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Forum Discussion
2nd gen Eero announced.
Well. Eero just announced a new 2nd gen hardware, and I must say, I have pre-ordered it. Orbi raw speed is great (when it seems to work) but you have some major flaws that I just think it's time to...
as a beta tester let me assure you they are working on it , its a complex system and the beta test guys have been working overtime including myself to try and ascertain and help fix issues , the main issue is the way the orbi works is totally different to anything else on the market so they have nothing to cheat against , so its baby steps but its getting better
i will say eero can put more effort in as its their only product , they live and die by how well or poor it does , netgear have many many products and tbh this diversity does stretch the netgear staff and capability somewhat , but i can assure you they are trying , this is the longest beta testing i have ever done so the effort is certainly there from us and netgear
i certainly can understand the frustration as it is expensive and the expectations are not lost in transit , i too can be frustrated at times but i think long term investment wise its worth it for you guys as the DW ( distributed wif ) way of doing what it does is far better than mesh for most households
imho its a matter of time b4 they find a balance between usability and functionality , its just taking longer than usual as its a bit like the first man on the moon , eg there are no foot step to follow and a whole bare ground in front of them to explore and understand , the whole ap and band steering alone does my head in lol
cheers
pete
I think it is disgusting of Netgear to rely on their customers to beta test their products. The Orbi has been out for 9 months and they are still using their customers to fix it instead of hiring some talented IT people to fix. They are dishonest in marketing a product to the public that is full of bugs.
At some point, you have to look at the possibility of this being a hardware issue.
Beta Testing is where the real world testing is done. You can test a product in a lab all day and come up with perfect results but until a product or software is beta tested in real world scenarios you'll never know all the flaws. Even Apple beta tests, and relies on feedback to workout the bugs. I don't know any tech company that doesn't have some type of beta testing by customers or end users.
Nsiddons the why are we charged a Full price for a half finished product? Would you be expected to pay full price for a half cooked meal? Do we get a discount? NO!
JMU1998 wrote:Nsiddons the why are we charged a Full price for a half finished product? Would you be expected to pay full price for a half cooked meal? Do we get a discount? NO!
JMU1998 First let me start off with Orbi is not a half finish product. I personally have had no issues with my Orbi and I’m on the latest firmware I also have 2 other clients who also have no issues. Some people are having issues yes, but for every 1 person on this forum that is having an issue how many units are out there that are working flawlessly. This I how we know that Orbi is not a half finished product. Secondly and your gonna laugh 😆 how many pop up restaurants are out there charging FULL price for them to test out their restaurant idea on you. This is not me say Orbi is doing this but I just want to kill that way of thinking. We are not beta testers but we are using a product that is the first of its kind and we are in the trenches. And I’m gonna have tons of people saying how is Orbi the first of its kind, I’m not gonna get into that cause that’s a whole other topic.
Silver0066 wrote:
I think it is disgusting of Netgear to rely on their customers to beta test their products. The Orbi has been out for 9 months and they are still using their customers to fix it instead of hiring some talented IT people to fix. They are dishonest in marketing a product to the public that is full of bugs.
private beta testing with a group of willing users is actually a far better option that releasing it to the wild and letting the early adopters be beta testers , this happens with many manufactures as they can afford the r and d and testing time , netgear do and have a specific team employed to beta test with various users and various setups and countries , the orbi being a completly new and different way of doing things has come across some complex and to be honest quite confusing situations that even i cant explain , one being why many have perfect working orbi's and others have nothing but issues , this massive a descrepency can be hard to fatom never mind resolve but the r and d team are still on this even today as its not like they have just dumped the orbi on the market and moved on as is obvious by the amount of fw updates there has been
pete
Silver0066 wrote:
I think it is disgusting of Netgear to rely on their customers to beta test their products.
I spend most of my time in the ReadyNAS forums, but happened to run across this.
To clarify - Netgear certainly does their own Q/A, and that includes automated testing in shielded rooms that allows them to precisely measure wifi performance under a lot of different signal conditions. I was able to visit their San Jose facility last year, and saw them testing Orbi in one of those rooms.
They use closed beta testing to supplement the normal testing, not to replace it. Only some products are chosen for closed betas - I imagine it is quite expensive to do. In my opinion Orbi is a good candidate for these betas, since it's ideal to test the backhaul performance in homes, and not just in lab conditions.
If you participate in these tests, you do get to keep the equipment. Generally it is beta-quality, and not final production. In my opinion the beta testers do more than enough to earn that equipment - the testing takes quite a bit of time.
FWIW, I do have an Orbi setup and it is working out well for me. Nighthawks gave better near-router wifi speeds, but Orbi gives good wifi speeds throughout the house. I agree there's more that can be done, and no doubt there are still bugs to fix.
