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Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites

steeve725
Guide

Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites

Ok Guys.

 

A couple things that kind of confuse me and I'm wondering.

 

First off on my RBK33 with the plug in satelittes I have them hooked up again with the 2nd satellite just to see how things operate. I orginally had them hooked up this way for about a day, but since my home is only 2122 sq ft 2 story, I removed 1 satellite to see how it'd work. It worked great with only 1. My hook up is Satellite, Router, satellite. I have daisy chain enabled, since I never unchecked the box. 

 

I have 2 satelittes on my main floor about 45 ft apart from each other. My router is upstairs about 20 ft diagnolly from the one satellite and about 36ft feet from the other satellite. 

 

I thought if I read it right (I may not have) with daisy chain the system is supposed to have one satellite go through one satellite to the other satellite then the router. I looked at my netgear page and it shows that both satellite's go directly through the router and the backhaul is good. Is this correct?

 

How long is it before your device connects to a satellite normally? I have a satellite in my living room. In my living room is my ecobee thermostat and is about 15 ft from the living room satellite. The thermostat is connected to my router upstairs and not to my living room thermostat. Many times, I'll go into my kitchen where I'm close to my kitchen satellite and my phone will be connected to my living room satellite. I can stay in there about 10 minutes and its still connected to the other satellite.

 

Also, I noticed a couple times in the last day or two something a little puzziling with my ring floodlight camera thats mounted on the outside my house. Its mounted on the same wall as my living room satellite is located inside. A couple times it wont show up on my orbi app connected to any device, however if I look at the camera through its app, it shows connected to my internet and working fine. Why would it not show up on my orbi app as connected to any device? This is the only device that I've noticed doing this.

 

I've rebooted my modem and router a couple times.

 

Router Firmware Version V2.2.1.210.

App versionn 2.2.13.22

 

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model: RBK33| Orbi Plug-In WiFi System
Message 1 of 6
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites

These are good questions.


@steeve725 wrote:

I thought if I read it right (I may not have) with daisy chain the system is supposed to have one satellite go through one satellite to the other satellite then the router. I looked at my netgear page and it shows that both satellite's go directly through the router and the backhaul is good. Is this correct?


"Daisy Chain" means that satellites are allowed to connect through another satellite if that is a better connection than direct to the router.  As the distance between these satellites is greater than the distance from either to the router, the system has calculated that the better connection is directly to the router.  Satellites are not required to connect in a manner that is less efficient.  This is what they should do.

 


@steeve725 wrote:

How long is it before your device connects to a satellite normally?


Users are often puzzled because a device does not connect to the Orbi that they think "it ought to."  Orbi has a system for comparing the signal a device gets from the router and satellite and deciding whether it would be enough better to make changing worth while.  There is also a parameter in the "Advanced" tab under "Wireless Settings" (on the Orbi web interface) called "Enable Fast Roaming" which may affect how often Orbi looks at changing connections.  If a device is getting good service connected to the router, why would the Orbi force it to connect to a sattelite?

 


@steeve725 wrote:

Also, I noticed a couple times in the last day or two something a little puzziling with my ring floodlight camera thats mounted on the outside my house. Its mounted on the same wall as my living room satellite is located inside. A couple times it wont show up on my orbi app connected to any device, however if I look at the camera through its app, it shows connected to my internet and working fine. Why would it not show up on my orbi app as connected to any device? This is the only device that I've noticed doing this.


My Nest thermostat does this as well.  The Nest "does not talk" unless it has a reason to.  i.e. when I connect to it using my smartphone app, it appears on "Attached Devices".  Once I cut the connection, it disappears shortly after.  You can test to see if the Ring camera does the same thing.  i.e. Look on Attached Devices.  If the Ring is not there, connect to it (and do almost anything. set a parameter. stream a video.  whatever.)  While you are doing that, refresh Attached Devices and see if the Ring appears.  (Actually, I use a desktop connection to the Orbi web interface and my thermostat just "suddenly appears" on Attached Devices without me doing a refresh or anything.)

 

Hope I am being helpful.  Usually, when I am totally wrong, someone will speak up and give a correct response.

Message 2 of 6
ekhalil
Master

Re: Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites


@steeve725 wrote:

..........

........................ my ring floodlight camera thats mounted on the outside my house. Its mounted on the same wall as my living room satellite is located inside. A couple times it wont show up on my orbi app connected to any device, ...............

 


It can be that the camera is actually on the "Atached Devices" list but it can be with the wrong name! I noticed that Orbi can give some devices a random name (a name for another device in your network) if the device does not specify a name to Orbi during attach procedure.

So please look carefully in the attached devices list, look into the MAC addresses and check if the camera's MAC address is there. If you find it then just rename it to the correct name 🙂

Message 3 of 6
schumaku
Guru

Re: Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites

Reads like a familiar problem - attached device information and their optional configured names show either wrong - or not at all - on many Netgear Nighthawk router for years. Why do I don't wonder one second? We read the same now for Nighthawk AX, for Orbi, ...  Appears Netgear does not care at all.

Message 4 of 6
ekhalil
Master

Re: Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites


@CrimpOn wrote:

........  Orbi has a system for comparing the signal a device gets from the router and satellite and deciding whether it would be enough better to make changing worth while. 

.........


 


It's actually the mobile device who decides if and when to move from one node to another. The thresholds for when to move are different from a mobile device to another.

For most devices,  if the device thinks that it has a good connection to the Orbi Router it will not device to roam to the Satellite unless the signal level from the Router drops beyond a defined threshold set in the device even if the signal from the Satellite is better (if the device is closer to the Satellite). In this case if you switch off wifi on the device and switch it on then it will select the node with better wifi signal which is probably the Satellite.

Message 5 of 6
ekhalil
Master

Re: Orbi Daisy Chain & How long before something connects to satellites


@ekhalil wrote:


It can be that the camera is actually on the "Atached Devices" list but it can be with the wrong name! I noticed that Orbi can give some devices a random name (a name for another device in your network) if the device does not specify a name to Orbi during attach procedure.

So please look carefully in the attached devices list, look into the MAC addresses and check if the camera's MAC address is there. If you find it then just rename it to the correct name 🙂


@steeve725 Have you checked this yet? 🙂

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