@David-TP David, with all due respect. The current auto channel selection ability of deco mesh systems has a number of short comings in crowded data wave spaces. I am seriously considering switching to a different brand as you do not provide us customers tools to fix our issues within boundaries you define nor knowledgeable permit users to select channels.

David-TP wrote

Hello all, 

We have already noted all of your requests about choosing the wireless channels manually on the Deco system and they have been forwarded to the developers.

 

I will try to explain why we don't give the Deco administrator the permission to manually choose a channel on the current Deco system, which may not precise but I will try my best:

 

Firstly, we need to clarify that the wireless channels on the current Deco firmware are not manually configurable as Deco automatically selects a 2.4GHz channel to use based on what it sees around it, selecting the channel that has the least interference. The 5GHz channel appears to be configured based on the region the device was manufactured for use in and they are apparently not auto-selected and are definitely not manually configurable.

 

Secondly, we need to reiterate what is the point of having a whole mesh Wi-Fi system in your network. The whole point of mesh networks is to give a seamless, unfettered, and performant experience for wireless networking, and thus a mesh network is "self-configuring" and "self-healing", the network automatically incorporates a new node into the existing structure without needing any adjustments manually by a network administrator and it automatically finds the fastest and most reliable paths to send data. If you change the wireless channel on the Deco nodes manually, it may give you the risk of losing the other Deco nodes and thus ruin your Deco system, you may need to start over again to reconfigure them.

 

What's more, it is not always easy to choose a clear wireless channel in your networks, you may need to test with all of them in order to find one that may be usable. Most importantly, crowded isn’t the same as busy, even though some channel scanning apps tell you one specific channel is busy, they don’t always measure other sources of congestion and interference. Non-Wi-Fi signals (like those from microwaves, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, garage door openers, baby monitors, etc.) can all congest a channel but may not show up in a scan. So it’s possible that a channel can appear empty, while it is, in fact, saturated with other kinds of interference. 

 

Last but not least, other mesh systems such as Google Wi-Fi mesh (update here that Netgear Orbi is not the same mesh as Deco, Orbi is more like a router + an RE, so if we misunderstood it previously, we are sorry for that), don't allow users to change the channel manually either, which means when developing a mesh system, our developers have already taken all factors into serious consideration and choose the current one, the current Deco mesh system may not be perfect or even good, but we don't think it's just that awful or nonusable as some of you thought. If we need or we must do this change to allow you to change the channel, it will require a lot of research in the market and it is not that easy just like you said "just open the option", I think most users like you guys should understand it.

 

Hopefully, that answers your question but let us know if you need more details.

  @David-TP 

Thanks for the detailed expalantion. But however i would like to let you know one key aspect that the so called features of self configuring, self healing never worked for me. Not to metnion that the not even once did i see the app's own diagnostic service reporting the network as low interference. It always stays either in medium interference or high interference. When the so called technology/features never work, whats the poitn in all this techonology and logics. Being spend $250 and struggling to have the basic functionality of seamless connectivity, what stops in the development team not giving a solution? Only response we get is a stubborn "NO" everytime

  @David-TP , all your explanations of why it is unsmart to let us manually change channels are somewhat understandable. What is damned annoying is that you (TP-LINK) fails to absorb the core of the issues here. Your so-called auto choosing of channels based on interference and occupied channels DOES NOT WORK! Every time I restart my deco it ends up on channels already occupied by others even if ALL other channels are free. One would believe that for someone who really listens (uses BOTH ears) to your customers would have gotten the point. Unfortunately TP-Link seems to be happy to just throw some buggy software onto their mesh routers and leave it. I suggest you forward this to you developers and strongly suggest they either FIX THIS or find themselves a different job. When initiating the radios you need to measure and test the spectre BEFORE a channel is chosen, and that channel needs to preferably be UNOCCUPIED. Dead easy to understand for all of us who were stupid enough to trust TP-Link to be a serious vendor who puts their clients first. It has now taken your company three years not understanding the major issue. Please make an effort that can be believed in to resolve this once and for all. 

