My THIRD Netgear Orbi Mesh router failed. The Orbis ALWAYS seem to fail after two year of use. I was going to replace it with another Orbi because I like it's friendly but slow interface but Costco has discontinued carrying the Orbis in house.

The only alternative was the new TP-Link BE11000 WiFi7 Mesh router. I need a mesh router because my house is a massive single-floor 5,000 sq ft unit and a single modem could not cover the entire house because the internet access point is in one corner of the house. The opposite corner ends up with no signal.

I really wanted to like this modem but ran into a LOT of installation issues.

1.     You need WiFi access to download the app on your smartphone (My iPhone 15 requires WiFi to access the iOS App store). How can you download the app if you have no WiFi? I had to go to my son's home to download the app.
2.     You need to create and register a TP-Link account to setup the modem using the app after it "senses" the modem. I had to go back to my son's house to register an account.
3.     This modem does NOT have a web interface on a PC or Mac. You MUST configure the modem using the smartphone, EXTREMELY STUPID.
4.     The app keeps trying to connect to the TP-Link server during configuration and I was consistently getting "server is not available" errors.
5.     The app itself is very confusing with poor instructions so you will need to go back and re-enter information

(I found out later that my iPhone 15 defaults the App Store to WiFi access only, you need to reconfigure the App Store acces in Settings... Dumb.)

Customizing the WiFi network is a pain as you have to go back in the app to change the settings. Creating a guest WiFi network is hidden in a sub-menu. Overall, it took me FIVE hours to configure and setup this router (the Netgear Orbi only took me 30 minutes to get it up and running). I have some networking experience as I used to work in the IT department of a large corporation.

Good points is that the router is noticeable faster than the Orbi except for the basic 2.4 GHz band. The router is WiFi 7 ready which allows 11 Mbps speeds, but there are very few devcies out there that supports WiFi 7. The router is "supposed" to be able to work with 200 devices, but I don't know how many simultaneous connections are possible.

After using the TP-Link for a bit, here are some things that I have discovered. There is a way to access the router through via PC. The default IP address is 168.68.0.1 but there is a caveat. You can ONLY view the settings, you cannot make any changes via the web interface.

One big issue I have found is that when viewing the app on the phone, there is no apparent way to refresh the app to update the connections. I have a Canon WiFi MFD printer. When it is online, it does NOT appear on the list of connected clients. In fact, a lot of online clients appear offline for quite a bit before it shows connected. Conversely, a lot of connected devices are actually offline, making the connected list virtually useless.

I tried using the "Allow Access Mode" and it is useless. A lot of the clients keep requesting connection to the router and i have to log them back in repeatedly. I have to leave the router in "Block List Mode". After toggling the router back to "Block List Mode" several clients still had to be added back to the router to connect. After that, things were satble.

It also keep informing me that there is a new firmware update every day but when I click to download, the router says it is up to date.

Regarding the satellites... The app always says that the satellites are connected but quite often the LEDs on the satellites are red, showing no connection to the base unit.

One feature I really like is "Address Reservation". It assigns any device a set IP address so it will not change when connection to the router. The Canon kept changing the WiFi IP address randomly unless I configure a set IP address. This method is a lot simpler to use. I assigned a number of devices a set IP, such as my garage controller, solar inverters and my security system.

Compared to my Netgear Orbi 650 system earlier, there is no difference in range, my devices show the exact same signal strength as before.

P.S. If anyone knows how to refresh the client list, please let me know.