TP-Link CPE510, Long Range Outdoor CPE for PtP, PtMP Transmission 5GHz N300

ultimately the cpe510 does do an excellent job of delivering high speed wifi but there are lots of pitfalls to be aware of. the first thing to know is that 13dBi is just barely enough to reach the wifi hotspot that is less than a block away (1 block = ~ 500 feet). if you are in an RV you should look for a bigger more powerful antenna, this is unlikely to work for you. also anything less than 3 bars on the cpe510 meter (about 73db) and I could not get a reliable connection. if you have two cpe510s talking to each other apparently you can get this to work up to 10 miles. but when talking to an ordinary access point your range is much less. another thing to be very aware of is that unlike most wifi routers, this is not dual band, it ONLY supports the 5GHz range. some devices especially older cellphones don't work with 5GHz and require the 2.4GHz band. if I had realized this before I bought it I probably would have gotten something else. thankfully it didn't matter for my specific use case, everything I want to use it with is 5GHz capable. I specifically wanted to use this with an xfinitywifi hotspot (long story about areas of internet inaccessibility omitted) but I very nearly sent this back because it wouldn't work, it would connect but no traffic would pass. I spent several very frustrating hours online chatting with TP-Link tech support. two different techs were clueless about how to solve the problem and there was nothing in their knowledge-base about it., [update: a tech support supervisor contacted me to apologize for their techs failing to solve my problem, and we had a great conversation, they have now added this solution (below) to their knowledge-base so that in future anyone seeking help can be given the answer. I was very impressed by their response - you can expect super excellent tech support from TP-Link] I also spent many hours searching the internet trying to find an answer for why this wasn't working with xfinitywifi. so after days of trying different things and endless frustration and searching I finally got it to work and here is the answer that you need. xfinitywifi requires you to have a paid account that you login to (despite their claims about free access during covid) in order to use their hotspots. but what is not apparent is that they also register and keep track of the individual devices that you are using to connect with. none of that is actually a problem though. except.. for when it is. what is a major problem is that this link is nearly impossible to find, this is the list of YOUR registered devices. I don't know why they hide this link but they do at least as of when I am writing this. https://customer.xfinity.com/#/settings/security/hotspot-devices in ~Bridge~ Mode the router is supposed to be transparent/invisible when it forwards the packets from one connection to the other. But I was unable to get that to work with the cpe510 and that is a huge problem which prevents it from working with xfinitywifi. thankfully there is a work-around (other than replacing the firmware with dd-wrt which voids your warranty). what you need to do is to get the cpe510 registered with xfinitywifi as one of your authorized devices. until it is registered as a known/approved device xfinity will refuse to allow traffic to flow to/through it. now the catch is that there is not any way to directly register the cpe510 with xfinitywifi. so instead you configure your laptop to pretend that it is the cpe510 and then you register your laptop with xfinitywifi. this will trick xfinitywifi into accepting the cpe510 as an approved device. what you have to do is to open up the cpe510 status page on your browser and find the MAC Address: the cpe has 2 MAC Addresses, the one that you want is in the WAN section, if you use the one from the LAN section this won't work, so make sure you get the correct one. Now for the tricky bit, I can't tell you specifically how to do this because it depends on your operating system and even varies by version and updates so you will have to search this out, once you know how it is actually very simple to do. But what you want is to temporarily set the wifi card of your laptop to use the MAC Address of the cpe510. on my laptop this entry is called Cloned MAC Address and is in the network settings. You just put the cpe510's MAC Address in that address field and you are all set. Now take your laptop to someplace where the signal is strong enough for you to directly connect your laptop to xfinitywifi. it can be any hotspot it does not have to be the same one that you intend to use with the cpe510. now just connect your laptop and login to xfinity. login.xfinity.com and then verify that the MAC Address of the cpe510 now shows up in the list of your registered devices. you also have to configure the cpe510 for WISP Mode That's it you are done!!! your cpe510 will now be allowed to connect to xfinitywifi hotspots (any hotspot). be sure to reset your laptop's wifi card back to normal where it is using it's own MAC Address and not the cpe510s MAC Address. it's a bit of a headache, but if you are familiar with network settings this is a simple task. finding this info however took a huge effort, so here is my gift to you. Enjoy! bottom line, if you can find a strong enough signal for the cpe510 and you get the MAC Address registered following the above procedure (takes about 15 minutes plus moving the laptop) then the cpe510 does do an excellent job of delivering high speed internet via an xfinitywifi connection. P.S. this only applies to xfinitywifi , for any other use the cpe510 works fine without jumping through any hoops.