  @David-TP I know this is a couple of years old already, but I stumbled upon it when I tried to change the channel on my TP-Link Deco XE75Pro to realize it was impossible.

The logic of your post works fine when the product works as expected. Most users (>95%) should never have to know what a channel is or why it matters. The system should be self-healing and find the best channels. 

But what do we do when it doesn't? We are left wondering because the automatic channel-picking system is entirely opaque. If I could set a channel manually, I could test and run multiple scenarios that fit my specific configuration.

Finally, it IS (almost) as simple as "just open the option." You can put it behind an "Experimental Features" option with a big disclaimer that only experienced users will find, use, and potentially provide you feedback or data!

I hope TP-Link rethinks this because the current approach seems patronizing ("we know better") and over-simplistic to me ("we'll handle it all automatically").

Carlos Sanabria

IanPH wrote

@TP-Link_Deco 

 

Who in his right mind selected this post as "Best solution". It wouldn't surprise me if that was TP-Link_Deco themselfes.

 

This post is a total disrespect to your usersbase and even contains multiple lies.

 

1: The Deco's (atleast my Deco AX1300) do NOT select a least interfering channel on startup. Actually it really chooses a random channel, I know because this last weekend was a hell weekend wifi wise. I have rebooted my Deco's at least (and this is NOT a lie!) 14 times, half of the times because the Deco did NOT select the least interfering channel which I happen to know is channel 4+8.

 

2: The Deco's at 5 Ghz are NOT configured according to region. My Deco's have NEVER selected any 5Ghz channel other then 36 or 48, EVER! While in the Netherlands every channel from 36 through 140 is available!

 

3: Why would a MESH system not work when a manual channel selection is available? Mind to explain in (technical) detail? No? That's because it's B*LLSH*T! Which brings me to your next lie

 

4: Yes! Many other brands have MESH systems AND support manual channel selection. Why throw sand in our eyes with these stupid lies? Everyone here has internet and have the ability to see for themselfs. In the Netgear Orbi manual you are lying about, it's actually in the online user manual under "Specify basic WiFi settings" on page 78! There it says "6. To change the WiFi channel, select a number in the Channel list.". Check: shorturl.at/CLMSU

 

5: You don't think it's awfull that my two kids, and most importantly, my wife how gave me the thumbs up to invest $400 in this system keep complaining that they have full wifi signal but every thing they do keep ending in page not found? Youtube and netflix videos suddenly stopping. That's not awful to you? Seriously?

 

Let those people you regards as DUMB FOOLS decide for themself if a channel works or not. Most people manually selecting channel are people which are quite a bit smarter the you portrait them to be! They do not select the channel based on whether or not they are free but often test every channel seperately to find the best channel.

 

From now on I will hunt down every website that sells these units and I will post a link to this thread in their reviews section. Just to warn people about this and your additude towards your userbase and potential customers.

I totally agree. They should be at least honest enough to say that they are too cheap to hire proper developer to write the necessary code.

Every darn cheap router lets you select channels manually for like 15+ years? Or even longer. I don't even remember a time where I could NOT chose the channel.

Everybody can use apps like Wifi Analyzer and select the best channel according to their neighbors settings.

There was and is absolutely no issue.

All the claims from TP link on this topic is a mix between nonsense and lies.

"needs more research".... say what? Research?  All you need to do is re-write the firmware code. Wifi is nothing new. Mesh ist also nothing new.

If a company like TP Link has 0 experience with Wifi, then why are you selling wifi products? Then stick to your switches.

Btw...how comes that I can select a channel in a TP Link router? That is truly amazing.

If I would have not gotten my wifi mesh for almost free from my ISP, I would return it.

And because so many companies think the same, almost all my neighbors are on the same channel (some with their own mesh).

I have 5 direct neighbors on channel 42 (5ghz), same as me - and it is only ok, as long as I am close enough to the Deco units. If I get too close to the neighbors houses on my property and too far from my mesh units, I will experience strong interference.

And I am forced to switch to the Routers much weaker signal, where I can at least chose a fixed channel >100 - with that much weaker signal I have still a better experience.

