Hi.
I do not want to use my iOS devices where I don't have to; I'd like not to put unnecessary applications on it.
Having said that, getting web access to the Orbi was inconsistent, at best. Early on, after I entered the router's address, it seemed to go to netgear.com. I'm not sure what incantations I did (clearing out browser cash, etc.), but I eventually got to the router itself. Even still, subsequent access sometimes resulted in being redirected someplace else.
The lack of unambiguous LEDs is sort of a pain. For example, the white LED actually seems to have three modes: solid, gradual pulsating (think of a sin wave), and a staccato mode (think of a square wave).
Then, it seems that any device configured to connect to the guest network ends up on a different RFC1918 subnet. Not big deal; in fact, I kind of like this though it would be good to be able to set this network. The problem for me is that this behavior was a surprise as it just does not seem to be documented anywhere.
It would be nice to have some quantitative value for the link quality between the main router and its satellite(s), say RSSI, dBm, or just some arbitrary relative scale. This could help one properly place or orient the positions of the devices.
It would be REALLY cool to have some sort of representation of SNR (for client nodes and for the satellites), graphed with respect to time so as to be able to diagnose strange problems.
Also, the Firmware Update page is less than helpful in that, for status, it says “Update failed” when it really should be saying “no updates available.” But, of course, that’s a guess on my part as I can not tell whether an attempted update really did fail or there are no firmware updates. I assume the latter as I did update the firmware as I was starting to configure these.
Finally, I can not stress enough the pain to have to enter configuration info manually!!! There is so much flexibility in this system that the product management (or engineers, on their own) should be able to download .CSV or text files that are easily maintainable outside the router and then be able to read them in later to support upgrading or reloading, etc. Info so saved should include all the configured MAC address (for secured access), VPNs, even passwords, etc.
Having said all that, this router and its satellite seem to be up and running well. They helped me out of a greater than average house with neighbors’ access points that were just blanking out our own home router (an R7000). So, once past these early knotholes, I’m happy - until I have to upgrade again.
IMPORTANT: Assuming that Netgear people watch these forums, please improve the “Online Update” pages; give some indication that there is or is not an update and properly reflect what the update status was.
PLEASE: improve your configuration support. Don’t depend upon a second device; you assume that that devices has connectivity that it might not have and/or that it has some previous notion of what the configs should be. A computer with a web browser is just wonderful.
Thanks, aps in Seattle.
