NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
NETGEAR INTRODUCES A FAMILY OF ORBI TRI-BAND WIFI SYSTEMS
We are announcing the availability of two new Orbi kits and two new Stand Alone Satellites.
- RBK30: The new Orbi Tri-band WiFi System includes an AC2200 router and wall-plug satellite designed to cover an area of up to 3,500 square feet.
- RBK40: This new Orbi Tri-band WiFi System includes the AC2200 router and matching satellite, which are designed to cover a property up to 4,000 square feet.
NETGEAR is also offering the new satellites for individual purchase for cases where you would like to add greater range to an existing Orbi WiFi System.
- Orbi AC2200 Wall-plug Satellite adds 1,500 square feet of range
- Orbi AC2200 Satellite to add 2,000 square feet of range
Please visit NETGEAR for more products details on the Orbi™ Tri-Band Home WiFi System family.
For the more details of the press release please visit NETGEAR INTRODUCES A FAMILY OF ORBI TRI-BAND WIFI SYSTEMS.
14 Replies
hi , my first question would be WHY ????
netgear hit a home run with the RBK50 kit and has been acclaimed and reviewed as by far the best of the distributed wifi / mesh systems on the market
the main claim to fame being that awesome 1733Mbackhaul
i can understand dropping the usb cause lets face it the usb has never worked anyway
but to essentially chop in half its backhaul throughput to make it $50 cheaper makes little sense to me * in the case of the rbs40 ) and its suggested less coverage
the rbs30 plug mounted mode drops the ethernet and usb and even less coverage for another $50 less
to be honest with you i dont know who was in the focus group when it came to these two units but the logic couldnt have come from a performance or technical point of view
why take what is the best of what it does and make it worse just to fit into a price point , would have been far more logical to work on ways to make the existing RBS50 cheaper but keeping the part that matter the most eg the 1733Mbackhaul
i will prob get flamed for my opinion on these units but when i read the press release my first thought was WHY!!!!
netgear made a product that soars with the eagles but now adds bits that just fly with the rest of the turkeys
just to make sure im not missing something here , the rbs 40 or 30 still have to connect to the orbi router right and not mesh onto the sat
you still have to use the RBR50 orbi router with its 1733M backhaul transmission that wont get used in ether the 40 or 30 version
imho its a backward step for netgear not adding to the range as they claim
pete
oh and i forgot when did the RBS50 orbi sat suddenly get extra coverage as claims in the press release
the orbi sat rbs50 alway was rated at 2000 sqft , now its suddenly 2500sqft
so are they saying the rbs50 has increased its range ? i think i know the answer
Well BestBuy and MicroCenter still have th 50 priced at $349.99 but I'm sure the next stock will be back to the $399.99 price. Decisions about getting it...
- The new units also appear to be smaller.
So, the new models still have dedicated backhaul - only 2x2 instead of 4x4? Should still perform better than competition. Just surprised they felt the need for all these different models.
RWB30 satellite is a neat option, I could see preferring that satellite. But not even having one ethernet port is unfortunate, I use the ethernet on my satellites for roku, fire tv, apple tvs and such.
Glad I was able to pickup my RBK53 kit from Costco!
djc6 wrote:So, the new models still have dedicated backhaul - only 2x2 instead of 4x4? Should still perform better than competition. Just surprised they felt the need for all these different models.
RWB30 satellite is a neat option, I could see preferring that satellite. But not even having one ethernet port is unfortunate, I use the ethernet on my satellites for roku, fire tv, apple tvs and such.
Glad I was able to pickup my RBK53 kit from Costco!
2 x 2 means they will perform at the same level as other systems as thats what they are doing
the RBW30 thing would be good if its mesh based or had dedicated ethernet backhaul , as it is it just means its a smaller coverage area and 2 x 2 based
- So the new units have similar/same wireless backhaul speeds as the Linksys Velop. Also same AC2000. The RBK40 specs match up almost the same as the Velop and the RBK30 specs at first glance seem to be aimed at the Amplify config.
The new units are still 'tri-band' meaning they still have a dedicated radio for backhaul - correct? That is where the advantage lies among the competitors, not sharing a radio for backhaul and clients. Its just that now that radio will be 2x2 instead of 4x4.
So it might be slower for computers talking to eachother on your home's intranet, but for traffic leaving the home - most people don't have internet packages where they should run into this new limitation, unless they have gigabit service to their home. I think for majority of users RBK50 and RBK40 would perform similarly.
That said, RBK40 is priced where RBK50 has been recently so why bother getting RBK40.
I think the router should be RBR50 across the board and some variety in satellite form factors would have been a nice expansion of the lineup
djc6 wrote:The new units are still 'tri-band' meaning they still have a dedicated radio for backhaul - correct?
As per the current information available, three radios, one for the backhaul - yes.
djc6 wrote:
That is where the advantage lies among the competitors, not sharing a radio for backhaul and clients. Its just that now that radio will be 2x2 instead of 4x4.
Not sure there is no more/new competition using a radio exclusively for the backhaul.
djc6 wrote:
So it might be slower for computers talking to eachother on your home's intranet, but for traffic leaving the home - most people don't have internet packages where they should run into this new limitation, unless they have gigabit service to their home. I think for majority of users RBK50 and RBK40 would perform similarly.
If this would be true, something is wrong. Each satellite can take traffic from a 2.4 GHz 400 Mbps radio, a 5 GHz 867 Mbps 2x2 radio, and four resp. one GbE ports. So in plain free space, one average 867 Mbps STA as installed in most notebooks today is able to use up all the backhaul capacity. With longer distance, wire more obstacles like walls, ... from the satellite to the router, the performance of the backhaul will come down, the latency will go up ... much faster than on the fully featured 4x4 backhaul. And depending on the environment, a 2x2 on 5 GHz can go well below 100 or even 50 Mbps. Now we're well within good DSL connection downlink speeds again. And this in a local (W)LAN system, where one might want to access a NAS, ...?
djc6 wrote:
That said, RBK40 is priced where RBK50 has been recently so why bother getting RBK40.
List price vs. street price vs. MSRP vs. Amazon sometimes selling below costs. Of course there must be a massive price difference. After the initial phase, I'm convinced, the new units are designed to be massively discounted. Otherwise, the effort would not make much sense.
