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Possible Fix for iPhone Dropping WiFi
I have an RBE973S system. think I have identified the reason my iPhone keeps dropping WiFi, and I wanted to share so others can see if it solves their issues.
On your iPhone, go to Settings>Cellular. Scroll ALL the way down, past all the toggles for individual apps. Just past the apps section is a toggle for "WiFi Assist". This allows the iPhone to "automatically use cellular data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor". Toggle this to OFF. This has resolved my phone dropping WiFi, including when centered between satellites.
On your iPhone, go to Settings>Cellular. Scroll ALL the way down, past all the toggles for individual apps. Just past the apps section is a toggle for "WiFi Assist". This allows the iPhone to "automatically use cellular data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor". Toggle this to OFF. This has resolved my phone dropping WiFi, including when centered between satellites.
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What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router 📡 and satellite(s)🛰️? 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR 📡 and RBS 🛰️ to begin with depending upon building materials when wired or wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite 🛰What iOS version are you using?
Interesting find. Will try this though I've not had any issues with my iPhone not connecting to my 970 series. iOS 16.5.1 however recently updated to 17.5.1.
I just saw the thread. I too have seen iPhone and iPad flipping to 5G for no good reason, even where there is a strong WiFi signal. Sometimes it takes a restart to clear things up, or turning WiFi off and on. I turned WiFi assist off on both devices, I'll see how things look and report back!
Please let us know how it goes.
I'll recommend that anyone seeing this issue with there Apple iPhone and any Orbi system, please make contact with NG support and submit a support ticket and let NG know what's going on. Possible there maybe a new issue emerging on both Apple and NG side and they both need to look into this.
Yeah it's probably happening as much as before. Settings says we have a WiFi connection, but unreality (top right corner), no we do not. Speed test confirms this phone is on Cellular.
- donawalt, I too have an iPhone 15 ProMax. Like furry suggested, I’m going to open a NG Support ticket and ask NG to work with Apple on this issue. If you are still in NG warranty, or have extended Support coverage, I suggest you also open a Support ticket.
I also have a wired backhaul... all Cat 6A. Is everyone else who is experiencing this issue using wired backhaul?
I am, I don't think that's the issue though. I think it's later model Apple devices at least, the ones that have tri-band - 2.4GHz, 5GHz, WiFi 6 GHz - the Wifi 6E setting/standard. I think it's caused by moving between these bands, and somehow it makes the decision incorrectly to pop over to cellular 5G.
If you turn off the setting in your Information ('i') for your connected WiFi SSID (settings/Wifi/SSID), set 'WiFi 6E Mode' to OFF not Automatic, the flip to cellular will go away. You lose some speed, maybe from maximum 1200-1400 Mbps d/l speeds near a router or satellite, to ~900. But it stays on WiFi.
Just to be clear:
1. It is not a backhaul issue. I had it with a wired satellite.
2. It is not an iPhone-specific or cellular issue. It affects non-cellular iPads too (which is where I noticed it first). iPhones have cellular to fall back to. iPads do not.
3. It is not a one-off Apple hardware issue. Apple replaced my M4 iPad Pro to try to resolve this. It didn't.
4. I had the issue with Wi-Fi 6E mode set to both Off and Automatic - on both iPhones and iPads. But it also was not a problem with my previous non-6E iPad Pro - I don't have an explanation for that. Having the M4 iPad arrive seemed to make this problem visible on all my 6E devices sitting in that same area. Which device exhibited it at any given point was random - one would be working fine showing max speeds sitting side by side with another that was not working.
5. It is unlikely to be a hardware issue - because it happened with both my original router+satellite set and with my RMA-ed router+satellite set.
6. It's unlikely to be a signal strength issue - it's baffling that I had 1.4 Gbps up and down in the exact spots where this problem would happen daily.
It is most likely a router to satellite and back hand-over issue (firmware maybe). Why? Because:
- Netgear's aware of the issue and have been trying to solve it with firmware updates. I had early firmware access that did not solve this issue. Which led to an RMA (for also a second reason: overheating, which was resolved by the RMA).
- With my satellite repositioned closer to the devices (direct line of sight) and in between the devices and the router (not sure if this is relevant - it likely is though because mesh-roaming is probably prevented), I don't have this issue anymore. On all the devices that exhibited the problem.
- I just upgraded from the iPhone 15 Pro Max to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
So far, all the WiFi drop and roaming issues have completely disappeared. My connection seems very stable, even in the old areas that I always dropped WiFi with my old phone. I’ll be sure to report back if that changes.
