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Forum Discussion
dhombesh
Jul 10, 2019Initiate
Orbi satellite showing connected on orbilogin but not in app
I have the RBK50 system which has been working well for a few months with the satellite connected to the router via wifi. My house is wired with Cat5e and today I connected the satellite to the route...
Evgizo
Jul 29, 2019Initiate
I have a the same issue with another RBS20 hard wired to the system. I am running the latest firmware on the RBK50 (V2.3.5.30), and V2.3.5.26 on the RBS20. I did some testing around the house and concluded that when the satellite is hard wired then it is part of the RBR50 (router) connection, they no longer act as individual units (i.e. offline) but simply extending the signal from the router unit if this makes sense. Therefore, everything is connected to the orbi router.
Performance wise I think it is still getting signals from the closest unit (either router or satellite) as I am still getting the same speed even when I am far away from the router. I also noticed that you are not able to identify the system through the orbi app if your mobile device is connected via a statellite, you can only access it when it is connected to the router (I run my one in AP mode). This is another way you can verify that your devices are not solely connected to the router unit.
Morever, when the satellites are hard wired, they are not able to perform a firmware update unless you put them back to statellite mode (i.e. disconnect the wire).
I think it will be nice for Netgear to fix the bug so that correct staus gets displayed, it is simply giving false information. However, I don't think it is impacting the performance.
dhombesh
Jul 29, 2019Initiate
This is very helpful. Thanks.
So based on your tests it appears that once hard wired, all devices will die connected only to the router and all satellites will show as ‘offline’ in orbi app.
Doesn’t Netgear think that the community should be informed in order to minimize confusion?
So based on your tests it appears that once hard wired, all devices will die connected only to the router and all satellites will show as ‘offline’ in orbi app.
Doesn’t Netgear think that the community should be informed in order to minimize confusion?
- EvgizoJul 30, 2019Initiate
Correct. All hard wired satellites will show as ‘offline’ in orbi app but in fact they are just connected to the orbi router. The ‘offline’ status is confusing but technically correct as they have dropped the function being a satellite and extending the router signal instead.
Your devices will connect to the closest unit (or whichever gives the strongest signal) but in orbilogin you will only see them connect to the router. As I said, you can test whether a device is connected to the router or satellite by using the orbi app on that device.
To be honest, there are quite a few things that Netgear should fix regarding both orbilogin and the orbi app. I hope they will get to the bottom of it in the near future.
- docincaliDec 26, 2019Aspirant
I have the same issue. Unfortunately, my FIOS ONT is in the garage on one end of the house and it is Ethernet only. I have the rbk53 AC3000. I have 5000 sq ft house with huge walls and my satellites were getting horrible reception and a huge drop off in speed. I have gigabit fios with frontier. So, I bought some bonded 2.0 moca adapters from actiontech off amazon and connected my fios ont with the arris modem and then to the moca. So then I moved the router to the middle of the house and connected it via moca/coax and then I figured why not hardwire a satellite in an extreme corner of the house. The problem is the coax's through the house are moca'ed to the original modem but I decided to connect a satellite anyway and....
The satellite on orbilogin shows it as online and hardwired....on the app it shows up with a solid line and purple.
When I'm on the app by that satellite it doesn't recognize that I'm on my orbi network even though my WiFi shows the same SSID and I never chose another network but speed tests are equivalent to being next to the router.
All devices on the app show connected to the router only.
So what is described above is exactly what I have going on. I just purchased the AX6000 and plan to use my older satellites hardwired with it because I have read that this is possible.... I assume this will be the same sceneraio.
My question is is there a better to wire and place everything. It boils down to should I place my router in the garage and moca satellites to the router or should I place my router in the middle of the house via moca and have all the satellites wired in via moca back to the modem as well?
Thanks in advance!