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Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

Huskerbob1
Aspirant

Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

I have an RBR40 router with 3 RBW30 satellites. I purchased this specifically for the square footage coverage and to use with my exterior security cameras.  I have about a 3500 square ft. house and thought that this system marketed to cover 5000sq. ft. Would be adequate considering it had to go through exterior walls. I purchased the extra satellite in order to provide expanded coverage. I have 4 exterior cameras. One in the southeast corner, one in the southwest corner, one on the northwest corner overlooking the driveway and one front doorbell camera in the north central part of the house. The house is a very long ranch house, approximately 100 ft. long with a finished basement so I wanted coverage throughout. 

My initial set-up thought process was as follows. I set up the router toward the center of the house in the basement close to the ceiling. Since the house had been hardwired for Ethernet, I took advantage of the Ethernet ports on the back of the router for some of the devices. The router is approximately 30 feet away from two of the satellites and 60 feet away from the third satellite. I set up the satellites to be in closest proximity to each of the cameras. I placed one satellite in the west center of the main floor. This positions it at about 25 feet from the southwest camera and 25 feet from the driveway camera. I placed one in the north center of the main floor about 7 feet from the doorbell camera and the last one in the southeast corner of the main floor about 8 feet away from the southeast camera. The router is approximately 45 feet away from the southwest and driveway camera, 60 feet from the southeast camera and 25 feet from the doorbell camera. In all, because of the placement, I thought the following would occur. The west satellite would connect to the southwest camera and driveway camera. The doorbell camera would connect to the central satellite and the southeast camera would connect to the southeast satellite. This all seems very logical to me,but in reality it almost never connects in this manner. The front door camera almost always connects to the router. The driveway camera most often connects to the router, but sometimes connects to the west satellite. The southwest camera connects either to the router or the west satellite and the southeast camera almost always connects to the west satellite which is over 80 feet apart or sometimes to the router. It never connects to the East satellite, which is by far the closest. I should also point out that the the cameras operate the best in a 2.4ghz mode for signal strength, which leads to another issue. The doorbell camera is only 2.4Ghz which is not a problem, but the other three will operate with 2.4 or 5Ghz. By default the Orbi places a higher priority to speed than to signal strength. Which means that no matter what I do, these three cameras default to 5Ghz and I get extremely poor performance because the lack the signal strength needed to function properly. I have literally spent hours on the phone with Gearhead and unable to come up with way to make these cameras functional on a consistent basis. Gearhead tells me that the way the Orbi is setup is isn't possible.

 

So having said all this,this is where my frustration comes in. If Netgear so chose, it could easily make the Orbi flexible enough to resolve my issues. I can't be the only one having these problems so I am interested in others viewpoints or if they have figured out a solution. Here are the things that I think would be nice to have that Netgear could do if it wanted to.

 

1. Allow the capability to set up seperate SSIDs by 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz. This would allow me to set my cameras only to the 2.4Ghz SSID and force connection at the 2.4 setting. 
2. Allow the ability to set what device connection you want either 2.4 or 5 for the best performance of the device in your network. While a significant amount of devices will connect either 2.4 or 5, some do not perform as well in a 5Ghz setting.

3. Allow the end user to designate which satellite or router a device connects to by default. There is no way that my southeast camera is going to perform as well connected to a satellite that is 80 feet away when there is one only 10 feet away. 

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 1 of 10
vajim
Master

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

The freq separation issue you discuss here has been brought up in this forum many times.   You might want to perform a quick search.  I saw a post/discussion on this page about the same issue with over 100 posts.


please keep in mind that in a true Mesh system the combining of 2.4 and 5 freq is standard operation 

 

 

 

 

Message 2 of 10
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

Do these cameras "move" from one access point to another, or do they change access points when they reboot?

Message 3 of 10
tucsontico
Virtuoso

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

I have a similar setup to yours. Albeit, with an ORBI RBR50 router and two RBS50 satellites. I have 6 home security cams distributed around my 3000 sq ft house. Four are dual band and two are 2.4 Ghz only. I also noticed similar issues you mentioned. However, it usually occurs on only one or two cams. Oddly, it is the 2.4 Gh cams that seem to "wander" off the closest satellite. Here's what I did to minimize this "drift":

 

1) Be certain you've deconflicted channels on both freqs with any WiFi signals that are nearby.

2 Assign fixed IP addresses to each camera using the "Advanced" tab on the ORBI web GUI. Reboot the sats & router.

3) After fixing the cam IP addresses and rebooting, allow the ORBI to settle for 20-30 minutes. Recheck the web GUI to assure the IP addresses are as assigned.

4) Power down all your cameras. Power down the router and satellites. Power cycle your modem. Power up the router and satellites one at a time (router first).

5) Power up your security cams, one at a time. After all are back online check the IP addresses and connection status (which sat are the connected to).

 

After accomplishing this IP/Power Cycle waltz, you should see connections to the proper satellite and freq.  One other item to consider is the type of construction in your house and exterior walls–as well as, any appliances or metallic objects betwen the offending cams and sats/router. Sometimes simply moving a satellite a few feet will make a huge difference. Good Luck!

Message 4 of 10
Huskerbob1
Aspirant

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

I have tried to "force" the devices to connect to specific satellites and speeds with limited success. They always want to revert back to 5Ghz and satellites.

Message 5 of 10
Huskerbob1
Aspirant

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

Thanks, I understand the concept of a Mesh network, but as in all things very few are a one size fits all. There are specific reasons why Netgear should allow the flexibility of configuration. It's not that they cannot. They could easily program this flexibility into their GUI. It is just that they choose not too. 

Message 6 of 10
Huskerbob1
Aspirant

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

Thanks, I will look into this. Were you able to set the frequency to 2.4Ghz using this solution.

Message 7 of 10
vajim
Master

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network


@Huskerbob1 wrote:

Thanks, I understand the concept of a Mesh network, but as in all things very few are a one size fits all. There are specific reasons why Netgear should allow the flexibility of configuration. It's not that they cannot. They could easily program this flexibility into their GUI. It is just that they choose not too. 


Good luck....sounds like your homework is lacking.  

 

Wouldn't it been easire to study the Orbi before purchase to see if 'their' Mesh fit your choice?

Message 8 of 10
Tbsteph
Star

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network

How about Netgear (And others) make theirproducts easier to use and less prone to the type of issues mentioned by the OP. The vast majority of users are not network engineers not do they want to become one.

Message 9 of 10
vajim
Master

Re: Disappointed in flexibility of Orbi Mesh Network


@Tbsteph wrote:

How about Netgear (And others) make theirproducts easier to use and less prone to the type of issues mentioned by the OP. The vast majority of users are not network engineers not do they want to become one.


I agree 100%

 

However the easy part is up to interpretation. For this discussion I think it's more of case where users (and I was one) don't truly understand what they are buying. This forum is filled with posts about trying to run 2 routers in their network without realizing what they have.   The issue about the mesh as frustrating as it is for now in my opinion is another case of not understanding what you're buying. 

Things will change but for now either do your product homework or have full understanding of the retailer's return policy 

Message 10 of 10
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