TP-LINK RE500 v1.x

abgn+ac (AC1900)
AC1900 Wi-Fi Range Extender
Homepage	Product page
Support	Support page
Wikipedia	TP-Link
WikiDevi.wi-cat.ru	TP-LINK RE500 v1.x
3rd Party Firmware
dd-wrt	Status Unknown
OpenWrt	Supported
Tomato any flavor	Incompatible
Gargoyle	Status Unknown
Platform
Brand • Model • Rev	TP-LINK RE500 v1.x
FCC ID	TE7RE650
IC ID	8853A-RE650
Board ID	1607132650-1.0
Type	range extender, access point
CPU1 Y	MediaTek MT7621AT
CPU1 Type	MIPS 1004Kc
CPU1 Speed	880 MHz ( 2 cores ) 16-bit
Flash1 Chip	Winbond W25Q128FVSG
Flash1 Size	16 MiB 16,777,216 B <br />131,072 Kib <br />16,384 KiB <br />128 Mib <br />0.0156 GiB <br />
RAM1 Size	128 MiB 134,217,728 B <br />1,048,576 Kib <br />131,072 KiB <br />1,024 Mib <br />0.125 GiB <br />
RAM1 Chip	Nanya NT5CC64M16GP-DI
ETH chip1	MediaTek MT7621AT
Ethernet Port Count	1-1GbE-LAN
Wired Standard	IEEE 802.3i/3u/3ab
802dot11 OUI: none specified
Stock bootloader	U-Boot
Expansion IF types	none specified
Power	100-240 VAC ~ ? Hz, 0.4 A
Connector type	AC (direct)
Serial Port (UART)	yes, 3.3V TTL, (57600 8N1)
Flags: Wave2, MU-MIMO, flip-up antenna
Other
Default SSID: TP-LINK_Extender_2.4GHz (13 addl. devices) , TP-LINK_Extender_5GHz (13 addl. devices) Default IP address: 192.168.0.254 the IP 192.168.0.254 is used by 49 additional devices of which 24 are TP-LINK devices Default login user: admin Default login password: admin admin:admin credentials used by 1358 additional devices of which 283 are TP-LINK devices
Manuf/OEM/ODM	Proware
3rd Party Firmware Support	OpenWrt • (List | Dev | DLs)
Retail
Availability	End of Life
FCC approval date	18 January 2017
(Est.) initial retail price (in USD):	$110
Newegg	27J-0014-00001
ASIN	B0718ZGS22
Country of manuf	China
Radio 1
Chip1	MediaTek MT7615N
Wireless interface OUI	none specified
Antenna Connector Type	none specified
MIMO status	3x3:3
Wireless Standard	IEEE 802.11b/g/n
n-QAM	up to 600 Mbps
802.11n	up to 450 Mbps
802.11g	up to 54 Mbps
802.11b	up to 11 Mbps
WiFi Operating Frequency	2.4 GHz
Radio 2
Chip1	MediaTek MT7615N
Wireless interface OUI	none specified
Antenna Connector Type	none specified
MIMO status	3x3:3
Wireless Standard	IEEE 802.11a/n/ac
802.11ac	up to 1300 Mbps
802.11n	up to 450 Mbps
802.11a	up to 54 Mbps
WiFi Operating Frequency	5 GHz
FCC ID TP-LINK RE650 v1.x TE7RE650

For a list of all currently documented MediaTek chipsets with specifications, see MediaTek.

For a list of all currently documented TP-LINK devices with specifications, see TP-LINK.

• 600 Mbps - 3SS 2.4GHz 802.11n (40MHz chan., 256-QAM),

• 1300 Mbps - 3SS 5GHz 802.11ac (80MHz chan.) = AC1900 class

Overview

"1607132650-1.0-A Rev1.0sp3" is silkscreened on the board in the FCC photos.

FCC docs cover the TP-LINK RE650 v1.x and the RE500. Test Report DTS says, "There is nothing different of two models, just for different marketing use." This RE500 might be limited to three-stream operation in software.

Web GUI: http://tplinkrepeater.net

Flashing

Flashing OpenWrt

On the OpenWrt ToH (techdata entry)
On the OpenWrt Wiki

Target: ramips
Subtarget: mt7621
Package architecture: mipsel_24kc
Supported Since Commit
Support started version: 21.02.0
Current supported version: 25.12.2

WLAN Hardware: MediaTek MT7615N
WLAN Comment: 4x4:3 MIMO both channels
Installation method(s):
GUI OEM, U-Boot TFTP + serial recovery, see git-commit
Recovery method(s):
U-Boot TFTP + serial recovery, see git-commit

git • >>

ramips: add support for TP-Link RE500 v1 This device uses the same hardware as RE650 v1 which got supported in 8c51dde. Hardware specification: - SoC 880 MHz - MediaTek MT7621AT - 128 MB of DDR3 RAM - 16 MB - Winbond 25Q128FVSG - 4T4R 2.4 GHz - MediaTek MT7615E - 4T4R 5 GHz - MediaTek MT7615E - 1x 1 Gbps Ethernet - MT7621AT integrated - 7x LEDs (Power, 2G, 5G, WPS(x2), Lan(x2)) - 4x buttons (Reset, Power, WPS, LED) - UART header (J1) - 2:GND, 3:RX, 4:TX Serial console @ 57600,8n1 Flash instructions: Upload openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_re500-v1-squashfs-factory.bin from the RE500 web interface. TFTP recovery to stock firmware: Unfortunately, I can't find an easy way to recover the RE without opening the device and using modified binaries. The TFTP upload will only work if selected from u-boot, which means you have to open the device and attach to the serial console. The TFTP update procedure does *not* accept the published vendor firmware binaries. However, it allows to flash kernel + rootfs binaries, and this works if you have a backup of the original contents of the flash. It's probably possible to create special image out of the vendor binaries and use that as recovery image.