Orbi looses Internet for a while on iPads and iPhones, while WiFi stays on

[bss12]

Hi, my iPhones and iPads are loosing Internet connection every once a while, remaining connected to Wifi. The indicator shows full signal, so it's weird.

The connection restores after appr. a minute. Turn WiFi off and back on on the device helps immediately - therefore I guess, it is Orbi and not the cable router.

Today I have a lenghtly WhatsApp voice call (appr. 45 min)  and connection disappeared three times and came back again.

Somehow my laptops and my wired connected desktop seem not to have any issues. 

Any idea?

BTW. I am pretty sure to have the latest firmware.

[jimbojames79]

I've had this on a previous router (was to do with chipsets apparently) and just moved to Orbi in the hope that this will resolve the issue. However, its started happening on an iPhone SE and 8+. Both with latest firmware.

[bss12]

Any solution?

[jimbojames79]

Sorry no, I was only told yesterday. I only noticed your post because I was updating mine to do with a wireless printer.
I was told to turn off 20/40mhz co existence to fix the printer issue and am wondering if that's causing the problems with the Apple devices.

[DarrenM]

Have you tried to enable Mumimo and beamforming? or try adjusting the wireless channel in the wireless settings?

DarrenM

[t_k]

 bss12

You're running into the common Orbi issues. It's not your setup, it's the Orbi's and there is nothing you can do about it, unfortunately. It's the Orbi's backhaul system (WDS) and it's very buggy. Don't bother playing with channels width, broadcast channels, signal strength, etc. It's almost certainly none of that.

See my post about the backhaul

See the refund request thread, if you cannot return the Orbi's to the store

The Orbi's are known for being so bad, even Nest keeps them on a list of wifi devices known not work with their products.

You'll also see a huge number of posts about people complaining of disconnects with various systems. The problem is that layer 2 traffic is poorly managed (the backhaul) and it results in hard to diagnose or reproduce bugs. Restarting any Orbi works temporarliy and so Netgear and other Orbi users will claim it's "fixed".

I've sent some completely reproducable bugs to Netgears "engineers", but they won't be fixing them.

[bss12]

Well, that's bad news. What is the better option? Any alternative?

It has solved all my coverage problems like a sharm...

[t_k]

As far as alternatives go, there are two I would recommend. 

If you're non-technical, or would just rather things be as simple as possible, then the Eero's are highly rated. A lot of people speak highly of them though I never used them. I do think you will suffer a minor speed degregation, but you'll have stability.

If you don't mind a little bit more technical of a solution, but still pretty easy, go with the Ubiqity Unifi's. I swapped out our system for the Ubiquiti Unifi's about a month ago. Not a single problem since - and blazing fast. However, the Unifi system does require that you run the "controller" software somewhere locally - it's not embeded in the access points. The easiest is to just buy their cloud-key option ($90 in addition to their access points).