Top positive review
42 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
6 people found this helpful
Simple Setup - Terrible Performance
By jesse on Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2023
Was really excited to try these out since the 2.4 antenna on my current router burned out an was in need of a replacement. Had never heard of Tenda before, and that is usually enough for me not to buy something, but I've been out of the game for a bit and figured I'd give it a try. Love the idea of the mesh nodes ... and the setup was super simple. Got everything up and running in less than 30 minutes. Then came to time to actually connect some devices. Every device i connected seemed fine, speed checks were good so i'd move on to the next device ... not realizing that everything i had previously added was jumping all the over the place, usually landing on the node that was FARTHEST AWAY from it, with no way to configure which node a particular device should connect to. Over all speeds were terrible (less than 1mbps! ) once several devices were connected. I even moved a node within 6 feet of a Roku device to test it and it still connected to the node on the complete opposite side of the house and on a different floor! Everything in the app showed excellent signal strength, but the devices themselves were barely holding on by a thread. Only when i disconnected the 2 secondary nodes and stood right next to the primary node with my cell phone did a i get a consistent connection there. Had extremely high hopes for these and the simple setup gave me some confidence that my gamble on the unknown brand paid off - but 18 frustrating hours later, they're back in the box with an RMA!
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