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Forum Discussion
Need to EXTEND Orbi outdoors
I purchased this system 2 months ago and in our 2500 sq ft, 3 level home, coverage and performance have been exceptional, however once you go outside to our patio - which is less than 25' away from the satellite unit - we have seen a major problem with Skype/FaceTime performance (freezing, choppiness etc), which I want to deal with.
For this particular scenario I do not feel the purchase of another Orbi satellite is warranted, but I am looking for advice on making this work. I do not have LAN port installed outside, so this would have to be an extender/AP device solution I would think. I was thinking of getting one of the Netgear range extenders, but I honestly don't know if this is going to make my setup overly complex, and if I can get integration to the point of having a seamless transition from Orbi to extender connectivity if someone is, for example, walking with iPad on FaceTime in the house then walks out to the patio where the signal was degraded before.
I have read many negative accounts of people trying to do this, so I am hoping that the `Orbi users' can provide some real world context for me on how they solved this issue.
Thanks in advance,
Dan
12 Replies
Hello jdanham
I do not think a extender will help its hard to get strong wifi signal outside you may just try and re position your satellite and find if there is a better spot that will get signal to your patio.
DarrenM
or jus go buy a external wireless access point and run it back to your router via ethernet , connect it to your frre to air antenna point and you have outdoor wifi all over the place , nothing to do with orbi btw as they dont have an external weather proof WAP
OK I went ahead with purchasing the RBW30 Satellite, have placed it on our patio (protected from the elements) and successfully added it as my 2nd Orbi satellite.
Now I may have a misunderstanding about the underlying architecture here, but I tested 4 different locations in my front yard including the patio and my internet speed tests came back exactly the same. The outdoor unit is further away from the router unit, but it is maybe 25 feet from the other satellite unit that came with the kit. Since I had like almost 50% improvement in my wireless when I installed Orbi, I guess I was expecting the addition of this one to improve on the down/up speeds outside. Or is it more a case of the throughput will remain the same but the coverage in those areas will be better? I will run additional wireless signal tests, but now I am wondering where I am going to see the value of it. Maybe better to place in the basement?
when you say internet speed , what do you mean , eg using speed test ? and what is the max speed of your internet connection as this wont change
Yes speed being the Ookla Internet speed test. My ISP service is for 50mbps, and what impressed me the most about Orbi was I went from about 30 down and 5 up to over 50mbps and 12mbps respectively. In comparison, plugging directly into the ISP router my speeds were only a little better. I think my assumption that my new satellite was going to provide faster speed than 30mpbs was incorrect. But in case I'm wrong about that I was hoping someone might confirm otherwise. If everything hinges on proximity from the satellite and the main Orbi router, then I can see the mesh acting more as a coverage extension rather than a performance enhancement - again I am open to be corrected at any time :)
jdanham wrote:Now I may have a misunderstanding about the underlying architecture here, but I tested 4 different locations in my front yard including the patio and my internet speed tests came back exactly the same. The outdoor unit is further away from the router unit, but it is maybe 25 feet from the other satellite unit that came with the kit. Since I had like almost 50% improvement in my wireless when I installed Orbi, I guess I was expecting the addition of this one to improve on the down/up speeds outside. Or is it more a case of the throughput will remain the same but the coverage in those areas will be better? I will run additional wireless signal tests, but now I am wondering where I am going to see the value of it. Maybe better to place in the basement?
As others have said the placement of the satellite is very important.
You do need to make sure it is close enough to the router "and" is in a position to provide a good signal to the location you want to cover.
The so called hub and spoke topology.
But a mesh topology has its own set of limitations.
For example, if you place a satellite that needs to go via an intermediate satellite to get to the router with an internet connection and the devices also use dedicated wireless for backhaul then the wireless communication over the backhaul needs to be repeated to get communication back to the internet connected router. This repeating (or relaying) means that the backhaul of intermediate satellite needs to receive and then retransmit the wireless packets so its throughput will be half that of a satellite communicating directly to the router with the internet connection. So, again, palcement of satellite devices is critical but for a different reason.
It's a difficult balancing act, that's for sure.
