TP-Link TL-WA1201 - Radio Access Point

Brought this AP a week ago to extend the WiFi coverage in my house and it's working great. I've run a cable from my ISP supplied Router to this AP and I gave it the same SSID and password. Now I can seamlessly walk around and have my phone and other devices automatically switch over to the strongest signal. Setup was very easy too via the web page interface. Hopefully I won't need it but it's satisfying to know that this AP also comes with a 3yr warranty.PROS: Easy to setup, great price and warranty, great WiFi range.CONS: Not the prettiest device with it's 4 aerials sticking up but that wasn't a problem for my installation.

I can't complain too much; it works exactly as advertised and was easy to set up. I bought this product for the 'Client mode' to use at my desk as I have a few devices requiring an ethernet connection. Basically, the TL-WA1201 receives a wifi signal from two separate networks and switches between them based on the network speed (a cool feature that I did know until setting it up). From there, it is plugged into a TP-Link switch, which all my ethernet devices are plugged into. This works exceptionally well with excellent speeds and was dead simple to set up. The only issue I have is the software's lack of 'experty' features. I would have liked the ability to change settings like the DHCP server address pool, transmit power, etc. But this didn't affect my use, so not ... MoreI can't complain too much; it works exactly as advertised and was easy to set up. I bought this product for the 'Client mode' to use at my desk as I have a few devices requiring an ethernet connection. Basically, the TL-WA1201 receives a wifi signal from two separate networks and switches between them based on the network speed (a cool feature that I did know until setting it up). From there, it is plugged into a TP-Link switch, which all my ethernet devices are plugged into. This works exceptionally well with excellent speeds and was dead simple to set up. The only issue I have is the software's lack of 'experty' features. I would have liked the ability to change settings like the DHCP server address pool, transmit power, etc. But this didn't affect my use, so not a big concern.

Easy to set up, strong signal

UPDATE: RMA'ing this since it keeps disconnecting users. Only fix is to manually turn router off/on. Lately this happens almost daily. This is a known issue, with the only fix being a beta firmware (which doesnt fix the issue). See TP-Link forums: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/215894Don't buy this until the firmware issue is fixed!OLD REVIEW:Upgraded from my Salt router's wifi signal to this access point. I could not reach 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz signal behind three walls in my apartment with Salt, but this on works perfectly.Speeds are roughly as advertised, and several rooms (concrete walls) I am still able to -56db (2.4Ghz) and -68db (5Ghz) signal, whereas I was only able to get -78db for the 2.4Ghz network, and unreachable network. Signal ... MoreUPDATE: RMA'ing this since it keeps disconnecting users. Only fix is to manually turn router off/on. Lately this happens almost daily. This is a known issue, with the only fix being a beta firmware (which doesnt fix the issue). See TP-Link forums: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/215894Don't buy this until the firmware issue is fixed!OLD REVIEW:Upgraded from my Salt router's wifi signal to this access point. I could not reach 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz signal behind three walls in my apartment with Salt, but this on works perfectly.Speeds are roughly as advertised, and several rooms (concrete walls) I am still able to -56db (2.4Ghz) and -68db (5Ghz) signal, whereas I was only able to get -78db for the 2.4Ghz network, and unreachable network. Signal strength is measured with the Airport App wifi scan. Basically, this has a better signal far away from the router, than being next to the Salt router.The top speed is somewhat slower (450/450mbit up/down for TP-Link, and 640/500 up/down for Salt when you are next to the router). Speeds are measured from my iPhone 8 with Ookla Speedtest. Speeds might be higher with a better wifi device. For anything substantially faster I find it hard to justify paying >200CHF for a Wifi6 accesspoint which is basically the only faster option.Several rooms away, I still get ~100mbit up and down measured on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks.Comes with power over ethernet, which makes it easier to pull only one cable to where the access point is placed.It was easy to set up by plugging in and logging on to the default wireless network and open the setup page. I used the "Access Point" mode as any router should already have DHCP, so not sure what the other modes are useful for for most people.

Great WiFi coverage and easy set up for use as an AP

Bought a pair of these to replace some 2.4 GHz APs that were started needing to get rebooted every so often due to not allowing tablets or phones to connect, at usually the worst time. Those APs used dipole antennas which helped beam coverage to the patio and backyard. These APs have better coverage than the old APs even at 5 GHz. Theses APs are rock stable and allow phones and tablets to seamlessly hand off to one another as you walk across the property, which my old APs only sometimes did. As when setting up any WiFi use an app on your phone to determine which channels have the least interference on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I also set them to different channels than each other so they would not interfere with each other. Set your SSIDs to the same for the 2.4 and ... MoreBought a pair of these to replace some 2.4 GHz APs that were started needing to get rebooted every so often due to not allowing tablets or phones to connect, at usually the worst time. Those APs used dipole antennas which helped beam coverage to the patio and backyard. These APs have better coverage than the old APs even at 5 GHz. Theses APs are rock stable and allow phones and tablets to seamlessly hand off to one another as you walk across the property, which my old APs only sometimes did. As when setting up any WiFi use an app on your phone to determine which channels have the least interference on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I also set them to different channels than each other so they would not interfere with each other. Set your SSIDs to the same for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I set the bandwidth to 20 MHz for the 2.4 and 40 MHz for the 5 as that seems to be a good trade off of reducing interference and keeping good bandwidth. They offer a lot of performance for the money and are very easy to set up as an AP.