It has been 6 years since I bought this product . I just want to give a shoutout that it is still holding strong on my outdoor wall . On rainy day , the signal weaken a bit , but it surprisingly does really well in winter and survive multiple winter storm. ————————- My situation : apartment has free WiFi, but the signal is too weak I bought one device in hoping to enhance the WiFi signals How to : follow the YouTube video to get to the set up page , set it up as bridge, the important part is : click on “survey” to find the network that you wan to connect and lock it Comment: best 50 dollar I have spent in 2020 . This save me so much money and time. My old 30 dollar tplink extender die after 2 year so I decided to give this a try . Not only I can set up my own WiFi and password, my download speed went up to 30mbps instantly . What a huge difference. The setup was a huge pain, the one on the video only talk about how to set up with two devices which is useless to me, but the two hours set up time is still wayyyyyy cheaper than my 100 internet bill

UPDATE….I have now used this product for over a year to transmit WiFi from my cabin to a metal shed 100 yards away. It has performed flawlessly. Not a single hiccup. I use it primarily for WiFi calling/texts/internet searches on my phone. I added a wireless security camera so I can watch over the tractor, 4 wheelers, boat, etc when I’m not there. I added smart switches so I can switch off the shed lights at 10pm when I look out the cabin window and realize I left them on. Finally I put in a television with a Roku with the Tablo app to wirelessly access the cabin TV antenna. I can now turn on the football/basketball/etc game while I putz around with my chores. It works surprisingly well. Original Review…I spend a lot of time in a metal building barn 100 yards from my cabin. My eero mesh in the cabin will not penetrate the metal building. I purchased 2 of these cpe510 units. I installed one as the host in the cabin connected by Ethernet to the primary eero router. The other is mounted outside the metal barn with an Ethernet cable running inside to another eero router. IT WORKS! Coverage in the shed is excellent. No more walking outside the shed to make a call, send a text, or do a search. No more stopping work when I’m expecting a call. I am very pleased. I must say, the setup of the antennae was unusually difficult. The provided instructions were pitifully inadequate. I am handy, but no IT expert. Among many other steps, you are required to set separate static IP addresses for the host and client antennae. Even drafting that sentence makes my eyes glaze over. 🙄. I could not have completed it without the patient assistance of Edemer Nunez at TP Link support. He spent 45 minutes in the phone shepherding me through the setup process. Whatever they are paying him…it’s not enough. I own several products from TP Link. Particularly the Kasa 360 degree cameras. Excellent products that are easy to install and use. Not so with the CPE 510. The product works well. TP Link must simplify the installation process, AND, give Edemer a raise!

I used this CPE510 in client mode to catch a wifi signal from my house and pass it through the wall of a steel outbuilding to a third-party AP. I had been able to connect to the wifi standing just outside the outbuilding, but once you went inside, the signal dropped, so this is the solution I came up with so I wouldn't have to bury 25 yards of cable. For my purposes, it works great once it's set up, but the web UI config page is pretty opaque, and there are no messages, logs, or other indications when something doesn't work. For instance, I was able to find my wifi SSID with no problems, and the CPE510 saw the network just fine and let me put in the password. But it showed no attempt to actually connect, and no activity at all on the "signal strength" LEDs. After pounding my head against the wall for a while, I randomly switched the network from WPA2/WPA3 to plain WPA2, and the CPE510 connected right away. There's no specific documentation anywhere online beyond the Quick Start guide, either, and firmware support is a mystery. The latest firmware offered on the website is older than the firmware installed when I received the unit, which is already two years old. No idea whether or not there's any newer version that exists somewhere. Overall, as long as it works, it works great. If not, good luck troubleshooting, because you're on your own.

