Amped ALLY-0091K Wireless Ally Plus, Whole Home Smart Wi-Fi System

We bought this router 6 months ago and it worked fine with a few bumps. I have been having issues with this unit dropping Wi-Fi every day for the last month or so and it is still under warranty. Each time, we have to unplug and plug in or disconnect the cable and reconnect to get it to work again. I emailed the company and support told me to reset the unit which I did, but it didn't fix the problem. Now they are not returning my emails. I also see that the Amazon reviews have steadily gotten worse since I purchased this in December of 2017. $150 is a lot to pay for a router that lasts 6 months. After 3 more emails, the company finally agreed to replace the unit, but I have to send it back and wait for them to get it and then send us a new one. Ridiculous! I have teenagers and a data limit. How can they expect us to go without a router for 2+ weeks. Not a good company! Update: I received the new device in the mail a week ago, set it up and thought we should be good. It already drops twice a day minimum. My original concern to the company was that the router base and extender get really hot, but they said that was normal. Doubtful since I have the same problem with this brand new setup. I think I will have to throw in the towel and get a different brand. Amped is a bad product!!

I just received this and I can already tell you I am having the most horrific out-of-box experience I have ever had in my life. With a lot of stuff. Just to give you a quick idea: 1. It all runs by an app. But the "Let's Get Started" guide misnames the app so you can't find it, and provides a non-existent URL for further information. It took me half an hour on the chat with them to just get the app. 2. When I tried to create my account with the app, it told me I already had an account. This is quite impossible. I have never received an email from this company. I have no record of any such account. Customer service could not look up my account. There was no supervisor to escalate to. 3. So I played along and did "Forgot Password." I was able to reset my password and login, and the setup guide started. 4. I got a few steps into it, and for half an hour I am looking at a circle saying "Creating Your Network - we're still working on it." Half an hour??!! 5. I cannot get back into chat with them to get more help. On computer, clicking the "Chat Now" icon does nothing. On iPad, clicking the "chat now" button brings it up, but "enter" does not submit the statement, it only creates a newline. so it's impossible to actually start a chat. I tried on my phone, where I originally had it working, but it would not work. Actually, the wifi network is there. I will probably just kill and restart the app and see what happens. I'm willing to update rating and review if things get better, but this kind of endless setup trouble is the very last thing I would have expected. Mind boggling. I restarted app and got "Firmware Update Needed." So I escaped from the endless loop. Not it says "Update in Progress - this may take up to five minutes." Keeping my fingers crossed.Less than five minutes, but I've got "Update Failed." Tried again. Immediately got "Unexpected Error. Something went wrong. We're working towards fixing the problem. Please try again later." OMG. But now after dismissing that it says "Ally is up to date." Great. I'm looking at the part of the app that tells me who is online. It is VERY slow to update. And the setup thing is not telling me how to add the second device. I'll go back to the book for that, I guess. Also, default names for the 2 networks is the same name, so I can't choose 5g over 2.4g. That seems very strange. One hour later, I have the extender going and the thing is half decent. But only half. Extender could not get a lock in a place that was only about 80 feet from base unit. The signal I am getting now, about another 20 feet and a couple of walls from the extender, is mediocre. Same computer that will get 300 down and up in close vicinity on 5g gets about 30 down and 40 up on 2.4G and worse on 5G. Have not checked for dead spots yet in my not-so-big home, but I am sure I have some. Very disappointing. I had read a very positive online review from a reputable site - PC Mag I think - and ordered this on impulse. Don't know if I will keep it. It's an improvement over what I had, but only a small improvement. Another hour later, I connected my USB disk drive to the base station. There is nothing in the app to show me that a drive is connected. Nothing to explain how to access it. Who knows if it IS connected? Perhaps that is in "advanced setting." Oh yeah, they give you another non-existent URL for those: setup.ampedwireless.com - it isn't there. Does not exist. Not even a 404. Just does not exist. This company really needs to get its act together. Their 15,000 sq. ft. claim is, as others have said, laughable and completely absurd. Maybe they meant 1,500 sq. ft. I hate it when people straight-out lie about their products.

Had some trouble setting up system. Initially also had trouble contacting support. However, once I got to a support person he was very helpful. The system works well for a very reasonable cost. I particularly like the fact that there are 3 extra ethernet ports on the main router.

Update August 1, 2017: We have updated the firmware a couple of times. This added "Activity Report". If I remember to check in on the kids activity from time to time, this can be helpful. "Alerts" are still part of some future update. From a stability standpoint, this router is much less reliable than our old Airport Extreme. It requires a power-cycling reboot every week or two to keep all of our wireless devices working. The extender seems even more problematic, and the signal indicator light will change from green to orange after a while (which strangely enough, changes back to green after rebooting). In certain corners of the house, my phone will temporarily lose wi-fi, and then reconnect again twenty-ish seconds later, EVERY time I go there. If this is handoff between the main router and the extender, it is irritating. I have a couple of Echo Dots in these areas that will stop streaming for couple of minutes, and then start back up again. This is within 20 feet of the extender and 30 feet of the main router. As a parent, the ability to easily "pause" the internet is really helpful, the reporting is nice, but I'm otherwise missing our old router. Original Review: We've been using Amped Wireless ALLY Plus, Whole Home Smart Wi-Fi System (ALLY-0091K) for almost two weeks. Quick summary, if you don't want to read the whole review: it's pretty nice, but I expected more value for the money. I was pleased with the ease of setup. We did have to start over about a week in, and reinstall with new firmware to get more of the features working, which was a little hassle (starting over naming all of our wireless devices and users and settings). To place the extender I hooked it up to a long extension cord. I placed the extender about halfway across our home just before where I started losing signal strength (the extender has a helpful light that changes from green to orange to red). As a Wi-Fi system (with a router and an extender) it slightly outperforms our 3 year old Apple Airport Extreme (although this costs more than twice the price). A few of the previously weaker areas of our home (2500 sq feet, with a similar sized basement) now have a little stronger signal, but it's not overwhelming. I didn't do any scientific testing, but I did check 15 or so locations for signal strength, ping, and a download/upload speedtest. I was a little disappointed with the "up to 15,000 sq ft" promise, but that seemed a little too good to be true. Maybe in an open field. Regarding Parental Controls: some of it works. Using the ALLY app It is dead simple to create users, name and assign devices, set curfew times (by time of day, and day of the week), and pause the internet for a user or block a device. ALLY appears to block websites in a similar manner to OpenDNS (which is free). However, also like OpenDNS, it does not block ANY results on a Google search (though linked sites may be blocked). Common apps (Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube etc) can be easily blocked. Reports, alerts, and activity tracking are NOT available (as of Jan 13, 2017). I was told by customer support this was coming "soon". I was not able to get our X-box One to work wirelessly. Customer support stated "It could be the encryption as the Ally uses WPA-mixed mode and some device do not work very well with that." However, it works fine when wired if that's an option for you. Speaking of customer support, I only used email (although they do have phone service available) but they were very quick to respond to my concerns. All in all, it is not as powerful or as capable as I was hoping it would be, for the money. But, it's certainly not bad, and it may get better with software updates. Personally, I think all of the features that are advertised should have been completed before Amped started selling the system, or at the very least, update the product information to reflect accurately what works now, and what is planned for the future.

Easy setup, excellent performance. Finally have full house wireless coverage without issues moving between rooms. Web filtering feature needs work, but I don't use it.