TP-LINK Archer C7 Wireless Router – Item of the Day
Special Notice – I am bringing this item back today because it is on sale for 56.99, which is 23 dollars off the list price. So if you have been thinking about upgrading your router now is a great time. I LOVE this router, read the review to see why. I went though a lot of routers until i found this one. I really do believe it is the best router for the most people.
Also the WiFi extender mentioned in the review is also on sale for 10 bucks off standard price. I have no idea how long the sale will last so I wanted to bring it to your attention today. This is the router I have used now for almost three years, it still works flawlessly. – End Special Notice
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the TP-LINK Archer C7 Wireless Router. I did a TON of work when I last upgraded our router, this is the one I settled on, I have never regretted it. It has now been running for three years and I have no desire to replace it.
We have a large house, not a mansion or something like that just a long house because the garage was converted to indoor space and lot of brick walls. We always had trouble with the signal in certain areas, and especially out in the detached metal garage.
This thing bangs signal out hard and with one extender (which you can find here) I can hit almost any part of my 3 acre property. It also has two bands one at 2.4 and one at 5 ghz. We have found some of our devices like say our printer, just does better on the 2.4 ghz band. Since they merge to a common network you just sign the equipment in on what works best and all is well.
It also comes with a guest network, so your visitors can be on the web but not on your network, which is very nice. You can configure everything in your browser, the set up is step by step and anyone with a very basic computer knowledge can do it.
Best part? Well it also has a smart phone app called Tether, this lets you pull up your network, see everything on it, change passwords, get your password if you forgot it, etc. But the very best part of this is you can, reboot from you phone. Yes you can reboot your router from your phone.
Imagine this, you and your spouse decide to hit the bed early and watch some Netflix, network issues ensue, you need a reboot. Don’t get up like a fool and walk to the other side of the house, grab your phone and give the reboot command and all is well. Another great thing, you can block devices from your phone. When my son refused to do a chore back when he was a kid I found the best medicine was changing the password on the network. Now to use that discipline (I call it motivation) you can just shut their devices off and on at will. God Matt is lucky I didn’t wield this power 15 years ago!
I dealt with a lot of buggy crap with three previous routers, unfairly yelled at Comcast customer service about their wonky internet due to one of those, found this and finally I am happy. I can use my laptop or phone on network from my pool or in my garage, my guests have their own network, everything works and I have good signal in the entire house.
I am not a network administrator, or a MCSE or anything like that. I just know this works, it always works, it is easy to set up and manage and does what I need. If anyone wants a free router by the way I have three in my closet you are welcome to the next time you stop by.
So if you need a new router or are just ready to upgrade give the TP-LINK Archer C7 Wireless Router a shot. I finally agree with the NY Times for a change, it is in their words “the best router for most people”. It is far from an enterprise product but for home networks it is the best thing I have found.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
Jack –
Looking to ditch my current ISP to go back to a previous one and will need my own modem/router again. My local ISP had issues with my Belkin Modem/Router (long story . . .). I like the idea of this one . . . do you have any suggestions on cable modems to go with this?
Sorry on the modem every cable ISP I have had has provided one.
Just went to the amazon page … they have two alternatives of a cable modem/router combo. One is a cable modem router (one piece) and the other is a two piece bundle – cable modem and router separately. Both use the same AC1750 nomenclature. I am very tempted … when Time Warner upgraded my service, they provided the cable modem/router but then after a while started charging me rent for it. It’s OK, but it’s two or three years old now and isn’t quite as reliable as it used to be, plus its interface doesn’t sound nearly as easy as what Jack describes. I’m definitely investigating further.
I have comcast and got tired of rebooting my modem almost daily. I ordered this one: ARRIS SURFboard SB6190. Big jump in lan and wifi speeds. It works great and I’ve had no issues since. I also have a sprint Airave and that has worked perfect since I switched to the new modem. Check with your ISP to see which modems are compatible with their network.
I bought this same router.
It may now be dead. I haven’t debugged it yet, but I came in last week to a VERY messed up network, and eventually isolated the fact that if this was plugged into my dsl modem, it would make the entire network not work. Can’t say what the issue is at all, it was the most bizarre incident I have ever seen in my computer networking years.
I bought it so i could connect it to an external antenna and broadcast outdoors so I could get wifi in my workshop. (Hadn’t installed the antenna yet).
That is really weird but I guess there is always a point where any piece of hardware may dislike some other piece of hardware.