After seeing $300+ directional wifi extension antennas and the like, I came by these affordable little gadgets! At $47 a pop I bought two. Configured one as an Access Point at the main residence (hard-wired to the LAN) and the second as a Client over 250' away where internet connectivity was desired. The wizards included as part of the administrative portals these come loaded with made setup a breeze using a laptop and browser. Attached an additional Netgear AP to the Client device to have full wired and wireless LAN access at the client device location (in this case our workshop). The TP-Link Access Point device alone boosted the wifi signal easily 400+ feet. However at about 250-300+' away wireless devices (phone, laptop, etc) would not have enough power for two-way communication back to the AP - hence the need for the second Client device. Hardwired to LAN or 5G wireless at the main residence (where the cable modem & AP is located): 120Mbps↓ and 5Mbps↑ Hardwired to LAN or 5G wireless at the workshop (where Client is located): 80Mbps↓ and 5Mbps↑ Highly recommend for cheaply and easily extending your network wirelessly. Solid performance right out of the box at 250-400'; did not test at longer distances even though there are additional device configurations for it.

There is so much to potentially like about this product but ultimately I never got it to work in the field. This product fits in a difficult niche: offering features beyond the capability of most SOHO devices, but clearly not catering to network professionals. This requires relying on a web interface instead of CLI. Worst of all is that you MUST go through the quick config before you can get into the details of config through the web interface. Quick config determines what the interfaces are named (the ETH interface can be called LAN or WAN depending on which quick config you choose, etc). Quick config also forces you into routing or bridging, but you'd be hard pressed to figure that out from the documentation because it is severely dumbed down to the point of being essentially meaningless. All the docs will do is walk you through one "recipe" config to get a web cam attached to a single computer that is not already on any existing network. Not enough details for anyone who understands TCP/IP to know what's going on, too much information for the average home user to do anything with other than follow the recipe. The most frustrating feature of all is what appears to be a late addition to the product's security. To extend an existing network you need to be in "AP Router" quick config apparently. This causes the ETH interface to be named WAN since they assume it's hooked directly to the internet. It also forces the WLAN interface into bridge mode instead of routing mode and calls the interface BRIDGE. All of this would be fine but to protect the users from themselves it immediately deactivates the web interface on the ETH "WAN" port to prevent hackers from getting in to your modem. Anybody see the problem with that yet? Yep, you are essentially locked out of ALL the advanced features because there is no longer any way to get into the web interface. If it doesn't work, and you only get 6 questions in quick config to choose from, you need to factory reset and start over and get locked out again. After probably 2 dozen factory resets and some help from the forum deciphering what the instructions actually meant, I did get it working in the lab. It worked great actually and as frustrating as the VERY limited quick config choices were, they did force me into a working bridging config. It wasn't how I wanted it to work but it worked. Here I hit the biggest frustration of all: it doesn't act consistently after hard resets. I typically want to see multiple power cycles in the lab to have confidence that it works and take it out into the field. It just doesn't work that reliably. Sometimes it comes up on the manually set IP address, sometimes it reverts back to factory default. Sometimes the DHCP server starts, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it comes up split brain where it remembered the WLAN settings but forgets the LAN settings, and sometimes it just reboots itself continuously and can never even be pinged on LAN. After a couple of dozen more factory resets (in hindsight it must have been acting erratically all along) I had what seemed like a working config. It survived 3 power cycles in the lab so I took it in the field. Local ethernet never once came up, had the DHCP server start, and not spontaneously reboot. I've wasted hours on this thing, time to return it unfortunately and try a more expensive option. Too bad, they clearly spent a lot of time on this product and I really wanted it to work for me.