If everything continue to go smoothly over the next couple days, I’ll be sure to upgrade my wife’s phone as well.
This could come down to one of at least a couple things…
1) The iPhone 16 Pro Max has WiFi 7. Perhaps this is causing it to work properly with the Orbi.
2) Perhaps the iPhone 15 Pro Max has an issue with its WiFi chip that is causing this problem.
I wonder if the problem is in Apple’s hands rather than Netgear? Thoughts?- @mapotter , Wow! I read several month’s ago that Apple was not expected to offer WiFi 7 capability with the iPhone 16 release as the standard was certified so late in the latest iPhone’s development time-frame. Obviously, that was incorrect!
Your “stability” update is of much interest to me and numerous other members of this Community as we’ve been dealing with all the WiFi/5G flips, etc using our iPhone 15 Pro Max and older units. Several of us even turned off iPhone 15 PM “WiFi 6E” capability months ago which lessened (but didn’t eliminate) the frequency of drops, so I’ve missed the 6Ghz WiFi connection that would let me get somewhat faster up/down-load speeds with my 5Gb fiber ISP connection.
When you update us again, does the iPhone 16 Pro Max allow turning off WiFi 7 (I.e. 6Ghz Band) like the iPhone 15 Pro Max allowed with its WiFi 6E? This capability seemed to allow me to easier on-board some brands of IoT devices (even when using the RBE971 IoT SSID).
Also, I don’t know if this is an Orbi App “display” or “capability” issue (I.e. if the NG Mesh system is actually designed to do this) but I have noticed numerous IoT devices located in the same room or adjoining room of the 971 Router always appear to connect to one of the RBE970 Remote IoT SSID’s located further away from the IoT devices which results in a weaker connection signal strength. I don’t know if you have 2.4Ghz IoT devices, but it will be interesting to see if the new iPhone 16 will onboard IoT’s to the closest mesh location, not just Remote locations.
Similarly (remember, I’ve had WiFi 6E disabled on my iPhone 15 Pro Max for multiple months now), I recall not seeing a 6 GHz connection for my iPhone 15 PM (WiFi 6E capable) when the Orbi Device Manager showed my iPhone connected to an Orbi Remote (it was always a 5Ghz connection??). I have come to realize (unless Apple’s WiFi 7 corrects this issue as well), the 6Ghz WiFi band “useful” distance drops off very quickly if you pass thru only 1 wall/ceiling/floor. This might explain why I remember only seeing 5Ghz WiFi connections (if the 6Ghz connection dropped back to 5Ghz) when my iPhone 15 PM was connected to a Remote Mesh node.
Any speeds faster than dial-up make the speed difference between 6Ghz (normally symmetrical 1200-1300 Mbps for me) vs 5Ghz (normally symmetrical 800-1000 Mbps) mostly unnoticeable,
I look forward to your future update, well, maybe not as I’d already decided NOT to upgrade iPhone’s this year!! Not as lucky as mapotter99 here. Just got my iPhone 16 Pro Max set up, and to answer Roc1 it only has the same WiFi 6E setting. But when connected close to a satellite, it shows as connection '5GHz+6GHz' on the router attached devices list and the satellite status page.
I was just out at lunch, and returned back. I have been sitting at my desk for about 3-4 minutes, about 2 feet from the 970 sat, and it's on 5G cellular! I even bring up the WiFi page and it does not auto connect. I t was on the network before I left. I tapped to connect. I'll see if it happens again...but it looks like the same issue happens for me with the 16s.
I just changed to a manual IPv4 IP address, and manual DNS. Phone flipped to 5G, and even turning WiFi off/on it stayed on 5G. The WiFi setting says it's connected to WiFi, but the top right corner says '5G', and the speed test app confirms it is on 5G/using my AT&T cellular.
I have to say this iPhone 16 acts worse with 6E=Autonatic than the 15 does!
I had to forget the network and re-add it to get it to connect again!
- I spoke too soon. My iPhone 16 Pro Max with WiFi 7 seemed better for the first evening after upgrading, but it is now behaving exactly as my old iPhone 15 Pro Max with WiFi 6e did.
The settings options are exactly the same.
For me, setting “WiFi 6e mode” to off helps a bit, but not entirely. It also doesn’t help that the iPhone changes this back to automatic on its own after a period of time.Mine continues to drop when walking around my house … or sometimes even standing still in the same room with full wifi strength.
Jumps to 5G; my call drops or my zoom call freezes for a moment and reconnects.
