Orbi vs. Amplifi

[Drake0508]

Hey guys,

I am still trying to decide between these two systems. I just talk to tech-support at Ubiquiti regarding Amplifi and they told me that I would lose up to 40% of my bandwidth when devices connected to their mesh points. Does anybody have a clue of how much is lost when connecting to an Orbi satellite?

[Random12]

The thing that makes orbi special is you don't lose any bandwidth. It uses separate set of radios to communicate between the main and satellite. most other solutions don't have dedicated radios like orbi. Without the dedicated radios, you would need to use the same radio that the devices (ie laptop, tablet, iPhone) are connected to to talk between APs, thereby reducing the bandwidth left for the devices in your home.

[Ely]

I experience no signal degradation at all with Orbi, I get the exact same speed when I'm one feet from the main Orbi unit that I get when I'm all the way in the backyard and away from the satellite, same exact ping too, amazing!

[JMU1998]

One great benefit with the Orbi is the dedicated connection between the main unit and the satellite this connection is not shared by any other wireless devices so you get a faster connection and more stable wifi experience on all your devices.  I think some others have mentioned the same thing and it works really well.  I have zero dead spots and full coverage in my home something I had struggled with in the past for years before I got the Orbi

[William10a]

The Orbi sounds like the best of both worlds no big black box to try to hide and able to cover a very large area by placing them to cover your dead spots. How do them handle older walls and the copper and cast iron pipes in a older house?

[bapcha]

I've owned an Orbi + 2 Satellites for the better part of a fortnight. Here are the major issues that I had:

a. It is supposed to automatically upgrade to the latest firmware - once set up properly - not a chance in hell!  I had to call tech support to get help in updating the firmware. In my case, I had to update each of the satellites and the router separately!!!

b. Synching between the main router unit and the satellites is kind of slow.  I had already changed the admin password in the router, and fully expected the satellies to mirror that in a few seconds. NO - I had to manually do that too (very stupid - in my opinion)

c. Guest network setup is enabled only with the latest FW.  I had to upgrade the FW to switch on the guest network (see a, and b above about difficulties with firmware upgrades and password synch)

All of the above was easy for a tech geek like me, but it will probably be out of scope for all  but the most tenacious of consumers

Recommended only to the ones who are very tech-savvy!!!!! Feels like a product that was rushed to the market (it is OK to do that, but I expect more frequent and comprehensive FW updates). eero does a FW update a week - on average.   So, Netgear - pick up your game - OR.............