Netgear Orbi - Wired Sattelite

Not saying it doesnt support it. I am saying that the RBR50 and RBS50 are flaky and hard to manage when setup in backhaul mode.  I have both the base and satellite connected to the same switch (unmanged switch made by Netgear) and the base station still shows a magenta light thinking its offline

Internet works, and i can only use the orbi app if my iphone is connected to the base stations wifi, not the satellite

Orbi isn't a product i'd recommend.  

The comment to which you replied, was made in 2016, so a lot has happended since then.   

So for anyone new...come to the end of this series of posts and get the current status.

As noted above.  Orbi DOES INDEED support wired backhaul.  It does this now and has supported it for at least a year and most likely longer.  I set up an Orbi and two wired satellites last spring or early summer and it works great.

I did have trouble using a managed switch in a second attempted installation at a different location, but I discovered that when I turned off loop prevention on the switch ports, the wired backhaul worked very well.

I just remembered that I set up another Orbi system with one wired satellite this week and that worked well also.

So, to be clear... Orib supports wire backhaul already.

Orbi does support wired RBSs. 

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seany187 wrote:

Other mesh networks such as Eero and soon Luma support hard wiring your sattelites. I think its extremely important Netgear Orbi does the same. Especially for those of us who can.

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Wired RBS do work in real life. Users need to be aware that using a managed switch or a non managed swithc with green ethernet will cause problems between the RBR and RBS. For managed switch, disable all IGMP protocols and any green ethernet features on this switch. For non managed switches, users need to find switchs that do not have any green ethernet or power saving features on these switches. 

Also how you connect the RBS wired is important. The RBS needs to be directly connect to the back of the RBR or thru a switch on the same segment line. The RBS can not be connected to a host router while the RBR is connected to the host router on one of it's other LAN ports. Routers interfere with Orbi status traffic or don't pass thru this traffice when the RBR and RBS are connected to the router in parallel. The RBS has be connected to the RBR directly or thru a switch thats connected to the back of the RBR. 

https://kb.netgear.com/000051205/What-is-Ethernet-backhaul-and-how-do-I-set-it-up-on-my-Orbi-WiFi-System

There are still issues with how this works in real life.  I have one Orbi RBK53 system implemented with two wired satellites and it appears to be working fine.  I attempted to set up a new RBK53 system to take with me to another site and found the satellites would not reliably connect via the wire.  In this case, I used the RBR50 as the router and DHCP server.  I had the RBR and RBSs all connected to a dedicated Netgear switch.  Some satellites would choose the wired connection, some would choose wireless and sometimes they would daisy chain.  (Which I disabled after I noticed it).  I kept looking for a setting to specifically tell the RBR to talk to the satellites via wires, but I could not locate a setting for that.  Also the process took an incredibly long amount of time for the satellites and base to dedide how they wanted to talk.  Wouldn't the wired connection nearly ALWAYs be the best connection and the one to use?  I could see why it might be neat to have wireless as a backup connection if it was available...just in case a switch died or someone unplugged the wrong network cable.  But at least let me tell the RBR to give priority to the wires.  The next day, I tried a Ubiquity Dream Machine with a single AP and it was much faster.  Since a wired backhaul is really not the forte of a mesh system, sometimes it likely makes more sense just to use a router and managed APs when you have wires in the wall that you can use.  I ordered a larger UDM configuration to test out later this week.  The UDM lacks OpenVPN, but I'll see how it goes.

Ethernet connected RBS have been working for a while now. There is a process to get them connected via ethernet backhaul. 

Posting again as this comment got removed as spam?

This still does not work properly for me.  Tried talking to netgear support but they didn't have much to offer besides "reset to factory and try again" which I have done many times
 
Setup

Orbi is in AP mode
Firmware is 2.3.5.30
Base Station is plugged in to 1 Gbps switch (second port)
Satellite is plugged in to 1 Gbps switch (first port)
Carrier provided router is plugged in to 1 Gbps switch
Base station IP is provided by DHCP on router, using reservation
Satellite IP is provided by DHCP on router, using reservation

What does work
Wireless Internet connectivity
Wired Internet connectivity

Web admin page for both Satellite and Base

So the basics are there, which is good
 
What does not work
Base station has magenta light on always
Orbi app does not connect when iPhone is connected to satellite Wi-Fi
Orbi app does connect when iPhone is connected to base station Wi-Fi But shows internet status as "offline"
Intermittent connectivity issues for Satellite connected devices

I enabled remote admin via the app and that works, but its a greyed out option in web admin so not sure if that is mean to be a "Router Mode Only" feature

This still does not work 100% for me.  Tried talking to netgear support but they didn't have much to offer besides "reset to factory and try again" which I have done many times 

Setup

• Orbi is in AP mode
• Firmware is 2.3.5.30
• Base Station is plugged in to 1 Gbps switch (second port)
• Satellite is plugged in to 1 Gbps switch (first port)
• Carrier provided router is plugged in to same 1 Gbps switch
• Base station IP is provided by DHCP on router, using reservation
• Satellite IP is provided by DHCP on router, using reservation

 What does work

• Wireless Internet connectivity
• Wired Internet connectivity
• Web admin pages for both base and satellite

So the basics are there, which is good

What does not work

• Base station has magenta light on always
• Orbi app does not connect for local admin when iPhone is connected to satellite Wi-Fi
• Orbi app does connect for local admin when iPhone is connected to base station Wi-Fi
  • But shows internet status as "offline"
• Intermittent connectivity issues for devices connected to satellite

I enabled remote admin via the app, but it is greyed out in the web interface so i'm thinking that might be a Router Mode only feature.

Daisy Chain feature for Orbi was implemented back in December 2017. For more info, please visit the following:

https://kb.netgear.com/000048458/What-is-daisy-chain-and-how-does-it-work-with-my-Orbi-WiFi-System

https://kb.netgear.com/000051205/What-is-Ethernet-backhaul-and-how-do-I-set-it-up-on-my-Orbi-WiFi-System

This is supposedly working now, but it didn't for me. Once I connected satellite wired only got like 5Mb/s. Tried all the tricks and router settings mentioned by people in these forums still doesn't work. This should be so dead simple, plug in and it works period. Of course seems nothing is ever easy with Netgear!