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Forum Discussion
SONOS Compatability with Orbi
Is Orbi compatable with the SONOS mesh network? I have an extensive SONOS system throughout my house (7000 sq ft). It works flawlessly and I have wondered why a mesh network for a LAN application ha...
I recieved my eero and google wifi today. I have first impressions of each.
eero is stupid easy to install/setup. It just worked. It does take 15+ minutes to update all the devices to the latest firmware.
Once updated everytihng was fine. However, I found speed tests to be quite dissapointing as I moved around my house (50->60mbps was considered a good test result). And it just generally felt slower all around. Speed test were also highly erratic. And it's own internal speed test doesn't get anywhere near my actual internet speed (90mbps instead of 150). Laptop tests while connected to the main router also didn't get me full 150mbps+.
I unplugged eero and plugged in google wifi with relatively low expectations. Thus far, google wifi has been significantly faster. Sitting one hop away from the router, I am still getting 110mbps while streaming a movie downstairs and sonos upstairs. Setup was not quite as smooth. Had a few hiccups but it got through it. Same amount of time.
At this moment, Google Wifi is winning hands down. When you consider it is also $200 less ($100 in my case because of black friday), it's hard to argue with it. I'll be returning eero and giving google wifi to my mom for christmas. I just got 140mbps on my laptop one hope from the main router. I may be ordering a second one of these. ;)
Neither of them can compete with Orbi when it is stable. Orbi is obscenely good (Even at $200 over google wifi). If netgear wants to send me a 3 piece Orbi kit to test and help debug until the problems are resolved, I'll consider sticking with it. Otherwise, google wifi is likely where I'm going. (Or possibly back to a linksys ea9500 which worked surprisingly well once I worked around some issues)
I'll be using each of them over the next few days. Hopefully, they will just work.
--Derrek
That's great news to hear google wifi is working for you. Mine arrives this weekend and will replace Orbi, which is being returned. I'll take "slower" throughput over stability. I will rarely need such huge throughput in real use---sonos dropping will drive me to tears though.
I plugged in the eero again to see if I can work through speed issues on it. Re-setting it up was quite frustrating but I think the initial setup may have been slow because the new firmware didn't entirely take on the base unit. After a full reset everything was back up.
Speeds were now on par with Google Wifi. In fact, both are now almost at the speed I really wanted. However, on eero, Sonos devices started disappearing. Ironically, the ones that stopped playing music are the ones I can still see in Sonos app. The other sonos is still playing but I can't control it. And it is not the base unit. I am currently using Sonos network from one wired sonos connect. That is the one that stopped, so I have no idea how/why the other continued to play. Very strange.
Both eero and google wifi suffer from two very annoying problems. First: 2 available ports for wired devices on a satellite just isn't enough. And 1 available on the main unit basically means it has to be some kind of switch (in my case, it's my airport extreme with 3 more ports as well as a time machine backup drive). Second: This cloud control crap needs to stop. Eeros app was constantly in a "we can't talk to your eero" state despite being *on the eeros network* which had internet acces. That mostly went away after the reset. But, both eero and google wifi need some kind of local mode. Google didn't actually show any issue with this. I'm wondering if they already have a local mode for the majority of communication with your own access points.
Orbi really got a lot of things right. I just want it to be stable. A strong backhaul with 4 ports on satellites. Not requiring cloud (BTW, I like having the cloud aspects, I just don't like it being a requirement like eero). Whichever I give to my mom, I will be able to manage it from my house. So, as long as her internet is up, I can make sure things are working. That's very nice.
Except for the Sonos blip this morning, eero has been pretty solid. And its app is better than google's in terms of ease of use and features (though possibly not for long). In the real world, for most people, this system will be fine. It's getting more speed than most people's internet connection. I'm going to run it with constant sonos for a day or two, and then switch to google wifi for a few days.
Right now, either system is looking "good enough". I see why so many reviews are basically "google because it's cheaper". There's no clear winner except in price. There are still some issues I haven't tried. I know wifi calling on eero (if your iphone/service support it) has been reported as problematic on the new firmware. Fortunately, I have great cell signal, so that's not a huge issue for me.
Hey Netgear, get orbi working so I can stop this nonsense and get my mom and myself functioning orbi.
Will report in again soon.
--Derrek