My first wireless AC router, the TP-Link Archer C7

This is a short story of my first experience with TP-Link networking hardware and my first 802.11ac router upgrade. I had gotten the Archer C7 v2 at the start of 2015 after finally having enough wireless AC devices to take advantage of the speed boost. Having near gigabit speads over WiFi seemed like quite the promise, and boy did it deliver. The devices I had at the time included an iPhone 6, Nexus 6P, a 2-in-1 laptop with Intel wireless AC adapter, and a dual gigabit NAS which also got quite the boost. It was a big improvement in speeds, especially over the local network, compared to my previous dual-band 802.11n router. Shortly after, I also added two TP-Link network switches, a TP-Link USB network adapter for an older device, and some Kasa smart home devices. The software on the C7 was a bit lacking so I began running DD-WRT on it and that gave me the power features I was looking for. Eventually, I moved onto the next router, though I could have continued to use the Archer C7 comfortably today. I ended up giving it to a friend with the stock firmware and set it up and they are still using it to this day. Now with WiFi 6 (aka 802.11ax) here, as well as several multi-band mesh routers available, it may be time start looking towards the future, though my devices have yet to catch up.

(Sorry, I had to re-write over again this as I lost the original text trying to upload a picture.. it wasn't drag and drop as it seemed, and is a bit confusing)