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Forum Discussion
Will Orbi support Arlo natively?
Got an email from Arlo introducing Orbi.. So Orbi will natively support Arlo right? Like the R7000 was supposed to?
Thanks, I never thought about how my Arlo base station selected its wireless channel or how it could even tell. Fun read: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Arlo-Wire-Free-camera/Is-it-possible-to-change-the-wifi-channel/td-p/1537. They seem to want the Arlo camera traffic separated in channel from their household wifi traffic (using one of the 3 isolated channels). If a single router publishes 2 different SSIDs on the same channel then is there no interference/performance degredation compared to separate routers using 2 isolated channels?
If a single router broadcasts 2 SSIDs on one channel then there may be performance degradation. The router has to share one channel between two SSIDs. This is worse than using 2 isolated channels but it is better than using 2 overlapping channels. The Arlo thread you linked has a link to a really good article that explains why.
http://www.metageek.com/training/resources/adjacent-channel-congestion.html
I don't own an Arlo system, but I would also want it to run on an isolated channel. Hopefully, the Orbi satellite uses a channel isolated from the router like any multi-AP system should.
"If a single router broadcasts 2 SSIDs on one channel then there may be performance degradation."
Can you offer an explanation or link to justification of this claim?
EDIT: I just did a quick google and realized that the management traffic is duplicated per additional SSID, but this is trivial with 802.11N speeds. (http://revolutionwifi.blogspot.com/2010/10/limit-ssids-data-rates-to-maintain.html)
But this now beggs the question: Why have a separate SSID at all? Since the cameras connect by WPS, if Netgear simply allowed the cameras to connect to any SSID, and use the router's QoS capability to managed the arlo traffic (if even necessary, since Arlo cameras have their own local storage for clips prior to transmitting to base station/cloud), then all would be solved.
There is only so much bandwidth a single channel can accommodate. It's like two sets of cars trying to use a single lane. Given enough traffic, the lane becomes congested. OTOH, if one of the SSIDs is mostly idle or overall traffic levels are low, then there will be little to no degradation.
With two channels, there is twice as much bandwidth available. Each set of cars now has its own lane.
As you mentioned, there is additional management traffic (beacons and such) for each added SSID, but the overhead is nominal.
If I'm not mistaken, the Arlo Q series doesn't use a base station. Instead, it utilizes your existing SSID.