Just wanted to share my experience so far with the new RBK852. I have two devices that have WiFi-6, so thought I'd take the plunge and see how things went.
I went through the app installation process and had a couple of hiccups, but the software recovered and allowed me to continue the setup process until after the router updated its firmware. Once it rebooted, DHCP wasn't working and it wasn't assigning addresses to any devices. I restarted the router again and this time all was working correctly.
I had to manually update the firmware on the satellite, but that went smoothly. After this, I made all my settings changes and I was off and running. I then started running my speed tests and that's where things kinda fell apart. Under the RBK852 system, I was only getting 150-175 Mbps speeds where the previous RBK53 was giving me 250-300 Mbps. Next, I tried my iPhone 11 Pro Max, thinking that it would do better, but it got the same 150-175 Mbps speeds. Following that, I tried my new laptop and it got the same slower speeds as well.
I think the main reason for this is that there is only 1 satellite. It has a good connection to the router, but with only two devices, the system just doesn't have enough power for higher throughputs. With my Orbi RBK53 system, I added 1 satellite for a total of four devices at various points throughout the house to provide a strong signal everywhere and thus I get pretty much the full speed of my Internet connection which is 300 Mbps AT&T fiber.
I was actually going to upgrade my connection to 1000 Mbps to take full advantage of the WiFi-6's improved throughput, but after testing everything with the RBK852, I clearly won't be getting enough throughput generally to make the upgrade worthwhile. Color me disappointed. 🙁
So, I'll play around a bit more, but am not expecting any significant speed improvements now with the RBK852. Likely it will be going back to Bestbuy in a couple of weeks. Makes me wonder if and when Netgear will sell standalone satellites for the system, but I don't know if I really want to invest another $700 for two more satellites. That would mean the total system cost would be $1,400, which is pretty steep for home WiFi in my opinion. Oh well.
First, the RBK852 boots up about in about half the time of the RBK53 system, which is really nice.
The other thing that I noticed is that they took the suggestion to let you sort the device list by either IP address or device name. Just click on the header row change how the list is sorted. This is very helpful.
So, there are a couple of nice things about the new system! 🙂
I think the main reason for this is that there is only 1 satellite. It has a good connection to the router, but with only two devices, the system just doesn't have enough power for higher throughputs.....
I have it difficult to believe that this is the reason for the issue. If you have speed issues while in good distance from Orbi then there must be some other cause for the speed issues you're seeing.
If I set up the RBK53 with just one satellite in the same location that I placed the RBK852 at, namely the opposite side of the house, I get similar throughput. To get a high speed connection, you must be fairly close to the router or satellite, 10-15 ft, with little or nothing in between, like walls or ceilings. I am not really surprised that with only one satellite that throughput actually dropped for all of the WiFi-5 devices. I did expect the WiFi-6 devices to do better as they should be getting two additional streams, but for whatever reason this appears not to be the case.
As far as resetting to factory defaults after the update, I didn't do this as the only settings not already at the defaults were the SSID and the password. I only changed settings after the update.
As I said, I'll play around a bit more with the RBK852, but it doesn't appear to have any real world speed benefits in my configuration.
Well, I swtiched back over to the RBK852 system again today and got entirely different results. I don't know what to think.
First, when I logged into the Orbi system there was a new version of the firmware, so I updated that and then went about testing speeds again. This time around, I got similar speeds to what I already had with my previous generation Orbi RBK53 system. Weird! Before the RBK852 only gave me about half of the speed that the old system got, but now it's working entirely differently. I don't know if the firmware update did this or not. The update hasn't been posted to the support site yet, so there are no release notes to check to see what's different.
I tried using WiFi SweetSpot as recommended by FURRYe38, but I get strange results with it and there's nothing that documents how it is measuring the throughput, so I'm not particularly impressed by it. I will get an average throughput in one area of about 100 Mbps on SweetSpot, but then do a Speedtest and get aroun 300 Mbps, so there's no match up between the two applications. So, I'm more inclined to go with Speedtest. The only issue with Speedtest is that it won't tell me if I'm connecting at a higher rate than my 300 Mbps Internet speed. I'm considering whether to upgrade my Internet speed to 1000 Mbps, but if I'm not generally going to see a boost in throughput in most locations in the house, then there's not much point in it.
At least with the current better performance of the system, I will go ahead and keep it online for the time being and see how things go over the long term. I really do like the faster bootup time of the system and working in the GUI is much more responsive, so the new processor really seems to help things out.
Hopefully things will continue to work better and I can enjoy the new system and some stability in my network.
WiFi SweetSpots is ONLY for checking the connection rate between the RBR or RBS and your mobile device. Connection rate only. This differs from actual speed bandwidth throughput flowing from the mobile device to the RBR or RBS. Reason for checking the connection rate, is to see if your mobile device is connected at it's maximum connecction rate to the RBR or max rate of the RBR if the RBR has a lower connection rate compared to a mobile device. Most should have same or similar max connection rates.
