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nuyorikan's avatar
nuyorikan
Follower
Jul 15, 2025

Reusing Old Orbi System to Separate WPA3 and WPA2 Devices

Last year I upgraded to an Orbi RBR760 mesh system to replace my older RBR50, which was out of warranty and lacked WPA3 support. The old system still worked fine, so I didn’t want to discard it.

 

After setting up the new mesh, I quickly ran into an issue: several of my devices—like an Xbox, home alarm system, soundbars, and interfaces for my solar panels and heat pump—didn’t play well with WPA3. Keeping them all on the same WiFi network would’ve required disabling the WPA3 security features I upgraded for.

 

So here’s the workaround I landed on:

  • I hardwired the RBR50 router into a LAN port on the RBR760
  • The RBR760 runs a WPA3 network with its own SSID for modern devices
  • The RBR50 runs a separate WPA2 network (also with its own SSID) for legacy and incompatible devices

 

So far, this has worked well:

  • Each system manages its own devices without interference
  • No noticeable performance issues or disconnections
  • My new and legacy devices don’t need to talk to each other, so network separation hasn’t been a problem

 

I haven’t seen any IP conflicts or strange behavior, but I’m curious:

Has anyone done something similar? Are there potential risks I should watch for, like subnet clashes or double NAT issues?

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1 Reply

  • FURRYe38's avatar
    FURRYe38
    Guru - Experienced User
    Jul 15, 2025

    You can run two Orbi systems at the same time, however one thing to keep in mind and set on the Orbi systems, Keep the WiFi channels far appart between the two systems. On one of my systems, I set manual channesl 1 and 40, on the other Set 11 and 48. 

     

    Generally mixed mode WPA2/WPA3 should work for most older devices. Most of the bugs were worked out a couple of years ago. There maybe older wifi devices that don't like WPA3 being in the mix and there is nothing that NG can do about that. All that is up to the devices mfr to work that out, or not. I found that a few older NG routers in bridge mode will not connect to anything with WPA3 in the signal, even if WPA2 is present. Most older devices may not work well if WPA3 is on the signal. My xboxes work fine WPA is in mixed mode, however I generally keep my xbox consoles ethernet connected for best operation.