TP-LinkER605 V2 Wired Gigabit VPN Router, Up to 3 WAN Ethernet Ports + 1 USB WAN, SPI Firewall SMB Router, Omada SDN Integrated, Load Balance, Lightning Protection

Before switching to the TP-Link ER605 V2, I was restarting my cable company’s modem/router combo once or twice a week due to constant dropouts and poor Wi-Fi performance. Since installing the ER605 and putting the modem in bridge mode, it has been running flawlessly for over 3 years—the only reboot I’ve done was after making configuration changes myself.At home, I use the ER605 with a TP-Link EAP610 for Wi-Fi, managed via the OC200 controller. At another property I manage, it’s paired with a TP-Link EAP225, controlled through the Omada software running on Proxmox. The entire Omada ecosystem—covering load balancing, firewall, VPN, and network management—is stable, intuitive, and enterprise-grade yet budget-friendly.If you need more ports with VLAN control and Omada integration, the TP-Link TL-SG2008 is an excellent choice. This smart managed PoE-in switch supports VLANs, L2/L3/L4 QoS, static routing, IGMP snooping, and link aggregation. It integrates seamlessly with the ER605 and is perfect for home labs or small business networks requiring flexibility and control.If you don’t need advanced management features, the TP-Link TL-SG108 is a simple, plug-and-play option. It’s unmanaged, fanless, built tough, and just works right out of the box—ideal for quickly expanding your wired network without fuss.

I've bought several of these now (including the ER600 model before it) for business and personal use and I have been really pleased with them. I've used them in all kinds of environments reliably (worse case has been in an unconditioned room with high temperatures). I've used just about all of the features across deployments and short of the documentation not being as clear as I would like on a couple of items, I've been able to get it to do everything I've needed, reliably.

I'm using this router without the Omada controller. The TP-Link EAP610 Ultra-Slim Wireless Access Point went on sale so I got that and then decided to also get this router.I have AT&T fiber and wanted to use VLANs to segrate my guests, IoT, and main devices from each other.This router is working great so far for this purpose.The ER605 router has 5 ethernet ports. I'm using the first port for WAN, so I connected that directly to the AT&T gateway. It is the only device connected to the gateway. I set the gateway to IP passthrough so that it's supposed to provide the ER605 with the internet/public IP address and sort of not use the AT&T gateway's firewall. I'm not sure if this is exactly how it works or if I set it up correctly, but it's working for me.Port 2 is untagged with my main VLAN. I connected an 8-port Netgear unmanaged switch to port 2. Connected to the switch are my main devices: desktop PC, two NAS, and a server. All of those devices automatically get assiged IP address to the main LAN since the switch is connected to port 2.Port 3 is also untagged with my main LAN, but I haven't connected anything to it.Port 4 is untagged with IoT and I connect my Philips Hue Bridge to it. It gets assigned a IP address within the IoT VLAN.Port 5 is tagged with the main VLAN, IoT VLAN, and Guest VLAN. I connected the EAP610 Access Point to port 5 so I can connect WiFi devices to the router.Within the EAP610, I created a main 2.4gz and 5gz SSIDs that gets tagged with main VLAN, so all devices that connect to those SSIDs automatically get assigned an IP address within the main VLAN. I also created a IoT 2.4gz and 5ghz IoT SSIDs and all devices connected to them are auto assigned IP addresses with the IoT VLAN. I created a guest 2.4gz and 5ghz SSIDs that gets tagged with Guest VLAN. I also set those SSIDs to be "guest network" within the EAP610 settings so that those devices only have access to internet and can't even see/ping each other even within the same guest VLAN. So the EAP610 can create multiple SSIDs and can tag VLANs. It is working great with the ER605 router. I'm using six SSIDs so far.On the ER605 router, I set it so the IoT VLAN can't connect/ping devices on the main VLAN. I only use the guest VLAN with wifi and the access point already sets them up as a "guest network" so those devices are unable to see/ping IoT or Main VLAN devices.This set up is working great so far, but I've only had these devices for a few days and finished setting things up the way I like them today. Time will tell if these Omada devices will last. Once I have the funds, I plan on getting the Omada controller and an Omada compatible switch.