WiFi sweet spots can help you trouble shoot if your device doesn't seem to be getting max thruput speeds, check WiFi Sweets spots with the device, for example if you notice that speeds are slow, and wifi sweet spots reveals your device is connecting at 300Mbps, then you might figure that the mobile device maybe connected at 2.4Ghz at 300Mbps when it should be connected at say 1300Mbps on 5Ghz, if the device supports that connection rate speed.
It may also point to a problem with the main wifi signal as well. If you know your device connects at higher rates and all of a sudden you don't see this while connected to the home routers wifi, can point to a problem with the wifi system as well.
It's just a stepping stone or useful troubleshooting tool to help you in wifi speed issues on mobile devices. Again, just connetion rates for this app. Bandwidth testing is handled by Ooklas speed test app.
Yes, I understand that WiFi Sweet Spot is attempting to show me the connection rate, but my experience with it shows it not to be accurate at all. It would show me connection rates averaging 100 Mbps, but when doing actual throughput tests using Speedtest, I would sometimes get just over 300 Mbps.
Unless I am not understanding something, I really shouldn't get throughputs above and beyond the connection rate. As another example, when you Option-click the WiFi icon an a Mac, it will display the transmission rate, which should be equivalent to what WiFi Sweet Spot is attempting to display. With my Macs, I never get actual throughputs that exceed this transmission rate. They are always slightly lower due to overhead.
Because of this, I don't think that WiFi Sweet Spot is providing me with accurate or useful information. This just my own personal experience with the app.
Wi-Fi SweetSpots is not meant to provide connction rates or measure internet speed, it’s a tool that uses the relative instantaneous wifi speeds to “observe how Wi-Fi connection speed fluctuates over time, and locate the fastest and slowest Wi-Fi spots in your home! You can use Wi-Fi SweetSpots to discover the perfect spot for your wireless router, access point, or wireless gaming console.”
Well not sure why your seeing experiences that you are. When I use it, it helps me determine if the device is connecting near the connection rate of the device or the wifi AP signal source. Which ever the base rate is and what is lower or higher. Just checking my iphone 6sP, it seems to max out at around 500Mbps. Which maybe the norm for my older iphone.
Yes even on my old mac book pro 2008 which supported 300Mbps on 5Ghz N mode. The rate seen in the wifi drop down was always 270Mbps. I never saw actual 300Mbps listed here.
The app is a useful tool, at leat for me. Just someting I include in my tool box.
Just wanted to share my experience so far with the new RBK852. I have two devices that have WiFi-6, so thought I'd take the plunge and see how things went.
I went through the app installation process and had a couple of hiccups, but the software recovered and allowed me to continue the setup process until after the router updated its firmware. Once it rebooted, DHCP wasn't working and it wasn't assigning addresses to any devices. I restarted the router again and this time all was working correctly.
I had to manually update the firmware on the satellite, but that went smoothly. After this, I made all my settings changes and I was off and running. I then started running my speed tests and that's where things kinda fell apart. Under the RBK852 system, I was only getting 150-175 Mbps speeds where the previous RBK53 was giving me 250-300 Mbps. Next, I tried my iPhone 11 Pro Max, thinking that it would do better, but it got the same 150-175 Mbps speeds. Following that, I tried my new laptop and it got the same slower speeds as well.
I think the main reason for this is that there is only 1 satellite. It has a good connection to the router, but with only two devices, the system just doesn't have enough power for higher throughputs. With my Orbi RBK53 system, I added 1 satellite for a total of four devices at various points throughout the house to provide a strong signal everywhere and thus I get pretty much the full speed of my Internet connection which is 300 Mbps AT&T fiber.
I was actually going to upgrade my connection to 1000 Mbps to take full advantage of the WiFi-6's improved throughput, but after testing everything with the RBK852, I clearly won't be getting enough throughput generally to make the upgrade worthwhile. Color me disappointed. 🙁
So, I'll play around a bit more, but am not expecting any significant speed improvements now with the RBK852. Likely it will be going back to Bestbuy in a couple of weeks. Makes me wonder if and when Netgear will sell standalone satellites for the system, but I don't know if I really want to invest another $700 for two more satellites. That would mean the total system cost would be $1,400, which is pretty steep for home WiFi in my opinion. Oh well.
Well, WiFi Sweet Spot issues aside, the new Orbi RBK852 system is performing well for me so far. By saying that, hopefully I haven't jinxed anything.
My old Orbi RBK53 system had an issue where after 2-3 days throughput on WiFi would drop to one-tenth of normal, requiring a reboot to restore full speed. After many months, a firmware update finally fixed the issue, but a with the just-released firmware update it seems to have gone back to its old slow ways again.