For me it was the easiest and most flawless install I have ever done.
We just got this one about 6 months ago. I did a lot of research and settled on this one. I was specifically looking for a Router which would allow for a 5ghz network. Our baby monitor apparently operates on 2.4ghz and every time it was on our network quality would degrade to the point where you had to be basically sitting on top of the router to connect.
I have been very happy with it so far.
Does it have a manual on/off switch? I’m looking for a router that will allow me to easily turn off the wifi and also has a guest network. Any ideas?
Yes it has a manual on off switch, but it doesn’t turn off the wifi, it turns the router itself off.
See the one star reviews they may be the minority but unlike many negative reviews these people make sense. https://www.amazon.com/AccuSharp-1-001-Knife-Sharpener/product-reviews/B00004VWKQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&showViewpoints=0
Jack mentions that he isn’t a networking person, but I have 20 years of networking experience and design datacenters and ISP networking equipment.
This is the exact router I recommend to my friends and family for their homes and have deployed at least ten of these.
If you need an access point, which is ONLY for wireless connectivity, below is the one I recommend with a tspaz link. You still need a router like this post, and this wireless access point needs to be hard wired; but it has amazing range, speed, and even some enterprise-level features that most people won’t need: http://amzn.to/2xh4YxV
Thanks for that, this is what I use to extend range and specifically so for my guest networks if you read the review you will see why, I am actually going to run it as IOTD tomorrow. But I will look into your recommendation. http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/aiotd-10-26-16
While never a network admin my back ground is in infrastructure and hardware, so far TP-Link is the best “consumer grade” gear I have found for ease of use, functionality and long term dependability. I have had many others shit the bed on me, this one just works and just keeps working. The admin level configurations are also very intuitive. I really like that when recommending something to others.
A repeater definitely has it’s place. An access point requires you to get an Ethernet cable from your router to where the access point will be. Whereas a repeater only needs AC power. It is often very hard to get an Ethernet cable to where you need the wireless access point.
The only downside to a repeater is that it does clog up the airwaves because it needs to repeat the transmission. But for 95% of people it will not be noticeable. If you start to have 15+ wireless devices, like you might have at your workshops, then a repeater will start to be the bottleneck.
And I have listened to you for at least five years, and love hearing about your fiber and outside plant work. My role takes over from once the fiber gets into the building and the configuration of the routers and switches, so it’s really neat to hear what’s one step before my job.
Thanks for pointing this product out, Eric! All the wireless repeaters I’ve seen will only connect to the router via WPS, which is VERY insecure.
Just a couple of questions. Do you know if this AP will support broadcast SSID turned off, and mac address filtering? Does it pretty much just emulate the router’s own security settings?
Thanks in advance.
Hey Jason,
I can’t find the reply button to your comment, maybe it’s too many levels deep.
That is actually the WAP I use in my house. I have access to all kinds of retired enterprise-level equipment and always just used older enterprise stuff; but I have had the best performance with that sub $100 TP Link WAP!
It has some software that you install on a computer to configure the WAP. It is actually designed for configuring a whole bunch of WAPs, which is why I mentioned that it has some features that are almost business-class. The software definitely lets you not broadcast an SSID and do MAC filtering. Another feature that you should definitely enable is called Band Steering. There are two wireless bands, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. 2.4Ghz came first, and is quite a bit slower and more congested. 5Ghz is capable of much higher speeds and has almost 10x the available radio space as 2.4Ghz, so it is not as congested. The problem though is 5Ghz does not go through walls well, so the range can be pretty bad if you try to go through multiple walls like if you have your access point in the basement. Band Steering will “suggest” that a wireless client drop off 2.4Ghz and connect to 5Ghz if the signal is strong enough. That makes the client faster, and frees up radio spectrum for clients that are too far away to use 5Ghz or are too old to use 5Ghz.
Thanks for that info, Eric. My plan is to put it on the outside of the house (on a verandah protected wall) facing the outside entertainment area and livestock areas. Two foot concrete walls simply aren’t wifi friendly. And this avoids all the WPS insecurity issues of most wifi extenders.
Ironically this is the worst wifi router I’ve ever had. Very regular disappearance of wifi connection, and even the wired connections didn’t hold steady. Had to reset the thing 2+ times per day.
I went on to business-grade wifi APs, and am not looking back to this consumer-grade stuff. I have two of the Ubiquiti Unifi AC Lite APs (one per house floor, mounted to each ceiling. Looks like a smoke alarm).