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I've been searching the forums and the Internet in general, today, as I have gotten my first notice from Comcast that, lo, I am over my 1 Terabyte limit, this month. It has been inching toward that mark for a bit, and last month was around 944 Gig. What can I say: We are a connected, gaming, streaming family and our Comcast link is a vital utility. I have seen suggestions on this forum to "just disconnect everything and reconnect until you find the hog." With 30ish devices on the network, 4 kids, 2 renters, and countless visitors, this is simply not a possibility. What I could do is set up a different router (preferably one with this feature) and move the connections over to it one-by-one until I find the offender. If I have to go that route, I highly doubt the Orbi would get reconnected. Which is a shame because it is a pretty decent solution for everything else.
I would like for Netgear to seriously consider giving customers an option for this data. There are many ways to do it, but ANY of them would be acceptable to me. I'm a long-time networking pro, so even if these are scary for some people, at least it would be an option.
- Do the metering in the device with display of the statistics in the interface and in the app. This is obviously going to make the most customers happy because it would give us a report per-device of the usage. This isn't rocket science: Even if the device has a database limitation of 100 devices to monitor, or even 50, it would be useful. COMCAST does it on their modem devices for xFi. It can't be that hard.
- Do the metering externally by providing SNMP statistics on a per-device basis for smaller timeframes. This would mean that the Orbi doesn't have to store "dead" devices forever and would be up to whatever stat-gathering tool was used.
- Do the metering externally by providing some app that collects the data to a desktop. Maybe Java so you can hit Windows, Linux, and Mac all at once with it.
- Provide traffic mirroring to a selected wired port. This would at least give me the ability to plug in Wireshark or other tools to see what is going on. It would be super useful for troubleshooting intermittent issues and not just bandwidth monitoring.
- Provide netflow/sflow output to a collector on the home network. This would also have broader uses than just bandwidth monitoring, but it is potentially the hardest to use solution in this list. If it is easy to implement in the Orbi (i.e., the chips already support it), then I'll take it happily.
- Other things I haven't mentioned. Look, I'm desperate, here. I will find a way to use anything that helps.
I get 2 months free "warnings" from Comcast, but the cost of not knowing this outweighs replacing the Orbi. Once I start getting charged $10/50 Gig, I'm going to need to know right then and there. And if I don't have a reasonable answer by that time, another Orbi will be going out to eBay.
195 Comments
Even basic Asus routers have device based traffic monitoring.
The super duper AX12 NIGHTHAWK (Nighthawk is a spy plane :) however it's a embarrasement it can't even spy on device bandwidth consumption. I rellay regret my decision over buyinh Netear, I should have gone to Asus ax routerLet me first say that there are many things I like about the Orbi. It range is unparelleled ant I have coverage frond my three units not only in my house, but in my shop and over most of my 6 acre property. The stability has been great and adding a new base was a non event.
I was extremely vexed by the inability to monitor traffic by device, but the need was driven by my poor and limited internet connection.My solution away anything but elegant. I switched internet providers from pathetic AT&T DSL to SpaceEx Starlink. My band widths went from 3 Mb to 300 Mb overnight. With no data caps and more reliable service than my wired internet, the need to monitor device usage went away. Only cons are disruption in service during extreme rain events and longer latency. (70 ms vs 30 ms with wired)
While a little pricey at $400 base sytation and $99 per month, it allowed me to keep my investment in my Orbi system.
Welp, 3.5 years and has Netgear ever even responded to this request? This reminds me of that meme story about the programmer that started a new job at a software company and quit on his first day after only about an hour at his desk. Turned out he was actually a user of the software product that was so annoyed by a bug that he couldn't get them to fix that he got a job at the company, went through all the paperwork and training to get access, spent the hour it took to fix the bug, then quit. You are that company Netgear. Get it together.
This is redeculous, even cheap entry level routers from Asian brands offer more options than this Nighthawk spaceships. This is a total abuse of a brand identity. Eveyone dreams to own it, however once you have it its nothing a old peice of junk. And no one talks about the bitter truth.
I'm on my way to making my mind to sell newly bought RAX120 while its in open box condition and go for a ROG Rapture GT-AX11000.
It's 2022 and I'm surprised this feature raised back in 2018 has not been implemented. I feel embrassed when my friend saying his free router from the internet provider (Comcast) has this while I've paid premium price to buy this advanced router (Orbi) lacking this basic feature.
Count me in as a customer wanting device level monitoring. Providing usage for the network as a whole does not allow for finding the offending source, whether it is a hacker, a child downloading porn all night or a screamming ethernet card. Give us some tools NetGear!
Another user who would really like this feature now that my kids are online much more than before. This data should already be captured. Just expose it somehow. Even a barebones log file woudl suffice.
Adding another Orbi user who would appreciate this feature added to the traffic monitor/meter.
Please add this feature to display usage per device. Xfinity, ASUS, and I'm sure a long list of other routers / AP's already do this. I came over from ASUS to get this 'premium' wireless mesh solution. Now since bandwidth is an issue for me, I feel like I have to go back to ASUS just to gain this simple feature.
Wow. It seems I found "the" thread. And I wasn't unique in this idea I see. I spent quite some time searching through menus and Googling because I just could not accept that something that seems so easy to do on a router level is not available. Disheartening to also see how long this is open without any solution. I guess we need to buy more expensive products where the relevant code is not commented out.
