Almost officially done with Netgear Orbi and their support due to not fixing the wifi issues

[Retired_Member]

I am done waiting not hearing anything back from their engineering team to fix this issue.  It's been 3 weeks now with no fix.  I pretty much told them, they have till Feb. 10th before I purchase a different Mesh system and ditch this crap Orbi.  This is ridiculous its taking this long to fix the issue. I work for a living in IT, and work with large products from EMC, CommVault, and have worked with their Dev teams on issues and they resolve them within days of being found. 

I can't keep tolerating the disconnecting of my wifi devices (android) like this any longer and having to reboot the routers when another device just decides it doesn't want to connect any longer.

[DarrenM · Accepted solution]

Hello Everyone

We have release firmware version 1.12.0.18 this firmware has fixes for disconnects and many more I posted the release notes below.

https://kb.netgear.com/000044171/RBR50-Firmware-Version-1-12-0-18

If you are still having issues after updating your Orbi unit you may want to factory reset the Orbi and test again. If you are still having disconnect issues or other issues with this firmware please create a new thread or contact our support team.

http://www.netgear.com/support/contact.aspx

Thanks

DarrenM

[Mikey94025]

Return it already... The Orbi is not for you and doesn't work well in your environment.  Making threats in a community forum is rather pointless.

[Retired_Member]

And making a useless reply like you did is a waste of time. Orbi is what we needed but they released a half baked product that has lots of bugs. I also made no threats. Grow up.

[Retired_Member]

I've also had my product for 4 months and you only a week?? Lol you have yet to see all the issues. Let it run for a while.

[Ely]

If you work for a living in IT then you should have patience and understand that software bugs take time, dedication and a process to catch them and fix them, specially when the software is inside a hardware item being sold to the general public, it's not your typical work enviroment software where if a bug fix causes another big one you just reverse the software update or make your workers deal with it, Netgear needs time to make sure something they release doesn't actually cause more issues than it solves, so please be patient, if you can't wait then yes, return or sell the product and wait a few months till all the bugs are killed and the product is more stable then buy it again.

Regarding your issue, have you checked to see if there's perhaps other Wi-Fi networks, devices etc causing interference in your home? have you tried rebooting all devices, switches etc? I have seen several people complaining about issues with disconnecting iOS and Android where the problem was solved when they discovered something such as a wireless soundbar which creates its own Wi-Fi network creating the interference with the Orbi.

PS: I just noticed you mentioned having your product for 4 months, so yeah returning it is not an option for you anymore.

[dekka007]

I have to agree with OP.

The forum has turned into a lot of community users saying turn this off, turn that option off.   Change your soundbar,  Change the settings on another device all to get ORBI to do what it is supposed to do out of the box (No other Router Asus, Linksys. Even Netgear) has issues with for example my home network setup. - Only Orbi.

Yes these "workarounds" to get Orbi to do what it is supposed to do out of the box are great..... However:

Lets not loose focus here.  Orbi should work with all options it has available in the hardware and interface,  Secondly it should work with all devices that are wifi compliant full stop.

As it stands at the moment it does not......

[st_shaw]

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@dekka007 wrote:

Lets not loose focus here.  Orbi should work with all options it has available in the hardware and interface,  Secondly it should work with all devices that are wifi compliant full stop.

As it stands at the moment it does not......

---

The expectation that all wifi devices should work smoothly together with no user intervention is simply not realistic.

The wifi standard does not guarantee that wifi-compliant devices will operate  reliably near each other.  The devices must be set by the users to non-overlapping channels, their power adjusted to minimize overlap, etc.  There is also no guarantee that WiFi devices will operate without interference from other devices in the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands.  These bands are unlicensed, so it's a free for all. Your neighbors could use up all the available RF spectrum and there's not much you can do about it.

If someone has multiple WiFi devices in their home, or interfering devices like soundbars, bluetooth devices, or cordless phones, then they need to understand this and be prepared to configure their devices individually to operate together.

For the best experience you should wire whatever you can, and only use wireless when necessary.

[dekka007]

Nice post , But lets relate this exactly to Orbi.

Same house, Same devices, Same Network frequencies, Everything Identical apart from the router

Netgear R8500 - No issues,  No wifi dropouts, No dramatic Speedtest variations, No Loss Of Internet connection.

Asus Rt-AC5300 - No issues,  No wifi dropouts, No dramatic Speedtest variations, No Loss Of Internet connection.

Linksys WRT3200 - No issues,  No wifi dropouts, No dramatic Speedtest variations, No Loss Of Internet connection.

ORBI - Internet connection issues, Dropped Wifi, Dramatic swings in Speedtest Results, IOS device unreliability, Dropped connection between Router and Sat.

It is quite easy to see the odd one out on the above.   The product is not stable and quite frankly not upto consumer standard as of TODAY.   