I set mine up in a hurry. I was in a hurry. Getting started guide made it super easy, got into th...

I set mine up in a hurry. I was in a hurry. Getting started guide made it super easy, got into the web interface, connected to the existing wifi and after a min or so I had "wired" internet in my bedroom for my gaming PC. Added a 8 port switch, plugged port 1 into the TP-Link, now my secondary PC and my M1 Mac Mini are all "hard wired". Using it on 5Ghz and have a great signal going through 2 walls. AP (bridge) is sitting ontop of one of my PC towers a few inches from the wall my desk is against. No problems. One cool feature I really like is you can schedule turning off the little green LED's between certain times. Just a really neat little feature for someone like me who's using it in a bedroom. It's DHCP server is set to AUTO by default. It was thankfully smart ... MoreI set mine up in a hurry. I was in a hurry. Getting started guide made it super easy, got into the web interface, connected to the existing wifi and after a min or so I had "wired" internet in my bedroom for my gaming PC. Added a 8 port switch, plugged port 1 into the TP-Link, now my secondary PC and my M1 Mac Mini are all "hard wired". Using it on 5Ghz and have a great signal going through 2 walls. AP (bridge) is sitting ontop of one of my PC towers a few inches from the wall my desk is against. No problems. One cool feature I really like is you can schedule turning off the little green LED's between certain times. Just a really neat little feature for someone like me who's using it in a bedroom. It's DHCP server is set to AUTO by default. It was thankfully smart enough not to enable it since the router is already handing out IP addresses. I hard set it to OFF anyway. One little "gotcha", and not worth loosing a star over is the web interface URL no longer works after putting it into bridge mode. Instead you have to figure out what it's IP address is and go to it that way. But once you have it setup you shouldn't need to fuss with it. Been going for a week so far with no issues. I was planning on eventually running some Ethernet down the hall eventually, and I still might, but for now, this thing is faster than our Internet access anyway so may not do that for a long time. Hope this is helpful. Happy customer. <3

I use this configured as a client to connect my PC to wireless. My Wifi Router is 3 floors down o...

I use this configured as a client to connect my PC to wireless. My Wifi Router is 3 floors down on the other side of house. This is faster than my Intel wifi 6 card, several phones, and Qualcomm Atheros card. It is at least 1.5x faster than all of them. Update: Knocking down two stars because I no longer use it. It constantly queries bing, netflix, linkedin, yahoo, several time servers, etc. They may be doing it to check for internet connectivity or they may be doing it to data mine connectivity and sell the data. I don't care why they do it: it pollutes my logs and I don't want my AP talking to anything on the internet I haven't told it to. It is not really worth the extra speed. It is a security risk, it would be like someone pointing a unloaded gun at you every 6 ... MoreI use this configured as a client to connect my PC to wireless. My Wifi Router is 3 floors down on the other side of house. This is faster than my Intel wifi 6 card, several phones, and Qualcomm Atheros card. It is at least 1.5x faster than all of them. Update: Knocking down two stars because I no longer use it. It constantly queries bing, netflix, linkedin, yahoo, several time servers, etc. They may be doing it to check for internet connectivity or they may be doing it to data mine connectivity and sell the data. I don't care why they do it: it pollutes my logs and I don't want my AP talking to anything on the internet I haven't told it to. It is not really worth the extra speed. It is a security risk, it would be like someone pointing a unloaded gun at you every 6 seconds, but you cant be 100% sure it is unloaded.

N300 (Newer Model) = TL-WA801N Looks nice. Setup was easy, but.... I am NOT seeing anything near ...

