TP-Link AC4000 MU-MIMO Tri-Band WiFi Router

My first review of this product (below) was very negative and deeply sarcastic due to the many issues I was experiencing at the time. Since then, I've gone through many, many hours of troubleshooting, replacing products, replacing all the cable in my house, you name it - only to find that the issue lay with my Motorola cable modem the entire time. (FYI: apparently Motorola no longer makes their own modems; use that information as you will, then buy an Arris.) Since discovering the true source of the problem, this router has performed excellently. And now that everything is actually stable, I've been able to go beyond basic connectivity and finally start digging into the more advanced features of the product. This router has a number of enhancement and convenience features that I never even looked at before. I would strongly urge those that read my previous review to give this device a second look, as I've been able to coax truly impressive performance out of this. I'm leaving my original review up for the lulz, but when reading it, just substitute "Motorola MB8600" whenever you see this product's name. Cheers! --- Original review: I ordered the TP-Link AC4000 less than six months ago. Initially, it was decent--good speed, good stability, and the range was a noticeable improvement over my trusty old Tenda. The setup "required" you to install some absurd app, but after some digging, I was able to get to the web interface on the unit and skip taking up yet more space on my phone. After that, setup only took a few minutes, and all was well with the world for quite a while. And then, about two weeks ago, I noticed I had never installed the firmware update. I suppose I'm at least partly to blame here, as I didn't do my usual scouring-the-internet-for-bug-reports before clicking the button. Lesson relearned yet again. I code for a living, but I know very little of what goes into making a firmware build or what the process is like. That said, I understand enough to know that something went very, very wrong with the version I upgraded to ( '1.0.3 Build 20191026 rel.16299' ). The same day as installing it, I started to experience intermittent loss of connectivity, not on any of the wireless networks, but on the connection to the cable modem itself. When it happens, I can't even get to the cable modem's interface to see what's going on there--instead I get some unhelpful message about lost connectivity to the internet (so I need the internet to get to a device in my house. Got it). This is now happening at least twice per day. To top it off, when it IS working, I can no longer connect with my phone when I'm in certain spots in my yard, areas that worked before the update. (I wonder if the range change is some sort of FCC thing, but that wouldn't explain dropping the wired connection to the modem.) When this happens, the only fix is a power-off cold boot, as the 'reboot' function in the menu doesn't fix the issue. I won't go through all the troubleshooting I've done, except to note that once you upgrade the firmware, this device will not let you go back to a previous version. And considering the "current" version appears to be from two years ago, a new update is about as likely as Harvey Weinstein taking back Miramax. I tried a number of tricks to force it but none worked. At this point I should note that, no, I haven't contacted support for this, and frankly, I'm not going to. I don't have hours to spend turning things off and on again while wishing for the sweet release of death, or at least mandatory jail time for whoever it is that records and sells hold music. Plus, I came up with a sort-of-drastic solution that should solve the issue permanently (more on that in a bit). The last straw came yesterday when it dropped connection during a critical server maintenance procedure, literally at the single worst possible moment it could have happened. Fortunately, everything was fine (I was running my code in a Linux screen session, so it kept going), but the two-to-three-minute window waiting for it to come back up was absolute white-knuckle terror, not to mention the post-mortem drudgery of digging through logs to make sure all the steps had completed, as I had output piped to a different terminal, which of course went <poof>. I'm too old for this mess. Since it's outside the return window, *BECAUSE OF COURSE IT IS*, I petitioned (read: "begged") my employer to reimburse me for a Linksys, which is on its way. Meanwhile, it's back to the super-cheap nearly-no-name Tenda, which has worked flawlessly for years now and was only replaced because I upgraded my internet and wanted something faster for working from home, which is very popular lately for whatever reason. Sigh. In summary, if I had the resources to do so, I would build a tiny rocket, strap the TP-Link AC-4000 to it, and launch it directly into the sun, whilst enjoying the fresh spring air with a few close (read: "vaccinated") friends and a glass of something expensive. Alas, I do not. Instead, I'm planning to give it as a Christmas gift to a couple I don't like. I'll flip it upside down, glue a couple of googly eyes on it, and tell their kids it's a robot spider. At least then no one would make the mistake of trying to use it as--shudder--a router.