TP-Link Deco BE11000 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi 7 System Review - Superior Performance

TweakTown Rating: 92%

Our Verdict

The TP-Link Deco BE11000 is simple to set up and extremely fast, even in conditions where other Wi-Fi systems falter, but it is on the pricier side, and requires an app for configuration.

Pros

• Very easy to set up
• Excellent signal strength and supports MLO
• Superb download/upload rates, even in tougher placement situations
• USB ports on each node
• Four 2.5G Ethernet ports on each node

Cons

• Pricey
• Bland node design
• Some advanced features require subscription

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

Mesh systems are often held up as the "gold standard" of wireless consumer networking equipment, but not all mesh systems are created equal. You can set up a mesh system in your home or office for a relatively modest sum and expect equally modest results, if that's all you want.

Then there are the mesh systems that can do some really heavy lifting when it comes to invisibly pinging those data packets around your home and past the cat. The TP-Link Deco BE11000 definitely fits into this category, with heavy data performance, and an equally heavy hit to your wallet in return. Pricey mesh doesn't always pay off in performance terms, but here TP-Link provides excellent results.

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Specifications & Close Up

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Design

TP-Link sells the Deco BE11000 in single, double, and triple pack boxes; it's the latter that TP-Link sent my way for review in a relatively hefty box. Opening it up reveals all three units packed in a lot of plastic.

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More plastic than I'd like to see, really; while protecting premium router nodes isn't a bad idea, each node is wrapped up in plastic and then has an additional plastic seal at the top. None of this is a big fuss to remove, but the waste level involved isn't small here; it would be nice to see TP-Link shift to a more sustainable packaging model.

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Mesh systems typically don't come with too many extras, and that's definitely the case here, with power plugs for each node included, plus a single small ethernet cable and a very slender quick installation guide.

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One genuinely unusual inclusion here is a small pin of the SIM card tool type. The TP-Link Deco BE11000 isn't 4G or 5G capable by itself; this is instead intended to be kept handy for if you do need to hit the reset button on the base of each node at any time.

Further Routers & Access Points Reading – Our Latest Reviews

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• ASUS ROG STRIX GS-BE18000 Wi-Fi 7 Tri-Band Gaming Router Review - Fast and Highly Configurable
• D-Link DWR-933M Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Hotspot Review - Cheap, But Not Fast

Recognising that mesh nodes may end up living in multiple rooms within a house, most mesh node device manufacturers tend towards designs that don't particularly stand out, and quite deliberately so.

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Rising to a height of 176mm, the TP-Link Deco BE11000 can't help but stand out, but all this really does is highlight how relatively bland they look.

They're mostly featureless tubes, one part cookie jar, one part toilet roll holder, and certainly not a look you're likely to want to highlight in your home. Lighting is kept to an absolute minimum with a small coloured LED at the base indicating current status, so you do avoid the problem of too many blinkenlights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights) if that's important to you.

Spin any of the TP-Link Deco BE11000 nodes around and you're faced with the business end of the node, with four ethernet ports and a single USB 3.0 port sitting above the power input.

Setup

The included quick setup guide is slender for a reason, because there's really not much to it, although what it has is presented in 26 different languages. I can sum it up quickly as "Go get the TP-Link Deco app for your phone" along with a QR code that didn't work for me, plus a small table indicating what the different colours of light on the node actually mean.

This you absolutely have to do, because the TP-Link Deco BE11000 only accepts setup and configuration after the fact from the Deco app; you can view basic network layout and stats from a web browser, but there's no support for actual setup or tweaking after the fact that way.

I appreciate that this does keep matters simple for those who like a set-and-forget configuration, but the flip side of that is that it means everything you're doing is presented on a smaller screen and UI, and some higher-end configuration features can be harder to find.

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Setup also involves creating a TP-Link account to go with the setup; you cannot continue without doing so, but then, that's what burner email accounts were created for, right?

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You can use biometric logins (if your phone supports them) once you've gone through the usual dance of email verification, if that's more your style.

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One important note here is that the three-pack does not designate any particular node as the "master" node, and none of the Ethernet ports is specifically configured as a WAN port. This does mean you can't get it "wrong", but it could create confusion if you need to move nodes around at a later date.

