frustrated Netgear makes the decision to put 43S in star mode when I want it in mesh (Daisy Chain)

[Goodtimes481]

Hi I just purchased the Orbi rbk 43s ( sorry I chose on top rbk 53S that was the only one listed or allowed me to chose)  from Best Buy and it's the 3 pack. The performace of the product as far as speed and not cutting out is great. Compared to the linksys I can control a lot more and see somewhat more with the app both on phone and website. with both manufactures it would be nice if you can put in the linkspeed between the node and router but at least netgear puts in the linkspeed between node and the device.  

I really want to keep this but I'm upset. There is a setting on here that enables Dasy chain. If you turn it off  it will enable star.  My 12 year old Nephew who is a PlayStation freak is someone I bought this for.  Logan's room is behind an acordian gate and wall and the router is 50 ft away from his room.  Logan has a node is his room, and there is another node right behind logans room wall in the kitchen. My goal was to have the PlayStation hooked up to the node in his room it's only 3 ft away from the playstation.  other devices nin his room goes for the bedroom node most of the time. The Playstation  goes for the one in the living room which is  50 ft away. Logan's other devices IE (laptop tablet ect) that connects to logans room get's a nice linkspeed from 500 to 866. But his playstation get's 150 to 300. again  (because the PlayStation hooks up to the living room router which is 50 ft away  even though the node is 3 feet away. 

I don't know why this is happening, but you know what I can't do anything about it and that is what I'm upset about. Even though Netgear has a setting for daisy chain to be enabled or disabled the machine makes the decision weather to put it in star mode or daisy chain and yes Netgear wants it in star mode. ( yes I am well aware star mode is less signal degeneration between hops because it's only 1 hop. But that is why I brought the Tri-band and upgrade my speed with my isp so I only get a 20% loss rather than a 50% like you get with a dual band. With that speed upgrade to 400 mbps from 100 mbps the 20% decline won't have an effect on Logan playing the playstation. So to to ruin my plan Netgear makes a smart router that makes a dumb decision. 

 My question is if you are going to have an option for a human to choose to enable daisy chain or not why goes Netgear go ahead and do something totally different. I do want both options daisy chain and star but I want to be able to choose it on my own and rely on my decision which one I want based  on diagnostic or general speed comparisons. . Any ideas? are they going to implement this in future firmware updates?  or must I research another manufacture to allow me to make the choices I want and give me the speed and performance that I want. (which I prefer not to.) If you are going to ask me to run a 50 ft wire from my router to the node that is out of the question that’s not why I brought this. Why run it to the node I can run it to the PlayStation. The idea was to have this wireless and that why I bought it. 

[plemans · Accepted solution]

It does have the option to daisy chain (mine does) but its more the router is able to figure out if star or daisy chain is going to be more efficient. Why would it setup in daisy chain if star worked better for speed? You might have just had it to close as the orbi devices need minimum of 30ft of seperation to function properly with roaming and configuration. 

I'm happy to see you have it working with the speeds you desire. 

[plemans]

if the satellite is 3 ft from the playstation, why don't you direct wire the playstation to the satellite? The satellite is going to have a better backhaul than the playstation. 

Plus you can't trust playstations speedtest setup. They're not always using the optimal server. 

[Goodtimes481]

The whole Idea was not to have wires, and my post was relating to why put an option to enable dasiy chain if it don't do it. I'm still upset about that. But I did move the satellite away from the kithen behind and up high above cabinets and moved it 20 to 30 ft infront of the router in the livingroom which is further away from his room. yesterday I was able to get in Logan's room when he was not home and tested the reception on my laptop & which I turned on in Logan's room I was able to link my laptop to logan's Node. I was getting an 866 linkspeed and around 350 to 380 mbps on my laptop and phone off that Node. Logan's has not been here but he left his play station on and since I moved the node as mentioned before from up high above the kitchen cabinet's to front part of the livingroom his play station has been in sleep mode or whatever you call it and is now getting the signal off Logan's room node in sleep mode at 433 and hasn't roamed in 36 hours.  (I don't go on the play station) so I'm happy for now.  

