Orbi Pro WiFi 6 AX6000 terrible AC range and performance

Question

I've been fighting with the new SXK80 system "NETGEAR Orbi Pro WiFi 6 Tri-Band Mesh System (SXK80)" for the last few days.

tl;dr - I'm returning it today.

I still have an RBK53 system that blows the SXK80 out of the water when it comes to 802.11ac.

For comparison:

My Apple TV 4K could only achieve between 12-28Mbps with 200ms latency and 230ms jitter on the 5G band AC protocol when connected to the SXR80. Placing the RBR50 in the exact same spot as the SXR80, my Apple TV gets 51Mbps with 40ms latency and .78ms jitter.

Similar results with other devices on the AC band. Placing the SXS80 satellite in exactly the same place as my RBS50 satellite, I only get a fair connection.

With the RBS50 to RBR50 I get a strong connection, and devices connected to the satellite perform about 98% of the level of those connected to the RBR50.

I can't believe the terrible AC signal, high latency and low throughput of these "Pro" devices.

Wizec · Answer

Thanks, but absolutely not. I spent half a day fighting this garbage. My time is with more than that to me.

I will not spend over $800 on a "professional" WiFi system upgrade that has admittedly worse antennas and WiFi range than a 4yr old consumer product. Get real.

I've already returned the product. I'm done with Netgear as a brand. First impressions are the most important. Netgear releases beta quality, inferior products and charges sky high prices.

Wizec · Answer

schumaku&nbsp;wrote:Wizec&nbsp;wrote:I'm done with Netgear as a brand.With a backpack of a life-long infrastructure experience including DEC, HP, HPE, Cisco, IBM ... there would not be many major networking brands left if I had abandoned each brand on the first impression or bug...LOL&nbsp;It's not the first bug. I and many members of the community fought Netgear for over 2yr just to get the AC generation of Orbis to work reliably.&nbsp;I bought the "Professional" RBX82 setup wanting to upgrade to the benefits of AX now that I am upgrading my clients to AX.&nbsp;The experience wasn't just "a bug". It's a host of bugs, including an egregious design flaw, admitted to by Netgear themselves that the antennas aren't as good as their 4yr old Orbis.&nbsp;You can't fix bad antennas with firmware updates. It's logic. I'm not going to "upgrade" to a vastly inferior experience. I have a 4000 sq ft home and the RBK53 (finally) provides an excellent experience. I will research other vendors and find an AX solution worthy of my hard-earned $$.&nbsp;&nbsp;Netgear knew they were offering an inferior experience when they decided to make the antennas worse. Now that the cat's out of the bag, and given my past horrible experiences with RBK53 for years, lesson learned. Netgear doesn't take the time to do things right - I'm out.

Wizec · Answer

No, you cherry picked one line from what he stated.He stated repeatedly that I would have to move satellites around / play with router and satellite placement. Direct quote below:“You need to move around Satellites for the better performance.The antenna is not same between SXK80 and RBK53.So you need play with router and satellite placement.”So, let’s do a logic exercise. If I place the new router and satellite in the exact same place as my previous generation - and get worse signal, link speed and backhaul performance - what does that tell you?Clearly that the antenna design is inferior, or I wouldn’t have to relocate for better performance. Period. End of story.Once more for emphasis:“You need to move around Satellites for the better performance.The antenna is not same between SXK80 and RBK53.“NO. I don’t need to do anything of the sort. In fact, I can move my existing Orbi satellite another 10ft away from the router and still get a better signal than the “Professional Orbi”.Here’s what needs to happen. Netgear needs to get a clue about antenna design and improve it from one generation - and higher tier - to the next. A major drop off in antenna performance with precisely the same locations is an insta-return.

schumaku · Answer

Wizec&nbsp;wrote:“You need to move around Satellites for the better performance.The antenna is not same between SXK80 and RBK53.“NO. I don’t need to do anything of the sort. In fact, I can move my existing Orbi satellite another 10ft away from the router and still get a better signal than the “Professional Orbi”.More than unlucky communication. There are (many) other factors but just the "antenna". The Orbi Pro WiFi 6 should perform RF wise about the same as the classic Orbi. Similar, the sensitivity should be similar for both the wireless backhaul as well as the client facing fronthaul.&nbsp;Needless to say, the max emitted power is certainly driven to the top for what each regulatory area allows for the sub-bands, ie. the FCC U-NII bands (channel&nbsp;sets).&nbsp;&nbsp;The Pro part in the product designation does not come from the wireless capability - considering that all vendors and products WiFi routers and access points are made from very similar platforms (predominant Qualcomm, and then also Broadcom, and some Lantiq/Inhell and few exotic ones) from the additional networking features..&nbsp;Wizec&nbsp;wrote:Here’s what needs to happen. Netgear needs to get a clue about antenna design and improve it from one generation - and higher tier - to the next. A major drop off in antenna performance with precisely the same locations is an insta-return.Netgear has wonderful RF labs in San Jose and Taipei - and they use it heavily on site as from the remote development sites.&nbsp;Making even better antennas is no rocket science. Performing&nbsp;within the allowed power and bandwidth is.&nbsp;Based on recent local testing here with the independent lab with various recent 802.11ax and .11ac technology, we think that WiFi 6 seems to be a more impacted on channel co-usage (being the primary channel, or the dynamically added channels) - read even at good signal levels in the 90..95% area - the reliability as well as the net throughput has became affected more than the older standards.&nbsp;

RaghuHR · Answer

Hi&nbsp;Wizec&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Could you please help us to provide more info?
&nbsp;

What is the distance between router and satellite? I mean the physical disatance between SXR80 and SXS80?
Please share the firmware version installed on RBK53 and SXK80?
Please provide RSSI value for the link status.
Share the mode detail of your Apple TV and&nbsp; AC clients.
Need your deployment diagram as well.
And lastly we need debug files. Please go to https://&lt; IP address of SXR80/SXS80&gt;/debug.htm, Click on start capture and then wait for the issue to happen before saving debug logs. Send me the link to download via PM.

Thanks,
Raghu

Forum Discussion

Orbi Pro WiFi 6 AX6000 terrible AC range and performance

8 Replies

Related Content

AX4200 vs AX6000

Orbi Ax6000

RN102 slow performances

AX6000 Extender

AX5700 vs AX6000

NETGEAR Academy

ProSupport for Business