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The Deco app worked quite seamlessly, picking up the single powered-up node without an issue and connecting to its ad-hoc Wi-Fi network without problems. For network novices, the pictograms are simple and clear, making setup a cinch.

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TP-Link ships the nodes out pre-paired to each other, so setting up additional nodes only involves plugging them in; you don't have to (and indeed, cannot) go through a separate setup process for each node in turn. Just working out positioning and placement and plugging them in is enough. For the purposes of review, I followed my standard process for testing mesh systems, with one node near my NBN 1000/100 connection point, one in a mid-building room, and one far connection in my home office.

That's a setup routine that can sometimes falter because that far location is behind a hidden external wall due to an extension on my property, and this sometimes leads some mesh systems to declare a given point as either badly placed or impossible to find. The TP-Link Deco BE11000 leapt over that problem neatly, finding the far node just as quickly as it did the mid-range node.

The app-based setup for the TP-Link Deco BE11000 by default only gives you simple tabs for security and parental controls, as well as a primary interface that shows the status of the network, quick access to your Wi-Fi settings, and an animated speed test. It's using Ookla's Speedtest behind its rather plain façade; I'd honestly prefer more detail than it offers while testing, but it's functional enough if you want a quick snapshot of your Internet connection speed.

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TP-Link splits both its security and parental control features between the included simpler functions - noticing, for example, during setup that there was a security risk present because there was a firmware update pending - as well as paid tiers for additional security features and on-the-go parental monitoring features. I'm not a big fan of predefined subscription services on products like this, if only because if the relevant companies providing those features stop selling those products or shift pricing strategies over time, you can end up rather stuck if you're reliant on them over time. They're not mandatory, thankfully.

Performance

Each of the TP-Link Deco BE11000's nodes incorporates four 2.5G ethernet ports; not quite up there with the best you can get for pure old-school LAN purposes, but a nice inclusion on mesh nodes, because it's not terribly common to find more than one or maybe two ports on most systems. The Deco platform will support ethernet passthrough for nodes, so you can run with a mixed system using the speed of ethernet to further enhance range and speed if needed.

The TP-Link Deco BE11000 is a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 system with support for 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz networks, as well as Wi-Fi 7's MLO (Multi-Link Operation) networks for devices that support it. Like most systems of this type, it presents its 2.4GHz/5GHz/6GHz networks as a single SSID, but the MLO network requires its own unique SSID, giving you a secondary network for faster devices that support the Wi-Fi 7 standard. You can also configure guest Wi-Fi access as needed.

In terms of theoretical speeds, the TP-Link Deco BE11000 is rated for up to 688Mbps for 2.4GHz connections, 4324Mbps for 5GHz, and 5765Mbps for 6GHz. Those figures aren't as fast as some Wi-Fi 7 devices can manage - the recently tested ASUS ROG STRIX GS-BE18000 claims up to 11529Mbps on its 6GHz band, for example - but for the purposes of sharing internet connections around, they're certainly quick enough, and for most users likely to be fast enough for quite some time to come... at least in theory.

Taking a big game when it comes to speed is nice for plastering on the outside of a box, but real-world performance can vary widely.

This does present the classic problem with any Wi-Fi network test, because you're utterly reliant on the network conditions when and where the device was tested. Everyone's real-world test environment is different, with varying levels of interference factors in play. What I see when I test a network is massively relevant to where I'm testing, but not always 100% replicable everywhere.

For decades now I've tested Wi-Fi in the same home location, setting a router (or in this case, a mesh node) where my home NBN connection comes into the house and then placing any additional nodes in a mid-range location a couple of rooms away and then one node in my home office, built on an extension to the property with a now-hidden external wall in the way. That external wall is worth mentioning, because its construction has so very often been an absolute barrier - a brick wall, if you will - for any kind of Wi-Fi signal. It's so bad that many years ago I had that section of the house wired up for ethernet to route around the problem, but when I'm testing Wi-Fi gear, that ethernet connection is largely ignored.

The first step in testing the TP-Link Deco BE11000 is to measure the RSSI levels across all three locations to see how well the wireless signal propagates. Here we want to see lower figures to demonstrate how well the TP-Link Deco BE11000 performed, but early on, I hit a problem.

