NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
RBW30 Wall Plug Satellite causes disconnects with RBK50
Per background in this thread, I am continuing to get disconnects with an iPhone that are caused to RBW30 wall plug satellite. This has come back again, after firmware updates to the latest vers...
I suffered from disconnects too when the connection between RBW30 and RBR50 wasn't great.
I wanted to use the RBW30 to strengthen the signal in my garden shed.
Now that i have moved the RBW30 in the house having a good connection stability is great.
What's most disappointing is that 2 devices inside my garden shed (a 5$ sonoff (ESP8266 ) and my pool commander) are having decent connections to the RBR50, while the RBW30 was having connection issues just outside the shed. That's not what you would expect from a 150$ repeater from the same ecosystem.
wimmme wrote:What's most disappointing is that 2 devices inside my garden shed (a 5$ sonoff (ESP8266 ) and my pool commander) are having decent connections to the RBR50, while the RBW30 was having connection issues just outside the shed. That's not what you would expect from a 150$ repeater from the same ecosystem.
Well possible these to STA connect to the 2.4 GHz radio on the RBR50 - which does normally provide a longer reach, and does pass more walls than a 5 GHz, where the higher channels (because of the higher power allowance) are used for the Orbi (and many other Mesh system) backhaul. Nothing uncommon - but yes, from the consumer/user view this is hard to differentiate.
Yes, i do understand that concept.
On 5GHz the connection was very bad, altough only one window and about 15meter free air between the router and the sattellite.
It even connected over 2.4 GHZ to the router; I didn't even know it was capable to do that, it showed a 2.4GHZ connection on the satetellites overview with poor connection.
And even worse, it made the router sometimes 'reconfigure', or 'resync', making my connections unstable.
I have an old Netgear EX6120 which was capable to do about the same as the orbi: use 5GHz backhaul to extend 2.4 fully.
It was a better setup then with the RBW30 :manfrustrated:
I've done some testing and have further information.
I tried moving my devices around the house to see how the hand-offs occurred between the router and the two satellites. My iPhone moved around okay - seamlessly transferring between the router and either satellite.
But when I subsequently tried some different locations with an Android tablet, it lost internet connection when it moved into a room immediately under the router (i.e. where the signal was strong enough for it to switch to the router). When it lost internet, the WiFi connection information on the tablet initially showed "Authentication Problem" . The tablet then automatically turned off the WiFi and turned it back on again and it reconnected to the Router.I think that this is evidence that disconnects are caused by poor hand-off from the RBW30 satellite to the RBR50 router.Upate for those watching this thread.
I spent time with Level 2 Neatgear Support today. They believe it is a hardward fault and have issued a RMA for the RBW30 Wall Plug Satellite. A key aspect was that it wasn't connecting at all via 5Ghz backhaul - even when in the same room as the router. It could be that the hardware for this channel was bad and this may have been causing the aberant behaviour.
I'll post an update with how the replacement performs, idc.