Google Home causing disconnect/reboot of Orbi

Yep!  Like clockwork!!  Exact same scenario for me with my Pixel. My wife was in the middle of a ride on her Peloton one morning when the router rebooted. That was fun!

I think I'm going to pick up a 3 pack of the Gen 2 Eero this weekend. I started out with Eero but went to Orbi because I was losing too much speed on my Eero units that were more than one hop away from the main unit. But now I've added in some Ethernet wiring so I'm hoping that with the upgrade in strength (I had the original Gen 1 devices) and having the first two devices wired together I'll see much better results. 

It's such a shame because the speed and coverage of Orbi is the best out there. But I can't deal with these stupid crippling bugs. I want a set and forget system. 

A router that reboots when a device is activated is unacceptable,  I suggest anyone who is having similar issues to return their orbi if it's possible. Save yourself the trouble and $, I wish I did.  

Interesting conversation I had with the Best Buy sales associate when purchasing the EERO.  I was already carrying the EERO box when a sales associate approched me asking politely if I needed any help or had any questions.  I asked him his thoughts on the EERO (I work in sales and a sales person generally knows most about customer complaints) he said they are good but not as fast and more expensive than the Orbi.  I explained that I was looking to replace my Orbi due to the disconnecting/rebooting.  He seemed genuinely suprised and embarrassed, I confirmed to him the Orbi is fast, but not worth the speed at the expense of stability.  He then accepted this and told me yes then maybe the EERO is a good alternative.  

As I work in sales it is upsetting when I'm doing my job and selling a product based on a promise from the manufacturer that when they say it is "the best" and parrot that to the consumer only to have the manufacturer not deliver on their promise, leaving the front line (me/sales people) embarassed and discouraged.  I do think that the Bestbuy sales associate genuinely thought the Orbi was/is the best, I hope now though he will think twice before pushing the product.  

I think with this type of problem, it is up to the consumer to spend their hard earned money on companies that genuinely care about their customers and take pride in the products they produce. 

Consumers are not dumb and some manufacturers will only know this by not buying their products.  

Sorry Netgear you let me down.  

There's another thread about reboots that started looking at Google Home as the culprit, but it's also been determined it's probably not specifically the Home - https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-RBK50-keeps-rebooting/m-p/1469095/highlight/false#M19196

That being said, I think it's probably Android related - people have noted Pixel 2's potentially being an issue, but I have a Note 8. I had the Orbi for three days before going on a 5 day trip - it was rebooting daily if not several times a day. It did not reboot ONCE while I was gone, despite having a dog sitter using ALL the same things I use when I'm home - except she has an iPhone. I've been home less than 24 hours and it already rebooted.

Netgear needs to figure out how a CLIENT Android device is forcing their $300 router to reboot. I'm not sure what's more crazy - the fact it's happening, or that with their knowledge and resources, can't recreate and resolve it!

Here's a more general thread about Android devices causing the crash:  https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Android-8-Crashes-Orbi/td-p/1452080

You don't have to read 100+ replies on that one.  Here is a sample: "I have a Pixel and I went on vacation for 5 days.  No crashes while I was gone.  As soon as I returned, the Orbi started crashing/rebooting".  I paraphrased it but it doesn't get any more clear than that.

Although the title says Android 8, it's happening to some peopple with Android 7.0.  I also woke my "bathroom" phone with Android 5.1 and Orbi immediately crashed.  I don't know if that's a coincidence but I don't feel like being the guinea pig.  

My Note 8 isn't an 8.* device either, so yeah agree it's not Pixel specific. I've sat through five random reboots tonight (while trying to watch a streaming movie.....ugh). Think I'll just hook up my old Nighthawk and return this trash. It's literally unusable, despite any amount of resetting, modifying router settings, enabling\disabling features, etc.

