Mine continues to drop when walking around my house … or sometimes even standing still in the same room with full wifi strength.
Jumps to 5G; my call drops or my zoom call freezes for a moment and reconnects.
Still incredibly annoying, and still astonishing to me this hasn’t been fixed yet given what we spent on this system, and how basic our ask is (“Please just allow us to stay connected when we are standing still and using the most popular mobile device on the market” — this doesn’t seem like a big ask…).
Also incredibly frustrated with the Orbi 970 product and iPhone Wifi Dropping... My wife had the iPhone 15 Pro Max while I was on the non-wifi6e iPhone 14. We got these routers and she constantly experienced Wifi droppage while my phone was unscathed. Forced us to go back to our older Orbi wifi system and kept this in the closet as a massively expensive paper weight because we were beyond the return timeframe...
Fast forward to where we both upgrade to the new iPhone 16 Pro Max and we set the 970's back up. Continue to experience Wifi droppage as its clearly happening when you are far enough away from the router you're connect to and it tries to jump you to a closer satellite... Completely lose Wifi, switch to 5g, probably takes a few minutes in total to get reconnected (unless of course we wander back to another part of the house and switch routers again due to signal strength and it repeats).
Absolutely insane Netgear cannot figure this out for a system that costs well over a grand... countless 'secret' firmware updates sent by tech support with no progress made whatsoever...
Wow you have countless firmware updates being sent to you? That's a LOT. At least they are working on it....So then what firmware version are you running now on the router?
You don't by any chance have devices on Manual IP + DNS assignment do you? Default is Automatic assignment, just wondering...
When we bought the routers in Jan 2024, I spent a ton of time working w/ support so that my wifes iphone 15 would stop experiencing the dropping issues... very lengthy cumbersome process, was walked through uploading some beta firmware back in early/mid 2024... no changes.
We got the 16's two weeks ago, got these out of the closet and tried again... same issue using the latest public firmware. Did just open up a case again to have this worked through or see if RMA is necessary if these things are just busted. So frustrating.
Lastly, do not have manual IP/DNS assigned, set to automatic.
Not to be a Debbie downer but their eng team had me on this beta version of the FW and we still experienced issues with our iPhone 16 pro max losing connection when I between the router and satellite. When we unplug our satellite everything works fine… they’re still triaging it…
No you don't have to walk around and connect to each unit. You can do it from one location from any where on your network and just connect to the RBS web pages via there IP addresses and upload the FW files to there web pages first, then upload to the RBR lastly. I do this all the time when manually updating Orbi systems.
Newest firmware loaded. iPhone 15 Pro Max keeps dropping WiFi especially if I move around the house. I have 4 units (router and three sats). This system just doesn’t know how to do handoffs well. And yes my home may be saturated with so many units (under 6k sqft), but it doesn’t seem to me that too much coverage should be a problem …
@0tis saturation of signals is very much a possible problem. When there is over saturation, banding/node decisions are frequent and wrong.
Do a Google search on 'mesh nodes too close to each other' and you'll see both reddit, manufacturer sites, and other articles that mention this. Have you used a WiFi signal analyzer on a Mac or PC to check signals from each of the Orbi nodes throughout the house? Note, in my house I have 5000 square feet across a 4 floor house (basement plus 3 floors), and I have only 2 satellites. I get 900 Mbps d/l speed in the second floor, using the MLO 5GHz+6GHz connection, to the router in the basement - and each floor has 15 foot ceilings. That's a powerful WiFi signal to get 5GHz+6GHz two floors away!
I just checked here at my desk on the 3rd floor, and it sees -70dBm signals on the 5GHz band from the basement router - again across 15 foot ceilings and concrete flooring infrastructure. That is an "Okay" signal - rated for email and web browsing, "minimum signal strength for reliable packet delivery". But it shows how powerful these Orbi 971 and 970s are.
You didn't mention how far apart your Orbi nodes are, Netgear recommends a minimum of 30 feet. The technical info on the 970 series also states the range of the 971 and 970 is 3300 square feet. So you could have a lot of competing signals in some areas of your house.
If you are interested in checking your node placements using a signal analyzer, I wrote a short document on how to do it on one of the NG forums.
