Orbi WiFi System - Had Enough

[mylumnad]

I bougt the Orbi system back in Jan, I also got 2 sats. I have had nothing but daily disconnects where I had to reboot router to get it to work. I stayed the course and waited through firmware update after firmware update. Internet is CRUCIAL to my business and this week I snapped. I returned the Orbi and got a Linksys Velop. 100% difference night and day. I have had Netgear routers my whole life, sorry I had to leave 😞

[Retired_Member]

I was considering switching to Velop and, having learned my lesson with the Orbi, took a look at the user forums. They seem to be having similar issues though. Good to hear you are having a positive experience. I will likely wait for the Asus Lyra though.

[Retired_Member]

Having used ASUS for a long time (5+ years) for networking, I'd say you're in store for a lot of the same issues.  The whole reason I'm on Orbi is because of instability of the Asus AC88u, AC87u, AC68u, AC66u's.

[jleecloak1]

I owned every one of the ASUS you listed below and I still own the AC87U. I don't haven't had any problems with ASUS routers. I love the UI. What kind of problems did you have with ASUS?

[Retired_Member]

All had massvie inability to deal with lots of devices.  I have over 90 devices, 50 of which are connected 24/7/365.  The Asus' had terrible NAT loopback problems, dropped connections of 5ghz devices, etc, and none could adequately cover my 5000 sq ft home.

Used merlin's firmware for a long time too, to no avail.  Terrible devices.

[jleecloak1]

I have over 25 devices connected daily but you have 90+. How is that possible?

I agree the 5ghz signal doesn't cover a wide range but that can be improved with adding another ASUS router as an access point.  If you can find a router that can handle 90+ devices without bringing the network down to a crawl let me know. That will be a heck of a device. Since most devices are not compatible with 5ghz signals I have to believe most of your wireless devices are connected via the 2.4ghz signal. This will present a problem because of so many devices competing for the 2.4gz bandwidth. 

I haven't experienced the dropped connections with ASUS at the level that you have. If I dropped it was rare. I think you could benefit from having multiple access points using different SSID's. 

[Retired_Member]

The vast majority of devices are in fact 2.4ghz.

I used a combination of those devices with wired backhaul over the past 5 years.  The stability of the Asus' were just garbage.

Multiple SSID's are a flaky way of managing devices, especially when so few correctly manage handoffs when signals are low.

Now that the beta firmware corrected the GUI issue I was having on the Orbi, my network appears to be back working smoothly for all of those devices.

[jleecloak1]

What version of the beta firmware are you using? I am using V1.11.0.2-dbg1

[Retired_Member]

V1.12.0.16

[jleecloak1]

Cool, i just email support hopefully they can send me the latest beta firmware. Thanks

[TheEther]

---

@TXGunLover wrote:

Multiple SSID's are a flaky way of managing devices, especially when so few correctly manage handoffs when signals are low.

---

You can use a single SSID with multiple Access Points.

[Retired_Member]

Absolutely you can, but the Asus' are a nightmare when configured that way.

[TheEther]

How so?  I'm running Merlin on a R7000 (as an AP) and it's rock stable.

[jleecloak1]

True, you can use 1 SSID for the entire network but if you create multiple SSID's you can have each device connected to the closest AP point in that environment. That would help improve signal quality and speed for that device. Using the same SSID a device is just going to randomly connect to the first SSID signal available. Unless it has a built-in logic to connect to the highest quality signal for that SSID. Also it could balance the network so that the device with the strongest signal doesn't have to handle more devices than it should at once. 

Hopefully you set the other ASUS routers on your network as AP instead of repeaters. In repeater mode with 90+ devices would probably feel like you are on dialup. 

[peteytesting]

using multiple acces points with the same ssid has been done for years and works as long as you ensure the ap's around you are using different channels and the overlap between ap's is no more than 20% , this doesnt matter what type of ap or router your using as far as wifi goes 

see

the roaming decision is made by the clients and not the ap's , so as long as the overlap and channel selection are right the clients should move without issue 

the orbi does this differently and uses both ap and band steering to help the client 

[jleecloak1]

What do you mean when you say overlap?

[peteytesting]

see the pictures above 

imagine the wifi transmission from the orbi router is shaped a bit like a doughnut and radiates outward from the router and lets say it covers about 40 foot diameter 

that is the effective range of the transmission or the router , now you would place the sat so it doesnt overlap the router signal too much 

bit like that 

if you have the router and sat to close you will just confuse all your client devices 

[jleecloak1]

Good diagram, I figured this is what you meant but wasn't sure.