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Forum Discussion
What's the best alternative (Now that I'm returning Orbi ...)
Firmware 2.1.4.10 was the final straw. It re-introduced throttling in my RBR50 router that I'd previously fixed with a factory reset. Thanks to resurection of an old thread I now see that this thro...
So you want to believe the Amazon reviews on a product your looking to buy, but refuse to believe the same reviews on a product you dislike? Ok.
tsig wrote:
So you want to believe the Amazon reviews on a product your looking to buy, but refuse to believe the same reviews on a product you dislike? Ok.
With all due respect to your right to an opinion - I suspect that you're one of the 'lucky' majority who appear to have had no problems with their Orbi. I suggest that you'd also have have a completely differing perspective to all those Amazon reviews if you were one of the 'unlucky' minority who have to deal with family frustrations over disconnects and/or having your ISP speed reduced by 66% because of this router.
I get it that that a significant number of users are happy with the product. But I also note that 641 reviewers on Amazon were critical - that a lot of unhappy bears. 21% of the users are disatisfied with what is supposed to be a top performer.
The whole point of this thread is to pool resources and share knowledge to make sure that if we jump ship that we similalrly don't just jump into another sinking vessel. Feel free to make helpful contributions to this discussion on alternative products.
So I bought my Orbi(s) in Feb of this year and they worked flawlessly until about 2 days ago. Now I'm having so much trouble I almost don't care how much I spend on another product to get these wifi issues fixed. I keep reading reviews about how wonderful this product is and I can't help it but get more angry because I cannot get mine to work what so ever.
I continue to consider spending the money for the Eero Pro setup but I am afraid that unless I do ethernet backhaul the performance will be lacking. Anyone have any experience with other products or how to fix this current one? I'm running RBR50 and RBS50.
I'm also currently on hold for Netgear support (for which I have no faith in) and have been for the better part of 3 hours now. How are they still selling units?! :(
I am happy to report that after hours and hours of debugging and arguing with both tech support for netgear and talking to managers at the location where I bought the Orbi's... I have been able to return these after the return policy for store credit and am now a happy Eero owner!
So far still supporting the same speeds with ease of setting it up. The one thing that I will say is that there's no web UI for the eero.. but truthfully it's almost unecessary.
gr0uch wrote:
I have been able to return these after the return policy for store credit and am now a happy Eero owner! So far still supporting the same speeds with ease of setting it up. The one thing that I will say is that there's no web UI for the eero.. but truthfully it's almost unecessary.
Thanks for posting your experience for the benefit of other. Eero is not available in New Zealand, where I am, but it sounds interesting.
Despite starting this thread, I'm still perservering with Orbi because:
1. Netgear support have been working with me and we've solved one of the two problems (speed throttling) with only the RBW30 disconnections still to go.
2. Apart from the RBW30 disconnections, I'm pleased with Orbi's performance (good video streaming and coverage over the house),
3. I'm not convinced that the grass is greener with other mesh products ... From my research it seems that other consumer mesh products can also have similar disconnection problems. I was interested in the Ubiquiti Amplifi but it's community forum suggests similar potential for issues (seach for 'disconnects' on https://community.amplifi.com). The Linsys Velop similarly appears to have disconnection issues reported on it's own community.
4. Apart from the Amplifi (using routers as a mesh point), other mesh products don't have as many Ethernet ports in router and sats (Eero included).
5. Orbi has the best architecture (dedicated wifi backhaul channel) and good (best?) theoretical speeds.
C'mon Netgear - I imagine its not much fun being under the gun on this, but you've got a killer product and we're all hanging out for the stability break-through.