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Please help me decide which Orbi system to get: RBK4 or RBK5 series

ozaz
Aspirant

Please help me decide which Orbi system to get: RBK4 or RBK5 series

Hello,

 

I have recently purchased an RBK50 system for use in my two storey home. I'm entirely satisfied with the improvement in WiFi coverage inside my home. However, I still don't get a strong signal throughout my garden (something I would ideally like). Therefore, I'm wondering whether to return my RBK50 and purchase either an RBK43 or RBK53, or wait a while and add another satellite to my RBK50 in the summer (which is when I would want the WiFi in the garden).

 

I'm slightly price sensitive, which is why I'm considering RBK43 instead of RBK53 or RBK50 + extra satellite, but I'm happy to spend more if I can see benefit in the RBK5 series. The problem is I don't understand WiFi technology well enough to understand whether the RBK5 series is really worth the extra money for me. I'm hoping someone can help me with this. I think there are two main aspects I need to understand better........

 

1) As I understand it, the only difference between RBK4 and RBK5 series *from a WiFi point of view* is the backhaul channel. Is this correct? Does this difference only pertain to a difference in speed or does it also pertain to a difference in bandwidth? I suspect the former won't really be any benefit to me, but the latter might. If there is a difference in bandwidth, can anyone provide any advice that would help me decide if the extra bandwidth could be beneficial or if it would be overkill? FYI, we are a 3 person (occasionally 4 person) household. No one works from home, but there are situations when everyone is using WiFi for media streaming simultaneously. We might add 3 WiFi security cameras to the home in the future (possibly Arlo, possibly something else).

 

2) If I were to add an RBW30 or a RBS40 satellite to my RBK50 system, would this bring the backhaul speed of the entire system down to 866 Mbps? Or does the backhaul operate at the RBK50 speed?

 

Is there anything else I should consider?

The USB port on the RBK5 series is not important to me.

 

Thank you

Model: RBK40| Orbi AC2200 WiFi System, RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
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DarrenM
Sr. NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Please help me decide which Orbi system to get: RBK4 or RBK5 series

The backhaul shouldn't be a big factory unless you have a really good internet connection unless you do alot of data transfer over the home network. If you have a internet connection lower than 1000Mbps you should be fine using the 40 and 30 in the home as satellites.

 

DarrenM

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