I purchased the new Netgear Orbi Wifi 6 router and satellite from my local Best Buy yesterday. The new router is starting to be released nationwide.

It was so frustrating trying to get the router and satellite setup, that I spent about 4-5 hours of my time yesterday, only to conclude that Netgear released the new unit way too early. Netgear has a long road ahead of them to get all the bugs fixed. To me this seems more like a .1 release instead of a 1.0 release.

I NEED the backhaul feature to work! The Satellite would connect via the dedicated 5Ghz band, but my connection was only "fair." I would connect the Satellite to my network via ethernet, and the light would turn solid blue. However, the Orbi router would report the Satellite is "disconnected." I tried rebooting the Satellite and router, and nothing would work. I was only able to get the satellite to show connected once.

The Orbi router was lying, however. I went into the Satellite's web GUI and from here you can see what devices are connected to the satellite. I could see my laptop and phone were both connected to the satellite. I went back into the router's web interface and looked at my attached devices. The router reports that ALL my devices are connected to the router. That's simply not true. So it looks like the new Orbi RBK852 model is NOT reporting the correct information back to the router.

Also, if I tried to setup the router and satellite when they were both connected to ethernet, the router would NEVER pickup the satellite. I would have to disconnect the satellite from ethernet so it could be setup via the dedicated 5Ghz band. Once that was done, I re-connected the satellite to the dedicated ethernet cable in my upstairs, and the same problems mentioned above started happening again.

Also, for those who were hoping to separate your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz via the TELNET workaround, that feature is gone. Netgear has closed the loop. I tried running the commands, and I get an error how "config" doesn't exist. This was the final nail in the coffin when I knew I would be returning the new Orbi back to Best Buy. I NEED to have my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz separated. Sometimes my streaming devices would connect to 2.4Ghz, and cause buffering. I didn't pay $700+ for a router to not be able to separate my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks.

Let me know if you all have any questions. I'd be happy to try and answer. All I know is the RBK852 is very buggy, and if you're even somewhat interested in this router, I would wait AT LEAST 6 months for Netgear to work out some of the bugs.

Forum Discussion

New Netgear Orbi RBK852 Bugs