TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point Review

TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point 

Reviews for the the TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point can be found by the plenty on Amazon and they are for the most part good. In fact out of 3000 or more reviews the WA801ND gets 4.5 out of 5. 

It is not hard to see why. It is from a good manufacturer and it very cheap, for what it does. It can be used as a access point, or a repeater, or as a client, enabling a wired network device to connect to a wireless network. So its pretty handy.

There are few things that people buying this on Amazon bring up as bad things about this TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point, and I will go over some of these here.

Quoting 300 Mbps WiFi but only 100 Mbps Ethernet Port

Hmmm. Yes the ethernet point is not gigabit. So this is a bit cheeky. But unless you are doing real heavy lifting with this access point you will not notice. 

We can stream 2 HD TVs through this whilst surfing web, and listening to music on phones. So it is quite a powerful bit of kit.

As an access point the throughout would be capped at 100MPs, but as repeater it should handle 300MBPs. Although factoring two way traffic does this reduce to 150MBs effectively.  

Difficult to Set up and Slow

No. Not my finding. The interface can be a little laggy, but you get that on a lot of networking equipment. 

Some say that when they change the SIDD or login details they loose the connection. This happens on nearly all networking gear with these features. 

Signal Strength 

Not amazing, although 2 or 3 can be used to get wi-fi over large area. We have one that "shoots" wifi to a netgear repeater which then take wifi in to house. 

Reliability 

Occasional stuff breaks. I have had lots of networking gear of the years of all types and makes. Most has broken over time. Whether this is burnt out internals, or misdiagnosed problems passed down from other pieces of hardware (such as DHCP fault on router) who knows. Based on amazon reviews these have a 0.5% failure rate. And if you look at all the other wireless access point available, they all have failure issues too!

Conclusions 

This is a very cost effective piece of kit. It has a few problems, but most of these are found in all access points. 

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TP Link CPE210 vs TL-WA801ND

TP Link CPE210  vs TL-WA801ND Access Point 

As with many folk in the UK we live in a oldish house with walls made of 3 meter thick depleted uranium, and getting a wireless signal around the house is a bit tricky.  

I have been using a TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point for around a year with mixed results. I have a small wooden hut in the garden that I house various centralised network bits in such as file stores and the TL-WA801ND. It give a weak signal in the house.

I wanted to improve on this and so found the TP Link CPE210 on amazon for £46 ($90). I think I have misunderstood what CPE210 is for, so I will share thoughts in below.

I should point out that the CPE210 is designed to do 4 or 5 different jobs. Such as bridging two wire networks over a long distance, or beaming a signal for use at a specific point (office at end of garden for example. 

This page would also be relevant for comparisons between TL-WA901ND, and CPE510 / CPE710.

"Beam" Width

Whilst the TL-WA801ND splashed wi-fi goodness in all directions, the CPE210 delivers it output in a very focussed beam. 

The CPE210 Instruction Manual Shows Typical Usages. 

So my expectation that it would do the same job as the TL-WA801ND was incorrect. In use as an access point you will find that this narrow beam provides excellent signal strength along the beam path, but it fades rapidly from one direction when sidestepping. 

Simplified Coverage PAtterns

When used as an access point therefore, the CPE210 is best used for long reach small area applications. It would be ideal for beaming wi-fi to an office at the end of the garden. But do not expect wifi coverage for the whole garden. 

Further web snafflings show above diagram. Available from here. So it may be the case that you could mount this access point too close to where the signal is required and that might cause problems. 

Setup

If you have set up a router or access point before then you will be able to configure the CPE210, much the same as the TL-WA801ND. 

The CPE210 has a few more options. 

The Setup Interface for the CPE210 is Relatively Simple although is has lots of options. 

Using TL-WA801ND and CPE210 Together

The TL-WA801ND and CPE210 could be used very nicely together.  The CPE210 could be used as an access point to beam, wi-fi to the end of a garden or to far corner of industrial site, with TL-WA801ND used as a client to pick up signal, or as a repeater to "spread" the signal around in that area. 

Conclusions 

CPE2010 - Good for far reach narrow beam applications.

TL-WA801ND - Good for wider area coverage. 

I found that whilst the CPE210 delivered excellent coverage in one spot, it did not cover house and office as expected. This was due to my misunderstanding of the products function, rather then a fault with the equipment. 

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