linksyssmartwifi.com Reviews 14

We brought a gigaclear node and frankly had no idea how to get it going. We called their help line (01865 591131) and spoke to Duncan. I'm glad we didn't see the other reviews beforehand and actually we are really surprised at them. Because Duncan was incredibly helpful. During the 38 minute call he took me through the steps to get it set up. He was patient. Clear. Friendly. And clearly knows his stuff. I felt setting it up was a complex matter but he helped me and now it's all working... My wife made a flippant comment prior to me calling about an overseas call centre. This really wasn't the case. Kudos to Duncan

Utter rubbish and nothing but trouble. You simply cannot add a "child node" no matter what you do. So as a stand alone wifi router its fine but no good for larger / oddly shaped houses. I'd really not bother

The linksys app is clunky and not intuitive. It hangs and quite often doesn't respond to screen clicks. Then when you have to type something, no keyboard appears. It asks for passwords, sometimes it 2ants the router password, sometimes the one you've set up for the account with no idea which one it wants

Nodes thinks they are cabled - and after a reset you cant add them to the network again. The App is really bad UX and support is non excisting

Very unhappy with Linksys Velop MX4200 routers - the firmware is not even up to beta quality, let alone ready for release into the wild. In my opinion, it should be immediately withdrawn from the market. Here's a selection of just a few of the many issues:

1. MAC filtering simply does not work at all so it is impossible to allow only authorised devices onto the local network. Any passing stranger within range, who can guess a Wifi password has access to the entire LAN.
2. There is no facility to filter MAC addresses on the ethernet ports, so any person who simply plugs in a device can access the private LAN. Even with no malicious intent, this can spread viruses across the network.
3. DHCP reservation works intermittently - occasionally if you try to add a new reservation, the router displays an error message without any explanation as to what error occurred. (Rebooting 3 or 4 times eventually resolves this), if you can afford to have your network down for about 20 minutes..
3. The router requires a phone app for the initial setup. This too does not work. Eventually, with more than an hour phone support from Linksys, I was able to configure the parent router to allow connections. A further two hours on the phone was necessary to get two child nodes to connect. Neither the phone app nor the web interface worked for adding child nodes. Instead I had to use a series of arcane button presses on the child and parent nodes to persuade the routers to communicate with one another.
4. The roaming capabilities are primitive at best. When roaming with a device between routers, it is necessary to disconnect and reconnect to wifi, or the device will remain locked onto the original node to which it first connected. Occasionally the device will transfer the connection to the nearest node after more than 15 minutes but generally this is not the case.
5. The child nodes use internal firmware algorithms to decide which wifi channel to use. This sometimes results in the 2.4Ghz being selected due to the perceived signal strength of the 5GHz channel, even when the 5GHz channel is proven to be faster at the same location. It is not possible to override this behaviour.

I could go on but in any case, it is clear to me that this product is not ready for market and should never have been released. From a security perspective it is a disaster and its performance is patchy . When I contacted Linksys to request a refund, they suggested I should do this via the supplier who sold me the product. Clearly the supplier is not responsible for buggy firmware, which is obviously still in development. And anyway I cannot get a refund from a supplier without returning the routers, resulting in a couple of weeks of downtime, which my business cannot accept.

I have been a purchaser of Linksys networking products for more than 20 years, but clearly something has gone horribly wrong with the quality of these products. I am going to have to take the financial knock on the chin, and switch to Netgear or another vendor.

I will NEVER buy Linksys again.

The worst mesh network I’ve ever had. 10 nodes, impossible to mesh intelligently, endless drop out, appalling app which never remembers your log in details and constantly makes me reset my password. Never, ever buy this crap.

New node would not connect to existing system after 2 hours of trying contacted Linksy with engineer from California calling me, 1 hour phone call with him trying to say it's my WiFi and showing me things on my pc which you normally find when using WiFi and not the fact it's the new node that would not connect then wanted 199 dollars to fix. So tried connecting new node to an existing node ending up with it stopping the old Node from connecting. Finally found this on Reddit where a Linksys engineer said if your node won't connect and reset button does not fix the node connection then power on defective node that won't work by using its reset button push for 10 seconds, wait for red light then press reset on router 5 times quickly and wait 2 to 5 mins it will now connect. Miracle both nodes fixed and connected. What a con to try to charge me 199 dollars when it's their system that was the problem. Engineer wasted 1 hour of his and my time and obviously not aware of this easy fix for nodes not connecting.

Router broke, they agreed to replace it, then they simply stopped replying to my emails.

The last email they sent (in which they agreed) was on the 20th of August; since then I've sent 5 emails and they haven't replied once.

The absolute worst piece of garbage company. Nodes will suddenly stop working because of some faulty firmware they push or if your modem resets, will cause the whole system to go down. I have spent hours on the phone with tech support within days of getting these wifi nodes. They know they have problems but they don’t know how to fix it. Support will not help and tell you to buy a newer model and that will fix the other nodes. As someone in IT, it’s been a huge mistake to buy this POS and then deal with a company that tells you to buy a new model to fix your current network.

Don’t bother with Linksys nodes. Forever going down and then ridiculously complicated to reset. Takes forever for each node to reboot. We end up paying someone to come and do it for us each time. We have TP Link as a “back up” which goes through the wires - way better.

Poor customer support service! I am not able to sign in and open the Linksys app for months! No way to figure out the problem even if I know my credentials! The router is giving an offline message. Then, after speaking with 5 agents, I found that Linksys support line is basically useless. They are aware of the issue, they make you do troubleshoot without success and then, they tell you that there is nothing they can do to fix it. So you find yourself with a router without many basic functions sold to me not working.
Q

Have tried to contact this company for support in every way possible. Nothing! Whatever support system they have in place, obviously isn't working and asks questions of a Telco company.

Linksys provides a wifi extender as my new Viasat modem didn't reach to the back of the house. The Viasat rep sold a set of 3 nodes (primary and two children) when he came to install the newest Viasat modem with Wifi capability. Linksys worked great for several months, then just quit, for no apparent reason. I contacted Linksys support by phone, and after a bit of finding the right human, I was placed with a tech, who, to make a long story short, helped me through resolving my issue. The tech thought the original issue may have been caused by insufficient surge protection, so I'm going to beef that up per his suggestion. Overall, though, when Linksys works, it's fine, and their human tech support came through for me when it didn't work. Wish their system had been more self-healing, but I'll still give them 4 stars.