Still incredibly annoying, and still astonishing to me this hasn’t been fixed yet given what we spent on this system, and how basic our ask is (“Please just allow us to stay connected when we are standing still and using the most popular mobile device on the market” — this doesn’t seem like a big ask…).
Also incredibly frustrated with the Orbi 970 product and iPhone Wifi Dropping... My wife had the iPhone 15 Pro Max while I was on the non-wifi6e iPhone 14. We got these routers and she constantly experienced Wifi droppage while my phone was unscathed. Forced us to go back to our older Orbi wifi system and kept this in the closet as a massively expensive paper weight because we were beyond the return timeframe...
Fast forward to where we both upgrade to the new iPhone 16 Pro Max and we set the 970's back up. Continue to experience Wifi droppage as its clearly happening when you are far enough away from the router you're connect to and it tries to jump you to a closer satellite... Completely lose Wifi, switch to 5g, probably takes a few minutes in total to get reconnected (unless of course we wander back to another part of the house and switch routers again due to signal strength and it repeats).
Absolutely insane Netgear cannot figure this out for a system that costs well over a grand... countless 'secret' firmware updates sent by tech support with no progress made whatsoever...
970 series FW released to the public today: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-7-BE-Mesh-Systems/New-RBE970-RBE971-Firmware-Version-9-12-4-16-Released/td-p/2404369/jump-to/first-unread-message
And any of you let us know if this issue is still being seen with newer FW loaded on the system?
- Hallelujah. Can’t wait to get home and perform the update. Fingers crossed.
- Not to be a Debbie downer but their eng team had me on this beta version of the FW and we still experienced issues with our iPhone 16 pro max losing connection when I between the router and satellite. When we unplug our satellite everything works fine… they’re still triaging it…
- Newest firmware loaded. iPhone 15 Pro Max keeps dropping WiFi especially if I move around the house. I have 4 units (router and three sats). This system just doesn’t know how to do handoffs well. And yes my home may be saturated with so many units (under 6k sqft), but it doesn’t seem to me that too much coverage should be a problem …
0tis saturation of signals is very much a possible problem. When there is over saturation, banding/node decisions are frequent and wrong.
Do a Google search on 'mesh nodes too close to each other' and you'll see both reddit, manufacturer sites, and other articles that mention this. Have you used a WiFi signal analyzer on a Mac or PC to check signals from each of the Orbi nodes throughout the house? Note, in my house I have 5000 square feet across a 4 floor house (basement plus 3 floors), and I have only 2 satellites. I get 900 Mbps d/l speed in the second floor, using the MLO 5GHz+6GHz connection, to the router in the basement - and each floor has 15 foot ceilings. That's a powerful WiFi signal to get 5GHz+6GHz two floors away!
I just checked here at my desk on the 3rd floor, and it sees -70dBm signals on the 5GHz band from the basement router - again across 15 foot ceilings and concrete flooring infrastructure. That is an "Okay" signal - rated for email and web browsing, "minimum signal strength for reliable packet delivery". But it shows how powerful these Orbi 971 and 970s are.
You didn't mention how far apart your Orbi nodes are, Netgear recommends a minimum of 30 feet. The technical info on the 970 series also states the range of the 971 and 970 is 3300 square feet. So you could have a lot of competing signals in some areas of your house.
If you are interested in checking your node placements using a signal analyzer, I wrote a short document on how to do it on one of the NG forums.
I am not saying this is the only problem you have, but I have found WiFi dropping to 5G cellular or connections with no internet has improved about 90% on this FW release. I even have my iPhone 16 Pro set to Wifi 6E='Automatic' and Private WiFi addressing back on now! You may get a clearer picture of what problems are outstanding if you analyze the placement of the necessary satellites in your house.
Just FYI for all Apple iPhone users. NG is aware of this issue. Seem that both Apple and NG are at work on this. So please be patient while they work on this. No idea when all this will be resolved. NG may need more logging and information so be ready if needed. Hoping for some beta builds maybe we can help test with. For now, will need to let Apple and NG figure things out.
- Well I ran a 100 foot Cat7 line across my basement; drilled a couple of holes and snaked it along the way. I have a cable running along the baseboard which is annoying. I wasn’t able to get it out of the basement but at least it’s at the other end of the basement.
Now both satellites are wired. Still, just came up to my bedroom, and started browsing on the iPhone. The wifi signal got weak (2/3 bars on the iPhone), Internet froze up, then dropped to cellular 5G network before finally reconnecting to another unit with full WiFi strength.