I am not saying this is the only problem you have, but I have found WiFi dropping to 5G cellular or connections with no internet has improved about 90% on this FW release. I even have my iPhone 16 Pro set to Wifi 6E='Automatic' and Private WiFi addressing back on now! You may get a clearer picture of what problems are outstanding if you analyze the placement of the necessary satellites in your house.
If mesh network nodes are placed too close together, several issues can arise, negatively impacting the network's performance and reliability:
1. Interference - Co-channel interference: Nodes operating on the same frequency band may interfere with each other. This reduces signal quality and throughput as the network tries to manage collisions and retransmissions. - Adjacent-channel interference: If nodes use overlapping frequency channels, their signals may bleed into one another, further degrading performance.
2. Redundant Pathways - Overlapping coverage can create too many redundant paths, causing inefficiency in the routing protocols. The network may expend extra resources managing these routes, increasing latency.
3. Signal Saturation - Strong signals from closely spaced nodes can overwhelm receivers, causing distortion and making it harder for devices to differentiate between signals. This effect is sometimes referred to as the "near-far problem."
4. Wasted Resources - Excessively close nodes result in underutilized capacity. The network does not efficiently use its potential coverage, wasting power and hardware resources.
5. Increased Network Overhead - Frequent communication between closely spaced nodes can increase network overhead, as routing protocols spend more time recalculating routes and managing congestion.
6. Load Balancing Issues - If nodes are too close, some nodes may handle a disproportionate amount of traffic, leading to uneven load distribution and bottlenecks.
To mitigate these problems: - Optimal Placement: Position nodes with sufficient spacing to reduce overlap but still maintain robust coverage. - Channel Planning: Use different frequency channels for adjacent nodes to minimize interference. - Power Adjustment: Configure transmission power levels to avoid excessive signal strength. - Routing Optimization: Implement protocols that prioritize efficiency and minimize redundant connections. - Use Antenna Directionality: Employ directional antennas to control coverage areas and reduce overlap.
After I explained away to the aforementioned why I was using 2 Satellites behind the RBE971 in an 1800 square foot home with metal roofing and poured concrete interior/exterior walls (thus I thought I would get better signal penetration, wrong!), I finally unplugged 1 of the satellites (the one that was equi-distance between the Router and 3rd satellite).
I was sure my signal strength to connected devices would drop. To my surprise, the devices with 2-bar strengths (using 3-nodes), moved up to 3-bars when using 2-nodes.
After the latest firmware update a few weeks ago, my dropped signals during mesh node transfers dramatically decreased, but there was still one occasionally.
After finally listening to the brain-trust of the Community, I now believe, with WIFI 7 technology, “less” (nodes) is “better” (than more WiFi congestion).
I reserve the right to withdraw this post IF I do experience a WiFi drop during a node transfer, regardless of what level the sunspot warning had specified. It might have to take this action to end “Community Member gloating” over my un-belief.
I went and bought a Deco WiFi 6 system thinking it would be more reliable. Set it up, and the speeds were sooooo slow in comparison. Immediately boxed it up to return it. While doing all this, I had some ideas about how to reconfigure my Orbi mesh. I dropped the 4th unit — so now I’m just using the three I originally got — and also switched locations of the other two, and put one of them in a completely different location exposed better to everything. It has been working great so far, with high speeds and better performance. I haven’t noticed the constant iPhone dropping either.
It may be that placement and saturation were issues for me. Fingers crossed this solves it, will report back with updates.
Well, scratch that. The issue continues. Now the weird deop/wifi changeover issue on my iPhone just happens at a different location in the house.
The things are definitely far enough apart. They are floors away and on opposite sides of the house. Have to be 50 feet. It’s just whenever you are on the threshold equally between two, it seems to just get confused, and my wifi signal quality will drop periodically, and then get strong and fast again.
Just checking the admin page, and at one moment it showed my iPhone as 2.4Ghz connection, and a moment later 5Ghz. Sometimes it shows 6Ghz. Is it having issues hopping between these? And why the heck did it show a 2.4Ghz connection?? Just buggy admin software?
Now I’m noticing in the admin page that my iPhone at one minute was connected at 2.4Ghz (how can that be??), and the next moment at 5Ghz, then the next moment WiFi dropped entirely and it switched to ceullar etc. These switches and drops keep happening, all while I’m stationary. When it connects well I get a strong connection and 300Mb on speed test, but only for a minute until this cycling begins again. What the heck.