The new system has been stable for me since Saturday, so I'll start checking for slowdowns now, but hopefully won't experience this same problem again.
Good to hear. Ya I think the 852 system is pretty solid in wifi operation and coverage.
Was curious, what FW fixed your RBK53 slow down and did you do a factory reset and setup from scratch after you applied that lastest FW update on the RBK53?
Seems odd that for you, a 50 series seems problematic. Seems like a enviroment issue as well.
Well, WiFi Sweet Spot issues aside, the new Orbi RBK852 system is performing well for me so far. By saying that, hopefully I haven't jinxed anything.
My old Orbi RBK53 system had an issue where after 2-3 days throughput on WiFi would drop to one-tenth of normal, requiring a reboot to restore full speed. After many months, a firmware update finally fixed the issue, but a with the just-released firmware update it seems to have gone back to its old slow ways again.
The new system has been stable for me since Saturday, so I'll start checking for slowdowns now, but hopefully won't experience this same problem again.
I was also having issues when I first got my RBK850. I recently upgraded from the RBK53 were I as getting around 450 Mbps on WIFI with Spectrum. I have the 400 Mbps plan with Spectrum and always got a little bit more with the RBK53. When I first set up the RBK850 I was getting slower speed with my WIFI 6 and non WIFI 6 devices (around 250 Mbps - 290 Mbps). I put the router and the satellite in the same spot as my old system so nothing changed there. I started messing around with the settings but I was still getting slower speeds even with the recent update. I was considering returning it to my local BestBuy then one day my speeds went up. Now I am receiving 471 Mbps constantly on my devices, not sure if it was something I changed or what but I'm loving the new speeds.
The current firmware available on the support site for the RBK53, 2.5.0.38, is the one that fixed the problem, but if you check on the Orbi itself there is a newer version and the newer one seems to have reverted back to the slowdown problem
I do not perform a factory reset after any upgrade anymore. I went through months of troubleshooting with Netgear support and would perform factory resets that would do nothing to change the system's behavior, so I don't bother anymore. It's a waste of time and effort.
The settings that are recorded from you user configuration are simply written to a secure non-volatile memory location on the system and then these locations are read back into the system at boot time to set the configuration. If Netgear is doing a halfway decent job of writing their firmware, doing a factory reset and overwriting these values with default values does nothing but erase your configuration work. There should never be a need to erase these values unless they completely change the configuration memory storage schema. Needing to change the schema is extremely rare as if they have new configuration data that they want to store they can simply tack it on to the end of the existing data using new memory locations.
We, Netgear support and I, checked all kinds of different scenarios and they even replaced the router as part of the troubleshooting process, but nothing pointed us to an environmental problem. I gathered several debug logs for them from when the system was working normally and when it was running slowly and about two or three months later a firmware update was released and the problem went away. I was never notified that a fix was available, so it just be coincidence that the problem went away, but I believe that they were able to identify what was going on and fixed it, but I don't really know for sure.
It's interesting that you had such a similar experience with your new Orbi system too. I really have no idea why my results improved so much on my second try, but I'm glad that they did. If things work out, I won't have to go through the hassle of taking them back and returning them. I may even upgrade my Internet speed to see if I can really benefit from WiFi 6.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that the RBK852s keeping working well for both of us 🙂
The current firmware available on the support site for the RBK53, 2.5.0.38, is the one that fixed the problem, but if you check on the Orbi itself there is a newer version and the newer one seems to have reverted back to the slowdown problem
I do not perform a factory reset after any upgrade anymore. I went through months of troubleshooting with Netgear support and would perform factory resets that would do nothing to change the system's behavior, so I don't bother anymore. It's a waste of time and effort.
The settings that are recorded from you user configuration are simply written to a secure non-volatile memory location on the system and then these locations are read back into the system at boot time to set the configuration. If Netgear is doing a halfway decent job of writing their firmware, doing a factory reset and overwriting these values with default values does nothing but erase your configuration work. There should never be a need to erase these values unless they completely change the configuration memory storage schema. Needing to change the schema is extremely rare as if they have new configuration data that they want to store they can simply tack it on to the end of the existing data using new memory locations.
We, Netgear support and I, checked all kinds of different scenarios and they even replaced the router as part of the troubleshooting process, but nothing pointed us to an environmental problem. I gathered several debug logs for them from when the system was working normally and when it was running slowly and about two or three months later a firmware update was released and the problem went away. I was never notified that a fix was available, so it just be coincidence that the problem went away, but I believe that they were able to identify what was going on and fixed it, but I don't really know for sure.
Sorry, I messed up on the firmware version of the RBR50. The current version is the 2.5.0.38, but there was a previous version just prior to this which is the one that corrected my problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember what the previous version number was.
On another note, the RBK852 system is continuing to perform well for me, so it appears to be a keeper!