The TP-Link Deco BE11000 was working and I could connect to it, but I could not detect its 2.4GHz network at all. The Deco app does let you change the default channel used by each band, so I tried switching it to the commonly used (and seen) channel 6 from channel 3, where it had been placed. That didn't help, but the Deco app also includes a Wi-Fi signal optimizer feature that tries to make the best of your signal based on current connections, so I ran that. Lo and behold, the 2.4GHz network magically appeared... on channel 6. No, I don't know why it didn't take the first time, but for most users, that won't be hugely relevant unless you've got either extreme distances to cover or some very old Wi-Fi devices to connect up to your network.

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2.4GHz performance was surprisingly low here, though it didn't always reflect in terms of pure network connectivity, and the figures for 5GHz and 6GHz networks were quite pleasing. Typically, those higher bands offer better speeds but at lesser distances, and while RSSI isn't a direct measure of throughput, it's pleasing to see that the TP-Link Deco BE11000 does a good job of being seen even in more challenging environments and at distances.

For most users, the key feature they want from a mesh network system is the ability to share internet connectivity. My tests were done on an NBN HFC 1000/100 connection, but it would be a mistake to judge network speeds based on those theoretical maximums. To give proper context, I first tested speeds based on a wired ethernet connection, in order to gauge current actual network speeds. That way, I can express each tested figure as a percentage of the maximum at that time, which gives a better long-term comparative picture of what each system is capable of. At the time of testing, I was averaging out at 937.58Mbps down and 95.47Mbps up from my fixed connection.

Wi-Fi connectivity is also a function of antenna quality, and the reality is that few of us work with just one system connected to a network. To give some comparative weight here, I tested using Speedtest.net across two Wi-Fi 7 capable devices: an HP Omnibook Ultra Flip (Intel Core Ultra 7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) and a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The first test was just on the best available band as judged by each connected device at the close, medium, and far locations:

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Predictably, the speed did drop at the far location, though the difference in quality between the HP and Samsung was quite noticeable. The real takeaway value here, however, is that the TP-Link Deco BE11000 does an exceptionally good job here, whether on its standard 2.4GHz/5GHz/6GHz network bands or its combined MLO network.

To give that some context, while the HP dropped around 50% of its throughput from the close to far destinations, just using the standalone Wi-Fi 7-capable ASUS ROG STRIX GS-BE18000 with the exact same laptop saw a drop of 98% in throughput quality. No, it's not fair to compare a standalone to a mesh system, but the point here is that the TP-Link Deco BE11000 runs very well, and indeed better than any other mesh system I've used in the same location to date.

Wi-Fi is also handy for sharing files locally - as long as it's fast enough. To test this out, I used both the regular and MLO networks to test file read/write speeds for a 1.34GB video file transfer to and from a wired-connected NAS system to see how speeds varied at each connection point.

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The results here are both predictable and very pleasing, with some of the best speeds I've ever seen in the trickier far location, especially on the MLO network. Are those kinds of differences worth upgrading all the rest of your kit to Wi-Fi 7 to save just a few seconds? Hardly, but it does give the whole system a lot of potential to deliver good speeds in the future, as and when new devices join the network.

Final Thoughts

You can buy cheaper mesh systems, and the reality here is that for more modest needs, they can be enough - but if you need mesh, and you need it to be fast nearly everywhere you want coverage, it's often worth paying more.

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The TP-Link Deco BE11000 really does live up to its price point; while nobody could possibly call it an inexpensive option, the quality of its throughput really does shine through, even though personally I'm not a huge fan of app-only configuration setups, though maybe that's my old-school networking side shining through.

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If you're in a situation where no number of repeaters or extenders is getting the trick done, the TP-Link Deco BE11000 most likely will, and it will do so in a way that even a networking novice could set up and have running with minimal fuss. Given how frustrating some Wi-Fi gear can be to configure, that's a big plus for many people right there.

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The TP-Link Deco BE11000 is also nicely provisioned for both USB extension and direct ethernet connections to and from each node in a pack, further extending its value. They're not the most inconspicuous of nodes, and I do wish the design were a little less plain, but tastes here can naturally vary.