Top positive review
41 people found this helpful
Great value mesh solution!
By David J. on Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2018
I am an experienced network tech and am more than happy with the Tenda Nova solution. First, price - I purchased two three packs for the special price of $120. One was for a neighbor and the other for me. A brief word regarding the two houses these units were placed in. My neighbor and I both live in Ecuador. Almost all houses here have concrete wals, floor, and ceilings. This makes connectivity throughout a house extremely difficult. My neighbors house is approximately 3,000 sq feet and relatively thin and long. Her ISP’s connection is at the extreme end of the house and she has never had reliable connectivity at the opposite end of the house. My house is a three story building. I have always had a wifi router placed in my attic, and a repeater on the first floor. The performance on the first floor was spotty AND streaming video in my TV room on the second floor (Roku) was inconsistent at best. Setup - I had already downloaded the Tenda IOS app prior to receving the units so I was ready to go. Plugged in the first unit and received a notification that it was using a DHCP connection in less than a minute. Then it was time to add the next two units. Because the Tenda units are pre-linked all that is required is that you locate the two companion units in a suitable location and wait while they boot up and connect. I have significant experience with Google Wifi and Eero and although I love both of these products their setup is a bit more involved. Also, because the Tenda units are pre-linked (and the notice to simply plug in the 2 additional units is rather small) users might try to use the Tenda app feature to add another Tenda unit (which will fail). Just follow the directions and plug the other two units in, check they have a good signal, and you’re good to go. Performance - living in Ecuador bandwith is expensive. My neighbor only has a low speed DSL connection at 5Mbps (on a good day) mine is a fiber connection at 50Mbps. Many of the online performance tests for the Tenda unit put them a little below or above the Google wifi product and below the Eero. For the speeds we have here in Ecuador the aggregate throughput of the Tenda is MORE than ample. In my neighbor’s house i had 100% wifi signal throughout the entire house. A solid 3.5Mbs on speedtest throughout the house (this is her typical wired performance with DSL). Similar experience in my house. A consistent 49Mbps everywhere. IOS App - the Tenda app is almost identical in look to the Eero application. I don’t like the upload/download indicators at the top of the Tenda app as much as Eero’s bandwidth testing results. Tenda’s app gives you an instantaneous measurement rather than a bandwidth test history (which I prefer). I also wish there was a restart option to reboot the units (although I haven’t yet had any need to reboot anything). Nice and simple app that gives you access to the basic things you need. If you’re a tech or advanced user used to a web based router interface with access to deep features this will be dissapointing but that’s not who or what this sytem (or Google wifi, eero, etc) is geared towards. Tech support - I have seen some negative comments in people’s reviews of Tenda’s tech support. I had no need to speak with technical support during or after purchase (yet). I did however contact them prior to purchase to ask some questions. Got through instantly. The agent realized my questions were more technical than she could answer and suggested I speak with an engineer who she promised would call back. Got a call later that day and got knowledgeable answers to my questions. In summary, the product in my experience is a great, low cost, mesh solution. Incredibly easy to install. Decent application. Good tech support. Great performance (for my situation). Amazing value for the money. Highly recommended.
Top critical review
1 people found this helpful
Absolutely the worst ever!
By Tom Woodward on Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
Please understand I am far from being a neophyte. I have been using, configuring and supporting systems and networks for many years. I purchased this for a friend who has a very dated home WiFi system with multiple extenders and SSIDs. I had installed some Wyze cameras is his carriage house but we had issues with them staying connected to the 2.4Ghz band. I have the cameras in my home and very dependable, TPLink Deco M5 systems that is 4 years old this month. I took a chance on this system, the specs were good, reviews seemed reasonable, and it was cost effective and based on the specs more current. The reality is that it was absolutely horrible, there's no actual tech support and the application controls are minimal, and don't provide the kind of configuration settings I hae with my old DECO system. I set up the primary and tested throughput and we were getting just about 600MBs using Xfinity as the carrier. The first satellite paired easily, the second not at all. Shutting of the working unit and then pairing the problematic unit worked, and then I was able to pair the third. This was difficult as the app has a lot of lag and no real troubleshooting tools. This was done in one large room. So I then deployed the first node in the upper floor of the carriage house. The primary and first nodes were in line of sight, placed in windows, about 50 feet directly apart. They connected but the app said the signal was fair. However when I tested the throughput on the node the test showed that we were only getting about 6Mbs bandwidth. I shut it down and instantiated the other node. Testing revealed it only had about 4.5Mbs of bandwidth. I took both units back to the house and the thoughput testing where the signal was strong was still less than 10Mbs on either unit. This is a flat failure and they are being returned for a refund.
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