Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

anezthetik
Aspirant

orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

I had a 9000 sq ft home and my existing router and extenders were not working well.  I was going to goi with the new orbi pro 6 that came out this month but those are delayed now?  So I went with two sets of orbi 4200 for my home.  The ONLY reason i went with this router is because it is the best that I could find locally, and didn't have time to deal with shipping. I also knew I could easily return both of these systems to costco if it didn't work which is PIA to do with online retailers. I had a wall snake and a 100 ft ethernet cable laying around from an old project that didnt pan out, so I put in a wired connection going from the main router to the attic near the kids room. I did this by connecting the second router to this ethernet and setting it up as an access point. What's more, I was able to set up one of the satellites to wirelessly connect only to this access point rather than the main router. Its been about 4 days and the connection between router--->access point router---> satellite has held steady. I am now getting 200-300 mbps in the kids corner of the house, sustained, which is more than what i set out to do! While it is working, this access point and the connected satellite show up as "disconnected" in both the orbi website and app. It does show up correctly when I connect to the access point. So I can't see all my connections on one site (not a big deal at all). Orbi also thinks my apple tv and paradigm receiver are satellites which as long as it works I am fine with. I came across a lot of threads on netgear's forum saying you can't connect two orbi routers and its better to just connect the satellites to the main router and not use the second router. It is somewhat glitchy to set up, but this has not been my experience.

This left me with three satellites to slave to the primary router on the ground floor. One of the rooms was far away from the primary router, and I had quite a lot of difficulty in getting the third satellite to daisy chain to another satellite rather than try to connect to the main router. It took a lot of reboots and resets but the third satellite daisychains to the second satellite even after rebooting now. I guess it takes time (10-12 hours) for Orbi to "learn" optimal connections. Multiple reboots and resets to get it to daisy chain would not work, but somehow letting it sit for a half a day and make its own mistakes seemed to do the trick.

I don't understand why netgear doesn't offer this option of adding additional routers (in addition to adding satellites) to an existing setup. I am nowhere near an expert and I got it to work. I also wish there was an option to configure the network topology the way I want (which satellites should connect to which router and which satellites to daisy chain). I don't know if other vendors support this, but definitely a must have if I decide to upgrade. the orbi ax system causes low battery faults in nest thermostats, which is a weird issue that I have experienced and didnt think was related to orbi until i came across the issue on netgear forums. It is not a big deal for me as my thermostats have wired power and come back online quickly. I now have essentially a 6 unit mesh system, 2 wired and 4 wireless. I get over 100mbps in every corner of my house as well as strong wifi signal. This all cost me about $1000, so under budget too. I am very happy with the current setup, and as long it stays stable, I am good for the next couple of years.
 
Message 1 of 6
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

What Firmware version is currently loaded?

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 wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-router

Message 2 of 6
Mstrbig
Master

Re: orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

Basically what you have done is setup multiple networks. It's whether Netgear allows it, as it can be done several times off one WAN pipe. 

It's great you got it working, as many novices would have a very hard time setiing of a network like you did. I'm glad it is working for you.

We have setup environmets where we had several networks running off one smart switch, going to multiple office locations.  

 

Message 3 of 6
anezthetik
Aspirant

Re: orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

There is one ssid that works seamlessly so not quite multiple networks. I guess multiple networks according to orbi, but not for the devices roaming about the house.

I am using firmware 3.2.16.6

Satellites are 50 to 100 foot away from each other.

If things keep on staying the way they are, i may disable firmware updates and try my best to keep it working. The only issue is the nest low battery one, and even that is dying down for some reason (maybe they “learned” to draw more power, lol).

By utilizing the second router, I do feel like i am getting away with something im not supposed to.
Message 4 of 6
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home

Sounds like the system is working well. 

 

FYI, NG is aware of the NEST issue and we are working with NG on this. Hopefully they can get that figured out. 


@anezthetik wrote:
There is one ssid that works seamlessly so not quite multiple networks. I guess multiple networks according to orbi, but not for the devices roaming about the house.

I am using firmware 3.2.16.6

Satellites are 50 to 100 foot away from each other.

If things keep on staying the way they are, i may disable firmware updates and try my best to keep it working. The only issue is the nest low battery one, and even that is dying down for some reason (maybe they “learned” to draw more power, lol).

By utilizing the second router, I do feel like i am getting away with something im not supposed to.

 

Message 5 of 6
Mikey94025
Hero

Re: orbi ax4200 experience in a 9000 sq ft home


@anezthetik wrote:
There is one ssid that works seamlessly so not quite multiple networks. I guess multiple networks according to orbi, but not for the devices roaming about the house.
...
By utilizing the second router, I do feel like i am getting away with something im not supposed to.

You are setting up multiple wireless networks using the same SSID like this: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ConfiguringTwoWirelessRoutersWithOneSSIDNetworkNameAtHomeForFreeRoami... Glad it's working well for you.  You might tweak the channels as described in the article so the two networks (even if they share the same SSID) have less interference with each other.

 

It's basically the difference between one fancy mesh router vs. connecting two non-mesh wireless networks together.  It's not quite as optimal or easy to manage as a single "mesh network", but don't worry about it if you're not noticing the difference.

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