[Mikey94025]

I've been running the Orbi since September.  Unlike YOUR house, where it's apparently not working well for you and you should therefore returm it and move on, Orbi is working MUCH BETTER for me (greater wireless coverage/strength and speeds compared to my previous routers).  I have iPhones and iPads and have not experienced any use issues (I don't troll the logs looking for disconnects, only care if actual use is affected).  I cannot explain why you're having issues/interference/whatever and not getting good results like some other users.

I too have tried a large sequence of wireless routers in my house and the Orbi has performed the best FOR ME:

• ORBI - Works great, no disconnects, higher speeds (fast.com), strong wireless signal throughout my 3 floors
• Netgear R8500
• Netgear R7000
• ASUS RT-AC66U
• Netgear WNDR3700

[dekka007]

Except it's a lot of people!

A lot of community users are having the same issues and these are not random issues.  They are all of the same issues being experienced by multiple users in differing locations and setups. 

Glad it works for you tho!

[peteytesting]

---

@dekka007 wrote:

Except it's a lot of people!

A lot of community users are having the same issues and these are not random issues.  They are all of the same issues being experienced by multiple users in differing locations and setups. 

Glad it works for you tho!

---

and yet a lot of ppl are not having any issues and like the above i have the asus 88u , asus 5300 , netgear 8500 and so on and those and the orbi have no issues 

return the orbi and get a replacement unit 

[Retired_Member]

4 months is enough patience.  Again, their support is terrible compared to corporate companies I deal with on a daily basis.  Again, they are slow fixing the issue, compared to many companies I deal with on a daily basis.

Of course there are other wifi networks. We have it on the one that doesn't  have any traffic.  Netgear support and I have worked on this thing for hours already.

Best Buy accept returns way past their return policy. You just have to pick up another product from them with a credit.

[Retired_Member]

The Orbi system has had the best wifi out of all of them in my house and it covers it all.  That isn't the issue.  The issue is my devices loosing connection and killing the battery because every 5 seconds they disconnect and reconnect.  I never had any issues with either my Asus or Linksys routers before in this house.  They just didn't have the wifi strength to reach the other end.

Again, this is a half baked product with lots of bugs that should have been found before it was released.  I have never experienced this in a personal router that I have bought out of all of them in 20 years.

[MarkC1024]

I'm not sure how accurate the satellite status is, but what is it showing for your connection quality between the router and satellite?

[st_shaw]

@dekka007 Thanks.  I'm sorry Orbi isn't working well for you.  It's fundamentally different than the other solutions you mentioned, in that it uses a 5 GHz backhaul and has two separate APs.  That's both its strength and its weakness.  The GUI doesn't provide enough detail on connected devices and the backhaul status either, so it's almost impossible to understand what's not working when there's an issue.

In my case, I replaced an expensive enterprise-grade WiFi system from Cradlepoit with Orbi, and Orbi provides better coverage and better stability with my Apple products.  The Cradlepoint system had serious problems with my MacBook.  The MacBook would randomly disconnect from the Cradlepoint WiFi, and would never reconnect without manually reconnecting.  Cradlepoint never fixed the issue, despite numerous firmware updates.  It was very frustrating and I ended up installing an additional Netgear WNDR4500, just for the MacBook.  After that I still had problems with my wireless IP cameras hanging when trying to view their video feed.

My experience has been almost the opposite of some on here.  Orbi has been stable with my Apple devices, it eliminated the issue with my IP cameras, and it probably doubled the WiFi coverage area around my house.

[Rustproofcorn]

There are such a little amount of complaints about orbi in comparison to how many are sold. I mean take a look. Lol. If you don't change settings the orbi works. If u do it has problems. I would say an IT guy will probably have more problems than others because of fingering the system. Other than upgrading firmware mine works flawless. 4700 sq/ft house on 3 stories. I say take your orbi back and leave the netgear forums forever. Good luck.

[Retired_Member]

If you consider changing the wifi password,, opening a few ports for certain games, and other devices by changing settings, then these devices are junk.  That really isn't changing settings and it's basic settings.  Heck, Netgear required me to change a few settings to resolve another issue I had with it losing ports.  It works great on my iOS devices, and a few other wifi devices, but android no, and a few other devices that are directly connected to it, it won't let htem connect or pull an IP until I reset the router.

[bobby35ny]

I have to agree with the OP, Wifi needs work. I get disconnected all the time all over the house on andriod and a couple of laptops.

I just did a measurement for a goof 12 feet away from the main router going thru 2 paper thin new house walls and I'm dropping 5mhz to 2.4.

I wouldnt complain if it was seamless but it takes about 5min to drop the 5 to get to 2.4.

There seems to be issues with the orbi, I have plenty of other examples throughout my house but I only highlighted one of them.

