Review on Peplink Surf SOHO MK3 Router: Entry-Level Home Router with Cloud-Based Management (InControl), SUS-SOHO-T by Mike Rogers

I HATE this router. This is highly recommended due to the extensive security features. And yes, you can lock it tightly. But in recent years it's been plagued by connection problems, and it's only gotten WORSE, not better. It's getting older now, it's been around for years. I was willing to sacrifice speed for good security, stability, and good customer support, but I got none of that with this router. I think Peplink just dropped support for it. In the end I gave up too. First of all, there is some inaccurate and missing information on this page that I have reported to Revane. There are 4 LAN ports, not 6. And they don't mention that there is a 20 device limit (it's hidden in their specs). Even my parents probably have more than 20 devices. I don't really think this is the reason for the constant connection issues, but Peplink tried to use it as an excuse. I proved this was NOT the cause of problems by unplugging the units to get below 20 and the problems persisted. That proved he was a straw man, but didn't lead to a solution. I used this router from 2019 to 2021. Eventually I returned it and got a new one, so it wasn't just a lemon. I have 3 open tickets with them which they continue to assign the status 'Awaiting input from client' even though they expect NOTHING from me. I've encountered 3 different types of connection issues, NONE of which have been resolved: 1) Firmware 8.x issue causing some devices to disconnect intermittently. I see that DHCP keeps assigning the same IP addresses to the same devices in this case. This is said to be a known problem since the latest version 7.x, 7.1.2, i.e. since 2018. And I've never had this on 7.1.2, but I don't want to run firmware that's 3 years out of date. . They acknowledged that he likely has security flaws. 2) Even on 7.1.2 I had problems with Wi-Fi just disconnecting. It used to only happen every few months, but now it happens twice a week. It worked immediately after a reboot, but it happened so often that there was always a risk of it failing at the wrong time. For example in the middle of an important meeting or when travelling. I think it's overheating because it got a lot worse in the summer and it gets really hot. But I put a temp gauge next to it to monitor the heat and it was never above the normal operating temp. I have AS. They never asked any questions about the environment or anything. 3) In version 8.1.2 they identified some major issues with the 2.4GHz band. It was so bad that even rolling back to a previous firmware version didn't fix the problem. They claimed the issues were fixed in the latest version 8.1.2 (8.1.2 build 5011) but I still saw them there. And I even ran an 8.1.3 beta test on them and it STILL had the same 2.4GHz issues. And I still had problems even when I went back to good old 7.1.2. So it's not really fixed at all, although the release notes for both versions claim it's fixed. It was SUPER obvious once I had both versions installed. Do they test at all? I don't really trust them at the moment. They confirmed that these are all known issues and that they can reproduce the issues. But they never did any troubleshooting, they just asked for diagnostic reports and asked me to try new firmware versions which they admit have NO solution to the problems. They seem to be hoping that it will magically repair itself. They won't answer questions about when they're even going to try to fix something, which I infer is they've just stalled and won't admit they do NOT intend to fix it (or that they can't fix it). ). ). They only make it worse with these crippling releases. I think they just dropped support for this router. Almost every 8.x firmware release had major issues. I really liked all the features, but what's the point of having a business-class router if it's unstable, insecure and unsupported? Revain has agreed to give me a full refund even though the return period has passed. I'm very glad I bought it from Revain instead of Peplink. I generally prefer to support small businesses, but not this business. My experience with Peplink was terrible. Revain said they would also look at that product listing. If Revain hadn't returned my money, my credit card probably would have. Peplink offered me an RMA for a new device. They might even say for a better device if it gets approved, but I'm not wasting my time on it anymore. I've changed it before, it didn't help. They've had years to fix it and haven't even tried.