Just as a matter of principal if they advertise this unit as a mesh unit but it works as a star unit  there either shouldn't be an option to put it in dasy chain mode. My preference would have been  3 options dasy chain star or auto. then the box or ad wouldn't be misleading.  To end this correctly I am very happy with the hardware at around 40 to 50 ft away and connected by by external satellite he's getting full speed. and since I moved that node from the kitchen up high  the laundry room, kitchen,  logan's room, Logan's dad's room and my room we are all getting 350 mbps speed so I can't complain. 

[plemans · Accepted solution]

It does have the option to daisy chain (mine does) but its more the router is able to figure out if star or daisy chain is going to be more efficient. Why would it setup in daisy chain if star worked better for speed? You might have just had it to close as the orbi devices need minimum of 30ft of seperation to function properly with roaming and configuration. 

I'm happy to see you have it working with the speeds you desire. 

[Goodtimes481]

Thank  you for your responce I apprecate it. I'm a new baby and when I got this router I ditched a linksys dual band which was true mesh. On the box it says this was a mesh router thinking dasiy chain. On the Linksys he was getting 30-60mbps on his playstation. I read about tri band and after review after review I chose the orbi. When I first set it up with the kitchen node against the wall high up there was no difference. It freaked me out after spending $370 Plus it was not connecting to the node is logan's room. All and all I moved the kitchen node back off the wall into the front of the livingroom His play station has been getting a link speed of 466 for 2 days stright from his own router. (play station is sleeping the kid isn't home now)   When I went to test my laptop and phone I was getting a 866 and 350 speed on speedtest.net

My beef is I just feel if the GUI says daisy chain it should go to daisy chain mode. if Daisy chain is disabled then go to star mode, or make it easier for people who don't like to read instructions  have a section that says star mode and also have an option for auto mode. This router acts just in auto mode. I like to play with things during my testing I would have liked to put this in Daisy Chain mode to see the difference since this is tri-band.  As long as he can get the signal from his node now and terrific performance I am happy ( thats the overall goal) how we get there is more of the techi stuff. I like to experment

But my friend thank you so much for your your responce and putting up with my Grammar and spelling. with my job I'm always in a hurry.  You have a great day!

[plemans]

Again, glad to hear its working.

Sadly the orbi is designed to be more user friendly and less friendly to the more technical of us. They tend to make them simple for the average user. 
it kind of leaves the more technical in the cold. But the nice thing is they do function well when they've had time to fully setup. 

A couple things I will give you a heads up on, with its bandsteering and roaming. they do take a bit to "settle down" after they're first installed. What I mean is they learn which devices tend to need to be on the 5ghz and will auto connect to that right from the start. 

whenever I reset mine or change router configuations, it takes a couple days for my devices that need 5ghz to auto start out on 5ghz. 

I rebuild my network frequenly as I'm changing out routers/modem/devices. For this reason (and others) I don't like the bandsteering but the family loves it. so it gets used and I just put up with it for a few days. Its just something to keep in mind that if you're speedtesting with it, one day you can get slow 2.4ghz speeds and the next fast 5ghz. Or vice versa. Its more about how devices are functioning on the system than how their peak performance is. 

You'll also notice that Orbi won't give you the peak performance you get from a flagship router. but it will give you better average throughput throughout a home. My RAX200/CAX80/C7800 will all stomp on the orbi if I'm close to the router. But with any distance/obstructions, the orbi shines. its why I use a flagship router and then the orbi as access points in my setup. Its a bit overkill but fun for testing 🙂 

Plus my devices that need >200mbps speeds, tend to be hardwired in. Less than that covers pretty much any of my gaming/streaming scenarios if I'm on wireless.