a certain unique technology or selling point to compete with others.
Features. What functions can the product of TP offer?
Specifications. How is the product of like? e.g. size, weight, etc.
Color. What color is the product of TP? Do you like it?
Quality. How good is the product of TP? Is it worth the money?
Reliability. How durable is the product of TP? Does it last long or does it work for a long time for you? Does it come with a warranty?
Customer Ratings. How is the average rating for the product of TP?
Customer Reviews. What real life customers say to the product of TP, no matter it is good or bad?