When wifi 6 products have flooded the market to date, there are two tp link wifi 5 products that are still becoming hot products to date, deco m5 and deco m9. How can tp link deco m9 retain as hot product in the midst of the market is flooded with mesh wifi 6 products, and which one is more profitable to keep the network with deco m9 or switch to deco x20 or deco x60?
In This Article:
- Tp-Link Deco M9
- TP-Link Deco M9 vs Deco AX
- Deco M9 vs Eero
TP Link Deco M9 Plus
When tp link released its first mesh wifi product with its deco m5, several models later were released still based on the wireless ac1200 or ac1300 dual band including deco m4, deco s4, and also tp link deco p9. The only mesh wifi-5 product with simultaneous three bands is tplink deco m9 plus.
Deco m9 is generally sold with three units and as in most mesh wifi products, communication between nodes uses wifi as backhaul link and generally there is an option to use wired backhaul.
Obsolete Product:
Deco M9 is now becoming an obsolete product, it’s an end of life product. So it’s recommended to switch to other recent deco wifi 6 products such as deco x20, or deco x60. However, if you still require product with built-in Zigbee Smart home compliant product, you need to switch to eero 6 series. Let’s see more detail about this deco M9 and then switch to deco or eero series.
Dynamic backhaul
There are few models of mesh wifi routers come with dedicated backhaul for communication between nodes, and couple of later models come with dynamic backhaul. TP-link Deco M9 is not just based on dynamic backhaul but the bandwidth can grow up and down depends on how heavy the traffic is. The heavier traffic the more bandwidth (more backhaul) needed.
One @5Ghz radio band works as the main backhaul link and the other two bands can dynamically act as backhaul to support the backhaul up to 50% of its bandwidth when the traffic are getting heavier with more connected devices.
Smart home hub
One of the additional advantages of the deco m9 is that this product is equipped with standard Zigbee protocol, allowing communication of all home smart devices using the zigbee protocol to communicate easily including smart bulbs, smart temperature device, GE, Kwikset, and other consumer and industrial equipment that requires short-range low-rate wireless data transfer. Zigbee allows short distance data communication but can pass through a mesh network so it is very profitable that is applied to deco m9.
You may compare it with Samsung SmartThings that also supports Zigbee protocol for smart homes. Samsung Smartthing is dual band mesh wifi5 ac1200 (867Mbps @5GHz + 300Mbps @2.4GHz); three packs can cover your home up to 4,500 sq ft. Technically Smartthing covers the same coverage as deco m9 (2-pack) that can blanket your home network with the same Zigbee support for smart home environment. M9 delivers up to 2200Mbps three radio bands, while Samsung Smartthings is dual band ac1200. See that M9 total bandwidth is double bandwidth as Samsung Smartthing, and the price is much lower than Smartthing.
TP Link Deco m9 plus is affordable mesh ac2200 wifi5 router with Zigbee support for smart home devices environment.
TP-Link HomeCare
One more thing that we need to provide for protection against the internet threat for home network is an antivirus to protect every connected device from any virus attacks. Deco m9 is equipped with free lifetime tp link homecare which provides network protection against internet threats, malicious websites and also robust parental control to provide protection for every connected device that you can customize as needed.
When you have to come to a decision, should you choose tp link deco m9 plus or newer model of tplink deco x20 or deco x60 with latest wifi 6 technology? Or you may like to consider the newer model of TP-Link Deco voice x20 which comes with built-in Alexa and Smart speakers, so you don’t like to add separate Alexa or Google assistant devices for voice assistant.
TPlink Deco M9 Plus vs Deco AX
TP Link deco m9 is still based on legacy 5th G of wifi technology (wireless ac) with simultaneous tri-band ac2200 (867Mbps + 867Mbps + 300Mbps). Link communication between nodes use dynamic backhaul @5GHz and two other radio bands as needed when the traffic is getting heavier with connected devices.
When you have more devices with wireless ax technology at home, you may consider switching to latest wireless ax mesh products. With the same vendor TP-link you may consider deco x20 or deco x60. Take a look at the following spec comparison table between deco x60 and deco x20, see that the main difference is the network segment each the model works at.
