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Orbi Review: Modern Connectivity With Great Design - SFGirl
Victoria from www.sfgirlbybay.com partnered with NETGEAR to review the Orbi WiFi System.
From the review:
"i’ve been doing a bit of redesigning lately and noticing that even the smallest impr...
Most people will not be having issues and so won't be on these forums. I've had mine (RBK50) for 10 months without a single issue: no dropouts, no reboots etc. I know that's of no comfort to those suffering issues but to state that 'just about nobody is having a stable experience' simply isn't true. My only issue at this time is the lack of a truly isolated Guest Network though I'm sure that this will be resolved in time.
Doesn't even make a good doorstop. Looks great. Doesn't work. Support technician advised to exchange router for a new one. After the exchange, it still doesn't work. Returning for refund.
OK, fine. I'm sure its possible some population of buyers have not had issues, but I've had nothing but issues and many, many people on this forum have too. After months of trying every Orbi firmware/configuration available, I gave up for good. Unplugged the router, three satellites and a wall satellite and threw them in a box for recycling (should have returned at the first sign of trouble). They are too big, too ugly and too error prone to use as door stop, paper weight or to give to a friend or relative. I purchased four Linksys Velop units over the weekend. They have dedicated backhaul and ethernet capability like Orbi, a much better App and extremely simple configuration. So far since Saturday morning, not a single reboot and not a single dropped signal on any device. Bandwidth speeds are equal or superior to Orbi in all locations, including outdoors. The units are deployed in the exact same house in the exact same location and topology as the Orbi (except no wall satellite needed) and I have not had a single issue since installation. This experience and a very sizable investment tells me that there is indeed something seriously wrong with Orbi (hardware, app or firmware). Congrats to the happy Orbi users out there and my condolences to those that are still fighting the battle with a very poor product.
For the many of us that look at this review and scoff, I think it's important we reply to SFGirl's post. She's likely an unwitting particpant in Netgear's campaign of misrepresenting the Obri to potential customers.
Please, put a reply up.
I am at V2.1.2.18 running on my router and both satellites. I am not a Netgear employee and receive no special benefits of any kind.
My experience with the Orbis has been positive. I have had fewer than 5 issues with the Orbi in the year I have had them. With one exception they were all cured by reboots. The other required a reset which was a pain.
The performance is wonderful in my 3 story 2400sqft townhome and fixed the wireless performance issues I had with an ASUS RTAC68U. I have experienced stabilty issues, but believe these are more a factor of poor past service from TWC (now Spectrum) as I had service and stability problems prior to getting the Orbis.
FWIW, I own an Arriss Surfboard modem and TWC seemed to be constantly taking it down when they serviced their network. I pay for 300Mbs service and was often downgraded to less than 100 and not infrequently to 6Mbs. I can't tell you the amount of time I spent with their non-support staff. For a long time I proactively rebooted everything every couple of days to get my network speed back. Fortunately, Spectrum just applied a patch to their routers and backends a couple of weeks ago and since then my service has been steady at 340Mbs (wired to the router) and 305Mbs wireless (10 ft downstairs from a satellite). I have not had to reboot my Orbis since then.