I’m watching it now dip back to 2 WiFi bars while I’m typing this. Annnnd just happened again.
This software is awful at figuring out how to do wifi handoffs.
Let’s go NG. Get your crap together.- Really quite tempted at this point to box this up just buy an Orbi wifi6 system. My old one was solid, don’t know why I had to go and do this ….
I have been following this thread like others for a very long time. I have all the same issues with my iPhone's and wireless devices using this network gear. I have tried all suggestions as well. Treating the symptoms but not knowing the true root cause of this failure. I am extremely disappointed in the solution that we hall have spent a significant amount of money. It isn't unreasonable for any of us to expect this problem resolved once and for all.
So, in my router +1 sat network which is wired to the router. I did a WiFi scan and realized that the backhaul wireless network broadcast is constantly on and there is no way to disable it confirmed by Netgear support team. I proceeded to watch the behavior of the backhaul wireless broadcast and saw that it was randomizing the channel used but when it hits the same channels that I have chosen statically for my 2.4 and 5 ghz networks, guess what. I lose connection on my apple products and they act in a hung state.. So, NETGEAR please allow an admin to disable Wireless BACKHAUL from broadcasting if connected via ethernet as well as code the logic so that the backhaul knows if wireless channel is already assigned via the router.. Who knows maybe this is the root cause and maybe a solution.
Wireless BH is never disabled when RBS are ethernet connected. One reason is there if something happens to the ethernet connection, RBS have something to fall back on to keep the RBS and the system going for access with wifi devices.
You might post a new post in the forum with your info and how the system is all connected and configured, FW loaded, size of home and placement of the RBR and RBS, CAT# cable used if any troubleshooting steps you've taken and lets maybe help you narrow down this issue.
I have two RBS ethernet connected with my RBR and I don't loose wifi connection with my Apple devices or any other devices.
All this phone and NG issues being seen on the BE systems are in the hands of NG and Apple. They'll need to fix this for those having issues with newer Apple phones or pads. Not much else we can do here in the forums.
Thanks for responding, So FW V9.12.5.3 on both / Single story home 5000 sq ft with 14' ceilings throughout. I have the RBR at one end of the house and the RBS at the other end of the house, both facing toward the middle of the house, both are 12' off the floor. Middle of the house signal is RSSI - 45dBm's to 60dBm's. CAT 6 wired throughout my home and for the backhaul. I have 90 to 110 clients on my network at any given time.
I only lose connection or drop WiFi calling on the iPhones (all 16 Max Pro's) it is for sure WiFI 7 / 6E issue. I have to forget the network and rejoin even when it shows the network has a checkmark next to it but the phone never shows the WIFI icon at the top of the phone. This behavior happens intermittently, which leads me to believe in my WiFi channel conflict, theory with the backhaul. Any suggestions?
Also something that someone mentioned to me as well, this thread is about interactions of newer generation Apple iPhone and WiFi 6E and 7. These are related to 6Ghz and BE modes and handling between these devices. This would probably not be caused by what's going on with the RBR and RBS backhaul nor would effect 2.4 or 5Ghz. Seems that something is going on with your system on 2.4 and 5Ghz if what's what your using and watching out for.
Something to make a new post about and see if we can help you troubleshoot and better narrow down what the issue on your system is.
phillipsaz wrote:
I have been following this thread like others for a very long time. I have all the same issues with my iPhone's and wireless devices using this network gear. I have tried all suggestions as well. Treating the symptoms but not knowing the true root cause of this failure. I am extremely disappointed in the solution that we hall have spent a significant amount of money. It isn't unreasonable for any of us to expect this problem resolved once and for all.
So, in my router +1 sat network which is wired to the router. I did a WiFi scan and realized that the backhaul wireless network broadcast is constantly on and there is no way to disable it confirmed by Netgear support team. I proceeded to watch the behavior of the backhaul wireless broadcast and saw that it was randomizing the channel used but when it hits the same channels that I have chosen statically for my 2.4 and 5 ghz networks, guess what. I lose connection on my apple products and they act in a hung state.. So, NETGEAR please allow an admin to disable Wireless BACKHAUL from broadcasting if connected via ethernet as well as code the logic so that the backhaul knows if wireless channel is already assigned via the router.. Who knows maybe this is the root cause and maybe a solution.
Just a heads up WiFi 7 operates on the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz radio spectrum bands and doubles the number of MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) streams to 16, enabling WiFi 7 to handle more throughput than its predecessors.