N300 (Newer Model) = TL-WA801N Looks nice. Setup was easy, but.... I am NOT seeing anything near the advertised speed. I plug the ethernet cable into my laptop, run a speed test, and see 288 Mbps download speed. I move the ethernet cable from my laptop to the N300, connect my laptop to the N300 via WiFi, and see less than 30 Mbps. This is less than 10% of the advertised speed. (Laptop was 3 feet away from the N300 for this test.) There may be some things that I need to tweak, but this is way slower than I would have ever expected. I will scan the comments to see if others encountered this problem and if there is a fix. I will update this review if I manage to get better throughput. I am attaching an image showing the bandwidth monitor plus results from the Ookla ... MoreN300 (Newer Model) = TL-WA801N Looks nice. Setup was easy, but.... I am NOT seeing anything near the advertised speed. I plug the ethernet cable into my laptop, run a speed test, and see 288 Mbps download speed. I move the ethernet cable from my laptop to the N300, connect my laptop to the N300 via WiFi, and see less than 30 Mbps. This is less than 10% of the advertised speed. (Laptop was 3 feet away from the N300 for this test.) There may be some things that I need to tweak, but this is way slower than I would have ever expected. I will scan the comments to see if others encountered this problem and if there is a fix. I will update this review if I manage to get better throughput. I am attaching an image showing the bandwidth monitor plus results from the Ookla Speedtest (Windows 10 application) running through the N300. Very unhappy with this performance. I did try setting this N300 up in "Client Mode" to provide a WiFi connection to a desktop running Windows 10. The results of this test were even worse; I was seeing less than 10 Mbps during this test, but to be fair, this was not a very extensive test. On the plus side, the "Quick Installation Guide" included in the box was very easy to follow and gave me exactly the info I needed to get things up and running. Just wish the performance was a lot better. Minor Update: I have been letting the N300 throughput monitor run as I have been writing this review. The monitor does show a max of 177 Mbps transmit (download), but this was only a single spike. I have no idea why it is able to jump this high at one point in time, but yields such poor results when running the Ookla Speedtest. The device appears to be capable of much higher speeds, but Speedtest is not seeing these higher speeds. Bigger Update: Purchased TP-Link AC1900 and configured as Access Point rather than router. Just ran a few speedtests. This product; TL-WA801N (which claims up to 300 Mbps) is giving me 22 Mbps download speed. The AC1900 is giving me 220 Mbps download speed. (It is likely our 300 Mbps internet connection that is limiting us here). If you care about speed, I would skip the TL-WA801N and go for the AC1900 instead.

TP-Link TL-WA1201 Good value & well made WAP

It was super easy to seup via the web interface & gives me far better WiFi signal strength compared to my old TL-WA801ND which started dropping connections after 10 years solid use. Some things just don't last LOL. Upload/Download speeds & latency are also improved over my old WAP device.I know Ubiquiti is the new flavour of the month but I've always found TP-Link gear to be good value for money & reliable for many years use. I recommend this device.

This can be a little difficult to configure. If you do not connect it to an internet source in th...

This can be a little difficult to configure. If you do not connect it to an internet source in the beginning, it will not configure the gateway automatically later. You will have to set the route and gateway etc. I work in IT. It should not have been this difficult. It took 3 attempts to set it up. The first, I set up without hooking it up to anything. Then it wouldn't get the gateway etc. The second attempt, I hooked it directly to my cable modem. Due to the way it automatically configured some of the settings (IP address and routes), I could not access the web config. Finally, I connected it to a router and was able to take care of all of the configurations that I needed. All in all, it is a great little access point. It can just get a little complicated trying to ... MoreThis can be a little difficult to configure. If you do not connect it to an internet source in the beginning, it will not configure the gateway automatically later. You will have to set the route and gateway etc. I work in IT. It should not have been this difficult. It took 3 attempts to set it up. The first, I set up without hooking it up to anything. Then it wouldn't get the gateway etc. The second attempt, I hooked it directly to my cable modem. Due to the way it automatically configured some of the settings (IP address and routes), I could not access the web config. Finally, I connected it to a router and was able to take care of all of the configurations that I needed. All in all, it is a great little access point. It can just get a little complicated trying to set it up. Once it was set up, it worked great and is still working great.

Top choice for wireless access point

I have a new house with installed CAT 6 wiring to a central network hub. The wireless network was unusably weak in one corner of the house. I deployed the TP-Link AC1200 as a wireless access point with wired backhaul in that corner. Setup was easy with a few small glitches that were fairly obvious to resolve. I gave the TP-Link AC1200 the same SSID as the central wireless. My laptop switches seamlessly between them (which depends on the laptop's wireless software). The product description doesn't mention the lengths of cords. Both the Ethernet and the power cords were too short to reach from the wall outlets to the top of the book case where I placed the TP-Link AC1200, requiring me to acquire a longer Ethernet cord and to add a clunky power extension cord. The Web ... MoreI have a new house with installed CAT 6 wiring to a central network hub. The wireless network was unusably weak in one corner of the house. I deployed the TP-Link AC1200 as a wireless access point with wired backhaul in that corner. Setup was easy with a few small glitches that were fairly obvious to resolve. I gave the TP-Link AC1200 the same SSID as the central wireless. My laptop switches seamlessly between them (which depends on the laptop's wireless software). The product description doesn't mention the lengths of cords. Both the Ethernet and the power cords were too short to reach from the wall outlets to the top of the book case where I placed the TP-Link AC1200, requiring me to acquire a longer Ethernet cord and to add a clunky power extension cord. The Web administration connects immediately from a computer using the TP-Link AC1200 for its network, but requires a lookup of the TP-Link AC1200 IP address from any other spot. This is confusing when using the same SSID for different wireless points, so it's not immediately obvious which one is active. Overall, the TP-Link AC1200 remains my choice for wireless access, and I will try to get another if I find another location with a weak signal. Unfortunately, it looks as though TP-Link may have discontinued the item. Several retailers are out of stock, and TP-Link encouraged me to switch to a ceiling mount version, which I do not want.