Firmware V1.12.0.18 Discussion

I had such high hopes for this router, but am seriously starting to regret my decision to purchase this.  Since it has been installed, I have seen intermittent network / Internet dropouts, and I just experienced one again a few seconds ago.  Like others, it generally only lasts a few seconds, but as many of you know, a few seconds is enough to drop that Skype call or get you booted from your online game.  We're fairly heavy users, with 25+ devices in the house, including a couple of teenagers that are constantly streaming videos and gaming, and as of a couple of months ago we decided to become cord-cutters, and now use Playstation Vue, Hulu, and Amazon TV heavily.

My router was automatically updated to 1.12.0.18 firmware, and I did experience the issue that many of you have seen where the satellite didn't reconnect to the main unit.  This is what drove me to the forum in the first place, and to see if there was potentially a new firmware version that I could install.  Who would have guessed that the firmware update was what caused the problem in the first place.  That issue is fixed now (a complete reboot of the entire system, and most of my network devices), but I am VERY disappointed to see that the intermittent dropouts have NOT been fixed.  To make matters worse, Netgear's response to try to fix this issue appears to be disabling a WHOLE BUNCH of useful features, such as schedules (are you kidding me...this has been one of the MOST BASIC features available for routers for YEARS!)

I didn't spend $400 for this.  I spent the money to get me speed, coverage for my entire home, and most important, network stability.  The speed is there, but I honestly don't believe that the coverage is any better than my R7000 Nighthawk (I have that running in AP mode, and can connect to it anywhere that I can connect to the Orbi), and the stability of the Orbi is terrible.

One of the suggestions I saw was to completely factory reset the Orbi if you are still having problems after the firmware upgrade.  I am willing to do that, but I don't want to do that if I'm just wasting my time.  So, can anybody tell me if I can TRULY expect any improvement if I factory reset my unit?  Is it a 1 in 10 shot, or a 1 in 1,000,000 shot?

I'm just so disappointed.  Is it time to switch to Asus or Airport Extreme, or do I seriously start looking at commercial routers?  So far, just about every consumer router I have purchased from Netgear, D-Link, Linksys, Trendnet, and TP-Link have been crap (my old Linksys WRT54G was the best router I ever owned, but from what I've read online the new versions of this router aren't that good).  I can say this:  I would have a VERY hard time handing over hundreds of more dollars to Netgear after this experience.

Sorry for the length of the message...I guess I just needed to vent my frustrations.  I am interested to hear your feedback though regarding the factory reset of my Orbi.

Thanks,

Jason