I KNOW the 5 sucks for distance but only TWO walls and 12 feet?????

-Bobby

[Yld2rob]

Agreed. Every other router I have tried works fine. Orbi is the issue.

[peteytesting]

guys its simple , ether go and get a replacement unit or return for a refund as i dont think firmware is going to fix most of your issues as in most cases im guessing these are hardware issues , swapping the units completly will prove this out but sitting here whinging about it not working and knowing many others have it working makes no sense but to swap the units over or get a refund 

just for info here is some testing i did at 25 meters through 4 walls ( gyprock ) and one end of my house to the other , mix of clients andriod , windows , apple etc and no one here complains at all 

netgear orbi via wifi router and 1 x sat , note the orbi is 867M max

5 gig

write 28.3 MB/s read 27.6 MB/s sync 866.5 rssi -36 ch 11

2.4 gig

write 21.4 MB/s read 17.3 sync 400 rssi -36 ch 11

netgear orbi via ethernet ( eg test comp – sat ethernet ( locatioon A ) – router ( location C ) – sat ethernet – synology 415+ ( location E ) )

write 30.6 MB/s read 40.2 MB/s

--------------------------------

so as you can see a working orbi performs great you can see in the link below the orbi compared to some wave 2 1733M and 2156M big honking routers and it performs as good and better in some conditions

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2599718

so if you havnt swapped over the orbi plz do so , if you have swaped it over and you still have issue return it and get a refund and try something else as the orbi obviously isnt for you 

pete

[peteytesting]

guys its simple , ether go and get a replacement unit or return for a refund as i dont think firmware is going to fix most of your issues as in most cases im guessing these are hardware issues , swapping the units completly will prove this out but sitting here whinging about it not working and knowing many others have it working makes no sense but to swap the units over or get a refund 

just for info here is some testing i did at 25 meters through 4 walls ( gyprock ) and one end of my house to the other , mix of clients andriod , windows , apple etc and no one here complains at all 

netgear orbi via wifi router and 1 x sat , note the orbi is 867M max

5 gig

write 28.3 MB/s read 27.6 MB/s sync 866.5 rssi -36 ch 11

2.4 gig

write 21.4 MB/s read 17.3 sync 400 rssi -36 ch 11

netgear orbi via ethernet ( eg test comp – sat ethernet ( locatioon A ) – router ( location C ) – sat ethernet – synology 415+ ( location E ) )

write 30.6 MB/s read 40.2 MB/s

--------------------------------

so as you can see a working orbi performs great you can see in the link below the orbi compared to some wave 2 1733M and 2156M big honking routers and it performs as good and better in some conditions

forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2599718

so if you havnt swapped over the orbi plz do so , if you have swaped it over and you still have issue return it and get a refund and try something else as the orbi obviously isnt for you 

pete

[bobby35ny]

Pete,

How do I explain this, LOL.

Sure the speeds are great when your "settled in" the proper band being 2.4 or 5.

Its the switching of the bands thats making me nuts.

-Bobby

[brasax]

Just writing any read/write numbers is not helping. I also have very good rates and I have now wifi in the whole flat. That is the reason I bought it. 

But there is an issue with all of my iOS devices. As I wrote at another thread, my iPhone was reconnecting 137 times in 7 hours. I can provide the log if you're interested. You will see that the iPhone connected twice a second which makes no sense at all. Also the satellite is frequently reconnecting which should also not happen. Anyway, I'm in contact with the support to sort the things hopefully out. 

You are lucky that it is working at your place, but to tell other people they should not complain and just swap it or get a refund is not the right way as there are a lot people facing the similar issue. This is a point where Netgear needs to get aware of the problems. 

Yes, there afe also a lot people without any problems, but then Netgear needs to figure out where the problem is located. Maybe faulty hardware, maybe a issue in the firmware only a few people facing with a special setup.

[Retired_Member]

Swapping out the unit will not make a difference as it isn't hardware  It's in the firmware itself that needs to be fixed. And Netgear support even said that, reason why Developers are working on a fix.

And I get great speeds. Speeds isn't teh issue.  Its the dropping of wifi connections. Maybe you don't notice it because you don't know how to look.  It is happening to many people on here.

[farfromovin]

I am on the latest FW (1.4.0.34) and have the following options running, don't remember what factory was:

Enabled WMM settings (2.4GHz b/g/n)
Enabled WMM settings (5GHz a/n/ac)

Enabled MU-MIMO

changed the 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels to the lowest interference based on my observations

I subscribe to 200mbps and get wireless speeds of 235mbps in every room in my house and directly outside in my backyard as well. Orbi has had the strongest signal strength of any router I've ever used and I don't have any internet outages, or devices dropping connections. There are 4 hard wired devices and 13 wireless devices with android being 4 of them. No issues I can find. Maybe settings similar to mine will help you out?