Table 1 TPlink Deco X60 vs Deco x20
| Deco model | Deco x60 (3-pack) | Deco x20 (3-pack) |
| Wifi segment | Simultaneous dual band ax3000 | Simultaneous dual band ax1800 |
| Signal rates | Up to 2402Mbps @ 5GHz 4×4 Up to 574Mbps @ 2.4GHz 2×2 | Up to 1200 Mbps @ 5GHz 2×2 Up to 574Mbps @ 2.4GHz 2×2 |
| Ethernet Ports | 2x Gigabit WAN/LAN ports | 2x Gigabit WAN/LAN ports |
| Backhaul | Wifi and optional wired backhaul | Wifi and optional wired backhaul |
| Processor | 1GHz Qualcomm Quad core processor | 1.0GHz Quad core CPU |
| Price | $237.99 | $199.99 |
Switching to deco x60 is reasonable since you have wider bandwidth to support all connected devices either wireless ax devices or legacy wireless ac devices. No worries of incompatibility issues with legacy wireless ac or wireless n devices, deco x60 is backward compatible with legacy wireless ac or n clients.
One thing that you may find with Deco x20 or Deco x60 is that they don’t come with Zigbee compliant protocol for Smart home devices environment.
Deco M9 vs eero
If you have few smart home devices with Zigbee compliant and you still don’t need to taste the latest wireless ax network with still absence of latest wireless ax devices at home, tp link deco m9 plus is still valuable to give you ac2200 wifi network with Smart home environment. However, this product is obsolete, so no reason to purchase this one anymore.
So, if the requirement of wifi 6 standards to support your compliant wifi 6 connected devices, while at the same time you require your wifi 6 network to support zigbee protocol, you may consider new Amazon eero 6 series. One of eero 6 series you may consider is eero 6 plus, or you may consider the pro series either eero 6 pro or eero pro 6e. let’s take amazon eero 6 plus and compare it with deco m9.
Amazon eero plus is a dual band ax3000 mesh wifi 6 system with built-in Zigbee smart home hub. This ‘plus’ version is the newer model of eero 6 series with higher internet plan support up to Gigabit and support 160MHz channel bandwidth for faster data throughput.
Eero is greatly popular, one of the pioneer of mesh wifi and now it is under Amazon umbrella. Take a look at the following spec comparison table below.
Table 2. TP-Link Deco M9 vs eero
| Smart Home Router | Deco M9 | Amazon eero 6 plus |
| Wifi technology | Tri-band ac2200 wifi 5 | Dual band ax3000 wifi 6 |
| Signal rates | 400Mbps @2.4GHz 867Mbps @5GHz 867Mbps @5GHz | 600Mbps @2.4GHz 2,400Mbps @5GHz |
| Coverage | 4,500 sq ft / 3-pack | 4,500 sq ft / 3-pack |
| Backhaul | Dynamic backhaul up to 1.5Gbps and optional wired Ethernet backhaul | Wifi backhaul and wired ethernet backhaul option |
| Ethernet Ports | 2x Gigabit Ethernet Ports | 2x Gigabit Ports |
| Processor | Unknown | 1 GHz dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB flash storage |
| Smart Hub Support | ZigBee HA 1.2 Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0. Alexa | Works with Alexa, 802.15.4 radio (Zigbee, Thread), Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0. |
| Price | End of life | $299.99 |
For best compatibility for your smart home devices, Amazon eero is a better solution than legacy tp-link deco m9 which is obsolete, and end of life product.
Click here to learn more details eero plus in Amazon (#ads) Or Check here in Best Buy
See also:
For single all in one device you may consider Netgear cax30s or Motorola mg8702 wireless gateway with built-in docsis 3.1 cable modem.
To expand the range of your existing wifi network in home think about this Netgear Nighthawk X6 vs Linksys RE9000 Range Extender or replace with this TP-link Archer C5400X vs Netgear Gaming Router for gamers in mind.