Tenda Nova MW3 Mesh WiFi System - Up to 2500 sq.ft. Whole Home Coverage, WiFi Router and Extender Replacement, AC1200 Mesh Router for Wireless Internet, Works with Alexa, Parental Controls, 2-pack

I had put up with the Vodafone Connect router for over an year now. Until recently I tolerated the extremely weak signal just at the room upstairs to where the router is located. Without a strong repeater I'd forget about getting any signal in my rear garden. But repeaters have very limited bandwidth and take up Wi-Fi channels for repeating the signals. I was only recently told about the concept of Mesh network and its benefits. I found the Nova MW3 to have great reviews and reasonably priced for a 3-pack (at £79) which most folks can afford and start using in less than 10 minutes. Installation was super easy, just follow the instructions in the Tenda Wi-Fi app. I followed the below steps and would recommend doing so unless you are well into networking and want additional routing control via the mesh network.1. Switch off Wi-Fi on the main router. With mesh taking over the SSID which all your devices use, your main router has no role to play with Wi-Fi anymore. One exception though: if you have multiple SSIDs defined on your router say one for each band i.e. 2.4GHz and 5GHz, then you will need to keep one of the SSIDs active on the router as this Mesh can only have one SSID defined at the time of writing this review. Whichever SSID name is being ported to the Mesh should be turned off on the main router. Alternatively if the connected devices can be amended to use only one of the two (or more) SSIDs, then I would highly recommend that. Turning off Wi-Fi at the router will reduce band clashes and performance degradation.2. Connect any one of the three NW3 nodes to the router via the supplied LAN cable. Once connected, use the Tenda app to name the WiFi SSID exactly what you had on the router with the same password. That way you won't need to change any devices' SSID and password and they continue as if nothing changed.3. Using the app, go to settings and find the option for Internet Settings. Use the 'Bridge' option under it instead of the default 'DHCP'. The idea is to let the main router still be in control of all DHCP (including Static IP allocation), DNS etc and only let the Mesh deal with the Wi-Fi communication part. If you activate DHCP on the Mesh network, then you will get an IP range different to your router's. Nothing wrong with it except some devices can be very particular about the IP assigned and expect network shares etc to be available on the same network. Usually this mesh starts IP allocation at 192.168.5.* ... 5.254. You CANNOT change this to be the same range as the router's range, if DHCP is turned on at the router. Its one or the other device to control DHCP. Or do what I did, and use Bridge option to let the router decide and Mesh follow what the router allocates.4. Start placing the other MW3 Mesh nodes in other rooms. Make sure the you check each nodes' signal strength before beginning to hammer nails on walls. I have simply left them under my beds in different rooms. They all have excellent signal strength so no more Wi-Fi blackouts, dropouts or unusable signal strength.5. Turn on the 'Fast Roaming' option on the app. This important step will enable handing over of your mobile devices' connectivity from one node to another quicker, so you don't drop any signal strength. If you use older operating systems like Android 4 or iOS 4 etc then best keep this option off as it won't work with them.That's it! I didn't need to read the manual in any great detail, but its included anyway if you wish to. For the price, the non-intrusive size, and most importantly the 100% signal strength in every corner of my house I can only give this product a 5*. I won't hesitate in recommending this to anyone looking to significantly improve Wi-Fi coverage their homes. Throw away those repeaters and large antennas and let the home router do just the wired networking and routing. Get this or any other Mesh network with at least 3 nodes and sort the Wi-Fi problem out forever!

Quite reliable WiFi Home solution, easy to setup and use

First off I have to declare that for the price this is a great piece of kit. It does what it says on the tin very well and with probably the easiest setup of any network device I've ever come across. However for some, there are a few areas in which this lets itself down - mostly these are probably things that could be fixed in a future firmware release - so Fingers crossed!So the good bits !:1) the wifi range and penetration of these devices is spectacular! For background I live in a detached victorian Slate built house over 3 stories. Before I fetted the tenda I was having to use 3 APs and a further 3 range extenders and still had too many dead-spots around the house - and frankly t was becoming a bit of a nightmare reliability wise. As soon as I plugged in the 1st Tenda, I had about 80% coverage! I could probably get away with just two to cover the whole house to be honest - but Heck I bought 3 so I'll use them all! I even have good coverage out into my garden and Garage.2) Setup - absolutely a piece of cake! I defy anybody not to be able to set this up. Only downside is that you MUST use the Tenda App on an iOS or Android device to do this. There is no Web Console as yet.3)PPPoE works out of the box - so if you have a separate modem and router you can just plug it into the modem and potentially ditch your existing router altogether - (though if you read on you might not want to ...)For me that's great because it means I don't need to use the awful BT Home Hub - just plug into an openreach VDSL modem (you can pick them up for a tenner off ebay) and let te tenda do the rest.4) Backhaul over Wifi or Cabled/powerline. Because all units are identical and have 2 x 1GB Etehernet ports you can backhaul between the units over a wired connection. This might be desirable as the units are dual-band only so no dedicated back-haul wifi channel. I've not trried this - but others say it works :-)5) It just works! I now have 50+Mb/s internet bandwidth anywhere in the house. LAN bandwidth I haven't measured and if you look online it isn't going to break any records here - but is certainly enough for me to have multiple HD streams running from my NAS to various Displays around the house - so practically it seems fine. If you have a lot of 4K content to chuck around your network though you might be better looking for tri-band units instead.6)Configurable Device groups and scheduled access/parental controls seem good and easy to configure - though not personally tried this.7) Remote management - if you sign up to an online account you can administer your settings remotely. This is alost too easy so is also a cause for concernBad Bits: Well you weren't expecting perfection at this price were you ? Despite all of the above the units do have some hefty shortcomings. For some , some of these will be important, for others less so.1) Firewall (or Lack of) - Now I'm not stating that these units Don't have any firewalling - but if they do it's not in evidence. There are no firewall settings available and I can't find any documentation about any firewalling. This in itself should be enough to make most users want to stick this behind a more competent router - but that is going to run a horse and cart through the simplicity of setup and use of your home wifi - which is a shame.UPDATE: having now run a number of port scans and pen tests I'm pretty satisfied that in the configuration I've used that the Tenda is pretty secure. The only open ports found are those specifically port forwarded. The only vulnerability found is a ping response , which isn't great as does reveal that you do exist as a potential target.https://www.grc.com2) DHCP Server - it has one - but it is VERY basic - allowing you to choose your subnet and router address only. YOU CANNOT SPECIFY A RESTRICTED RANGE OF ADDRESSES. Unfortunately it doesn't even seem to allocate addresses sequentially from bottom-up or top-down, just seemingly randomly scattering them throughout the subnet.This is a serious omission and I would hope it would be rectified in a firmware release. Because there is no ability to place reservations either this effectively means you can't have any fixed IP devices on your home network.3) DNS Settings - Good and bad here - I was pleased to find that it does act as a local DNS Proxy rather than passing on your ISPs (or other providers) DNS servers directly to clients - however there is no possibility to configure DDNS which is a massive shame. So the unit has port forwarding capabilities but unless you have a static External IP address its not going to be practically very useful without being able to update your DDNS provider.So - all in all - these are great units for providing strong Wi-Fi coverage across a wide area and with great wall penetration, However - all the shortcomings listed above will mean that for most people you would still need a competent router to do the basics of DHCP, DNS, Firewalling etc.I can see that it really hits the mark for quick, easy setup for those with simplistic needs - but just feels like each configuration page on the app needs an 'advanced' tab to configure extra settings for those who want a little more control over their home network.Finally though - I must stress that at this pricepoint they do represent excellent value for money.