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestions but unfortunately a couple of days of uptime without a random reboot is still not good enough. I work from home pretty often and I'm in a bit of an iffy cell area, so the random reboots interupt WiFi calls, VPN, and WiFi video conferencing. My Nighthawk never reboots randomly - it can be up and stable for weeks or months at a time. The slight speed and coverage boost (which were nice, but not necessary for my setup) don't justify the $200 cost and unreliability.

I have the same issue with my Pixel XL. Randomly reboots the Orbi, especially when just turning wifi on for the first time.  The fact this hasn't  been fixed yet by Netgear is insane.  I seriously can't believe the instability of this device.  I'd take mine back if I could.  I'm on the latest firmware as well.  v2.1.1.16.

I'm having regular wifi outages on my RBR50/RBS50 network. Looks like TP-Link figured out the issue with Google devices. I have a Google Home, three Chromecasts, and a Pixel 2 XL. I've temporarily eliminated the symptom by powering off all the Google products. Obviously not a solution, but it confimed the symptom.

https://9to5google.com/2018/01/15/google-chromecast-home-wifi-outage/

Thank you for posting that.  I thought I was going crazy.  We've tried every setting imaginable to determine what was causing the conflict for the Orbi RBK50 and satellite and the consequential crashing of the network.  We knew waking our Android phones or tablet have caused the Orbi system to crash, just not why.  Before Christmas, we had a Netgear Nighthawk  R7000 and its extender the EX7000 - It too was beginning to have crashing issues.  We have been slowly increasing our Google products and are now up to 4 Google Homes, and  5 Chromecasts, plus phones and tablet.

Hopefully, Netgear puts out a patch for this. Looks like other TP-Link and Linksys are already rolling one out.

https://kb.netgear.com/000053549/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-Version-2-1-2-18

Here it is...go get it.  Can't be any worse than constant reboots.

Edit: it does NOT fix the random reboots.  I just had 2 reboots, and both of my Android phones are off WIFI!  Come on Netgear, lets go!  Fix the damn thing.

I don't think the .18 release had much if anything to do with the google / cast issue.

Saw this in the Android 8 thread:

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7634752

Look for a Google Play Services update this weekend I guess and see what happens.  When I get it for my phone, I'll then go around and reboot all my google home / chromecast / android TV / google assistant devices and see what happens.

Got the update tonight; does not resolve the Orbi rebooting when phone is woken from sleep

Here is additional info on this https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/chromecast-and-google-homes-reportedly-overloading-home-wi-fi/

This occurs when the device is awakened from its "sleep" state, and could exceed more than 100,000 packets. The longer your device is in "sleep," the larger this packet burst will be. This issue may eventually cause some of router's primary features to shut down

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 Seems the workaround to this issue until the patch gets out is to prevent your devices from going into sleep mode - or bringing them out often by setting up a scheduled task.

Netgear, since you can't seem to fix the Orbi, are you going to start issuing refunds? or exchanging everyone to Orbi Pros (which doesn't appear to have these problems, because you value business customers over regular consumers?)? TP-link, Linksys, and others have already gotten it fixed... How long for a Chromecast/Android fix Netgear?

I installed the beta update for Google Play Services on 4 Android phones and ran them all weekend with zero Orbi crashes.  The beta app does fix the problem.  My advice to anyone with this frustrating issue:  Do not wait for Google to release the official app...  Who knows how long that will take...  Sideload the APK immediatly!  

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/google-play-services/google-play-services-11-9-74-release/

I'm on 11.9.75 from Jan 20th and my wifi is still acting up.  Constantly searching for network on my laptop but can connect to the guest one it seems just fine.  So dunno what is cause it to do that, but I got 3 google mini's in December and thats about when this started acting up so thats why I figured it could be related.

Netgear still needs to come up with a fix for their end... TP-Link, Linksys, and others have done it already... and I have all my CAST devices unplugged, and uninstalled Google Home app from my phone and I am still having issues with the Orbi, so Netgear has another issue to address also