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Forum Discussion
Trying to understand benefit of upgrading?
Current setup: 400MB plan with my ISP and run an RBR50 with 2 satellites and an RBW30 as well. I routinely have between 30 and 50 devices connected. I was going to add another satellite to help wi...
MarkfromNJ wrote:I'm trying to figure out if there would be any real improvements with an upgrade?
Previous posters have pointed out the potential improvements when you begin using WiFi 6 devices. I recommend browsing through the community forum for the new WiFi 6 Orbi product: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax It appears there are some "plus's" and "minus's" in regard to functionality. Perhaps better handling of Guest networks. If you currently subscribe to Armor or Disney Circle, it looks like those features are not yet available. The USB port is now "gone", so any hope of attaching cheap USB drives to the router will not be a reality.
This is an awkward time to be investing in new WiFi. Every vendor of WiFi routers is releasing new products claiming WiFi 6 compatibility. I have not seen any technical comparison reviews of WiFi 6 products. The "old line" router makers (Asus, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, Ubiquity, etc.) and the "new wave" (Google and others) are not only releasing WiFi 6 products, they often have more than one product line! (For example, Netgear is releasing WiFi 6 in the Orbi line and also the Nighthawk line.)
Unless you are unhappy or have $800 you need to spend this week, my advice is to "watch and wait."
Any WiFi AX should be finalized this year as well.
My thoughts on upgrading my RBR50 to RBR850 was simple... Sooner or later Wifi 6 devices will become the norm rather than the exception and I wanted to have the baseline architecture ready in my home to receive them. Kind of a chicken and egg scenario.
Do I have any of those devices yet? No. But the architecture is now in place for when that happens and I wont have to worry about learning two things simultaneously (the device AND the architecture).
I originally had Armor installed on the RBR50 and took it out long ago as I didnt think it provided value added to me... It is not yet available in the 850; since I didnt use it before, this was no big deal.
New firmware is in the works for the 850 as you would expect since that is the new "thing". With that new firmware will come new capabilities, so being an early-adopter I decided to pull the trigger early.
