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Forum Discussion
Orbi 870 - coverage, question. iPhone/iPad not connected to satellite?
Hello, I was testing my i-net speeds (upgraded from RBR50 to RBR870) with an iphone app and noticed that I was having a low download speed in my office on the 2nd floor being really close to t...
Thanks you for the info, I installed it yesterday evening. My house has 3 floors, ground floor has the router, other 2 floors each have a satellite.
My observations, 16 devices connected, 14 are to the closest router/satellite but I have 2 strange ones:
I have a wifi energy socket on the second floor that is connected to the ground floor Router on 2.4Ghz when its signal must pass the satellite that is at 4 -4,5 meters away before going down the staircase (distance to Router 13-15meter).
My iPad pro M4 is on the first floor and connected on 6Ghz to the Router on the ground floor. Distance to satellite on that floor, 3-3,5 meter (distance to router 9-10 meter).
There is probably a delay before/when your devices reconnect to a closer, or better, source. Check again and see if your devices have switched around. Immediately after installing new firmware, your router will come up first (before the satellites) so all your devices will reconnect to it. After your satellites come up they may/will switchover.
As other folks have reported, it's up to the device to switch and their own algorithm's aggressiveness when there is a more powerful signal. I imagine that switching isn't instantaneous or outage-free, so there are tradeoffs to be made. I guess that with wi-fi 6 and 7, more powerful Orbi radios, etc. devices may be happy enough with what they first connect to and they may behave differently than with older Orbi or other routers.
Hello Mikey.
You are right, the Router comes up first, always. If your theory is correct, Netgear should add in their instruction that you should take every device offline, and then when it comes back online, then it should take the strongest signal. Every update, reset you have to repeat that.
I am sorry, but I don't think that is how it is supposed to work?
No, don't take devices offline and just let them do their thing. I honestly think that customers don't need to worry about it and their devices will continue to work. Your devices will naturally reconnect themselves in a mesh system over time, but as long as they have sufficient internet connectivity it doesn't matter which router/satellite they are connected to. Consumer mesh routers like Orbi are supposed to be automatic and their customers don't need to do anything to keep their devices connected to the internet.
We (including me) probably spend too much time examining what is connected to where and running speed tests, whereas what only matters is if the device/laptop has the internet connectivity it needs. My IoT devices like lights, scales, energy meters, etc. don't need and don't care if they have 300+ Mbps connectivity. Even my laptop browsing doesn't need that much speed 99.9% of the time.
