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Forum Discussion
How much faster/better aer the Wifi 6 orbis vs. older one?
I have the older orbi three unit system from costco Rbr50 i think with two sats. All gigabit wired to eachother. How much better is the orbi ax in same wiring setup.
Thanks
10 Replies
Well the wifi is definately faster, however if you wire connect the RBS8 series then the speed would be around the same as the Orbi AC since the ethernet ports are 1000Mbps for both systems. So even though the connect rate is faster between the RBS and what ever your wifi device is, the wired speed will be 1000Mbps.
Also consider what devices you own that are actually compatible with WiFi 6, e.g., very recent laptops or phones like iPhone 11 and SE. Such devices will conceivably have a higher speed connecting to the Orbi base/satellite. However, realize that such throughput differences are unlikely to make a difference in your everyday use unless you have throughput problems today.
I don't believe I have anything that is wifi 6 as far as devices go right now, but will in future, but is it more stable and consistant? Is the orbi filled with issues like I've had with the current older one? Will the addon sats of the old work with the new system?
Rikerrock wrote:I don't believe I have anything that is wifi 6 as far as devices go right now, but will in future, but is it more stable and consistant? Is the orbi filled with issues like I've had with the current older one? Will the addon sats of the old work with the new system?
I upgraded from RBR50 to RBR850. I would not assume the newer model is more stable and consistent - In fact, newer technology is often plagued with more firmware and other issues because they haven't yet worked out all the kinks. If you want stability, go for recent technology where you have many more reviews and customer feedback to base your opinions on (every product has people with bad experiences and bad reviews so it's a matter of you evaluating the percentage of such and taking that relative risk).
In particular, the Orbi AX systems have compatibility issues with some older wifi devices necessitating manual settings changes like CTS/RTS threshold to 2347. This worked well for almost all my devices but others here have resorted even disabling AX mode (on their new AX router!). There are also less admin settings on Orbi AX than Orbi AC, like not being able to turn off the SSID broadcast (to help with setting up some IoT devices that don't like the 5Ghz band sharing the SSID with 2.4Ghz).
I haven't tried this myself, but I've read here that the older Orbi AC satellites apparently work with the new Orbi AX system only if you hardwire them. At this time they cannot work wireless like the AX satellites.