*5 month update* while im still not thrilled about the false advertising mentioned below, I am a bit impressed by this. in bridge mode this thing is rock solid stable. I have not had a single issue with this loosing connection to my main router, it just works. this provides a data connection to a remote POE switch that runs six POE security cameras, three of those are 4K cameras. I couldn't ask for better reliability. I do have ping watch dog enabled on the unit so if it cant ping my routers IP it will auto reboot after 3 failed pings 1 minute apart, so it is possible it could loose connection from time to time but it fixes itself before I notice. while this will work for my needs it looses 3 stars for blatant false advertising. while the wireless does have a theoretical connection speed of 300mbps the ethernet port is only 10/100. in bridge mode using the ethernet as the output I cant use the max bandwidth. doing a speed test I only get 93mbps throughput out of the ethernet port. another major issue is this item does not adhere to normal POE standards i was hoping my outdoor POE switch would power this but when connected the switch doesn't indicate a device connected to the port and the AP doesn't power up, I have to use the included POE injector. this is an issue since the POE switch is hardwired and has no outlets near it. I'm considering cutting the plug off the injector and hardwiring it inside the housing with the POE switch. don't get me wrong, like most TP link items, this unit is quality but if it had a gigabit ethernet port like it should have had and followed normal POE standards instead of requiring the included injector it could have been much better. Photos are of my completed remote security cam POE switch using this as it’s connection to my network. I haven’t deployed it yet. Due to the Poe issue I mention above I had to glue the included POE injector into the enclosure and cut the plug off to hard wire it. I know it the pics the ground isn’t covered with shrink wrap and that is because it doesn’t have to be, the ground shorting to the case is a good thing. The hot and neutral wires have shrink wrap to protect against short circuits. Not much room left in the enclosure for 8 camera drops but I’ll manage. *UPDATE* this device does actually follow a POE standard, its just passive POE. My switch is for active POE devices. a vast majority of POE devices are active. Passive is a cheaper standard to follow. Passive POE will not work with active since active POE switched communicate with the powered device to determine its power needs. the switch cant negotiate with passive devices so it just ignores that something was plugged in.

I purchased the CPE510 to provide high bandwidth internet to our neighborhood HOA 4k security cameras for live stream and playback. The devices are only separated by a quarter of a mile distance in the southeastern USA, but the wireless setup is not true line of site due to interfering trees. 3 months in, I could not be happier with the outcome for such an affordable price. In terms of environment, I am in a heavy foliage and humid area, but the trees, leaves, and rainy weather do not seem to interfere with performance. I also low-profiled both transmit and receive antennas by camouflage painting with a non-metal base paint resulting in no negative wireless impact (pictures attached). The configuration software assumes intermediate technical knowledge. I configured a few things manually since I wanted no DHCP clients and only MAC allowed devices on the network since the receiver is installed in a public area. Using the built in tool, I completed an area wireless scan to ensure my frequencies would not fight neighboring devices. In this process, the Pharos config allowed me to choose only “A” transmission as opposed to “N” which I thought might be beneficial. I experienced negative impact after making this change from random wireless disconnects so I reverted to default N wireless settings and problems disappeared. For speed comparison, my hardwired POE are generally the same speed as I’m receiving when using the CPE510 – that’s between 300 & 400 kbps on low bandwidth and 4,000 to 4,500 kbps on high bandwidth. I tweaked Pharos a lot using Google Chrome on Windows 11 to get what I call proper custom settings which is a great feature of this device. The end result is exactly what I hoped and wireless speeds are just as responsive as our other hardwired POE cameras. The Pharos software seems glitchy sometimes and says changes must be saved many minutes after making the change. I made a habit of saving changes then rebooting to ensure my config was saved properly. The control panel allows a configuration export for safe long-term keeping. For reference, all network cabling I used is CAT6 outdoor shielded with gig switches in between. I have had no reason to interact with TP Link support so I have no feedback for long-term support of this product other than reviewing their website for firmware changes, but I definitely recommend the device considering its moderate price and detailed configuration abilities.

The CPE works well and the connection is stable. However, the speed is limited to around 80 Mbps, which is lower than expected. Other than that, it performs really well and reliable.

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Exceptionally good product. Connected farmers house receiving 4G internet to AI milking parlor 400 yards away. Very easy install, alignment and setup. Highly recommend.

Easy to install, but the manufacturer could have included more zip ties and a proper manual on how to install (physical and configuration). Work fine but will take some time and patience to setup. Had to buy for getting wifi to distant house (2 houses with one connection)

Utilicé un par de estos para compartir el internet de una casa a otra. En la otra casa que no tenía internet, agregué un Access Point para dar acceso a la red por Wifi y este lo conecté al CPE. Fácilmente se alcanza la velocidad de 100 Mbps y nunca se cae la conexión. La verdad muy recomendables. Ahora ya no hay necesidad de pagar por otro servicio de internet :)