That's ridiculous.

  @casanabria 

I'm on the same same boat. I'm 5x XE75 & 1x XE75 pro (set as main) in. Biggest gripe, Auto WiFi interference checks. They are choosing easily visible, terribly oversaturated channels. Why on earth has this still not been solved. It's beyond a joke. 4 years later, no visual on channel saturation (I suspect adding this feature will visually make it obvious the channels chosen are poor) nor the ability to manually select/block channels.

@David-TP Please tell me there will be something to help with this major issue soon, post some kind of update, even a beta firmware or expert mode functionality that's accessed via PIN code menu only. This needs a place on the XE75/Pro roadmap while it's still under active dev support. 

  @CraigIRL Sadly TP-Link has abandoned the Deco's from being a properly deplyed mesh solution. @TP-Link_Deco and @David-TP have already posted up that the broken solution they have deployed with the Deco's is how they intended it to be. Even though in past posts they've taked about fixing this bug and that the team is looking into potential updates they turned around and chaged their minds and abandoned fixing this solution and proposed reasons as to why advanced control is not needed.

Hundreds of posts and still being activly read and posted on TP-Link has left their customers behind with an unfinished product that they will never fix. It's sad but they don't care as people have already spent their money on the product and people still continue to do so not knowing the lack of support. 

TP-Link once stood for a quality product but with lack of communication, support and clarity with this bug/issue has fallen through the cracks and they just don't care.

  @Hami 4.5 years later and its clear this functionality is not coming to deco. They talk about it being "self-healing" and "automatic" ... but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work like that. Not allowing users to select the channels to manually avoid interference when this "automatic" method fails, is a major short fall. I have devices continuously dropping connection due to heavy interference. The manual selection of "network optimization" in the app doesn't seem to help. 

I even have to set the node for a lot of my devices, because for some reason it connects to the furthest one and has a bad connection when it is on Auto. They at least allow us to select the mesh point a device connects to, and the band, how hard is it to add the wifi channel for selection? 

I'm having this exact same issue with my Deco M4.

It worked well for the last 3 years, but not anymore. I moved to a new apartment and now the wifi speed is half what it used to be, even if I'm standing right next to the router. The problem is the wifi and not the ISP. The airwaves are much more busy here, the channel 44 is very busy and the automatic channel selector feature just doesn't work, it always remains on channel 44.

I've been an advocate for the Deco line of products, but I can't be anymore due to this huge flaw.

TP-LINK have two options: let me mannualy change channels or fix the automatic channel detector to make it really work. Right now it just doesn't work, period.

  @David-TP 

I understand the explanation, but the built-in automatic channel selecting just doesn't work.

I left TP Link a long time ago. As mentioned in my previous posts, switched to Google wifi (not the Google Nest system). I am still shocked to see so many people with the same wifi channel issues posting here, and other websites. I have to think this many complaints cannot be wrong, that there truly is an issue with channel auto selection. Since TP Link doesn't even respond here anymore, I wouldn't be surprised if they are aware and have no intention or knowledge on how to fix it.
 

I still stand by my thought process, having sat with their support people while they used the CLI on my Deco's to troubleshoot. The least busy algorithm used in the software is backwards, it is scanning and choosing the most busy channel.The auto channel select function does work, again I witnessed it, but it always selcts the most congested channel. To me this is a simple code review, correction and testing. A few hours, maybe a day or two tops worth of quality engineering by TP Link and I'm sure this would be solved. 

With support I was able to simulate congestion using other routers in my house and setting them to an obscure channel. The Deco device would auto change to this highly used channel as well. Change the channle on my other routers and you guessed it, the deco's followed shortly afterwards. Simple test/QA process one would think TP Link has tried themselves in their labs. An issue was confirmed, I was told it was hardware, further I was told that my Deco's warranty period had expired (by a few days only, and due to TP Link delaying the support process), their recommendation - Go buy the latest generation Deco product.

I went out the next day and moved to Google. It may not have all the ability to tune, including no manual channel selection, but it has been rock solid and higher performant.