Christine, I read your post about how to report a bug with the Orbi app. Is there a way to track whether the bug has been escalated to the Support team to correct?
I spent a couple of hours chatting with NETGEAR Support on 3 occasions, and they had me report a bug that we confirmed. Smart Parental Controls no longer manages ethernet connections; we established that the Orbi app cannot block a device connected directly to the Orbi 750 modem/router via ethernet. But the agent insinuated that the only way to get the bug escalated would be if I provided more time to do more trouble-shooting with a member on the next support team. But my SPC has expired, and it kind of feels like extortion if the only way I can get the bug fixed is to renew a subscription for a product that we know doesn't work, just to provide more time to help NETGEAR resolve the issue.
I know I have a bad attitude now. I spoke with NETGEAR presales twice before I bought the 750 to specifically confirm that SPC would manage devices connected by ethernet, and I was assured both times that it would. That feature in SPC was the sole reason that I chose the Orbi 750 over Arris and ASUS. And it's been very discouraging to discover that this feature is broken in SPC and I can't get any assistance.
I really want to subscribe to Smart Parental Controls; it's the reason I bought my Orbi in April. But does anyone have a way to find the status of a bug that Support had me submit? I submitted the bug last month during my SPC trial period.
Actually, my suspicion is that the bug is really with the Orbi app or maybe with the SPC product and not with the Orbi. But NETGEAR is stonewalling the problem, and I really hate to subscribe to the service if it still doesn't work.
From what I understand from NG, submitted bugs get sent to engineering for analysis. Any fixes that are deemed necessary are acted upon to resolve the issue. Some issues may not be fixed or pushed in current app released and applied in the next app update. If the issue is not seen in the next app update, it's presume fixed and resolved.
In the meantime, I don't know what to think or do.
NETGEAR wants me to resubscribe to SPC, but I have no way to know if they've solved the bug or not and got it working yet. I specifically asked PreSales about this feature before I bought the Orbi, and two different times, they told me that SPC could control ethernet-connected devices.
But this tells me that I can't rely on the Support team because they don't know what the product's limitations or bugs are.
I may just have to wait a couple of months and then register again. And if it still isn't fixed, I'll just cancel my membership. It looks to me like NETGEAR is kind of embarrassed that I've called them out about this, and they won't reply. Someone on Twitter asked me for the case# once and then stopped replying after he found out the bug I reported. To me, that's not a good sign either.
May only mean that the bug and information is being reviewed and worked on by NG engineering. There is no user feedback on how progress goes when they work on issues and nothing seen until next app or feature update so would have to check on next update to see. I'll see if I can get some information on if SPC controls ethernet devices or not.
I called up the Support team three times and spent more than a couple of hours chatting with them and testing different scenarios to troubleshoot it.
• We've confirmed that Bedtime does not turn off the internet access via ethernet. The PC continued to have access to the ethernet. I confirmed this in the history log that showed it continuing to access sites, and I saw the PC continuing to access sites.
• We confirmed that it was true for the current version of Orbi firmware.
• We deleted the Orbi app and reinstalled it and reset the Orbi to factory conditions and replicated the problem.
• We did not determine if the problem existed with earlier versions of the firmware.
• The last thing I did before the SPC trial expired was that I was accessing the Orbi settings through the browser instead of through the app. It suggested to me that maybe the app wasn't controlling the settings for the ethernet. But I was able to turn it off and on via the Admin panel. Since then, my SPC trial has expired, but every since I accessed the device via the Admin panel, I believe that I'm able to turn it off and on manually with the Orbi app. But I can't test it now with Bedtime since I'm no longer subscribed.
That's the primary feature that I wanted and the reason that I bought this Orbi. I called PreSales twice to make sure that SPC would manage ethernet-connected devices, and both times I was assured that this would work.
I wouldn't have got this device if they'd given me an accurate answer.
