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Introducing the Orbi 970 Series Mesh System with WiFi 7(BE) technology. For more information visit the NETGEAR Press Room.

Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

rwiegand
Aspirant

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I don't understand this stuff, so please be gentle. 

 

I want to have a wifi system with multiple acces s points that acts like a single AP, most labs and offices I've worked in have been set up that way-- one ssid, one password, no obvious switching between APs.  My main problem is between my house and shop, the signal from the house in the barn is too weak to work, but too strong to trigger automatic switching to the AP in the barn most of the time. This means I have to manually change the WIFI settings on my phone maybe 10 times a day, a real PITA, as I go back and forth. 

 

Orbi seems to do what I want, but I'd need a wired connection for the remote AP because the signal is poor. Based on this discussion, it seems there are alternate approaches to do this using my existing wired network. Reading about this, I see some posters who say you can simply set the APs to the same channel and ssid's and it will work that way, others who say it is much more complicated and that won't work.

 

I own a half dozen netgear wirerless routers of various vintages, and would be happy to buy something new if necessary, if I know what to do. There is a cat6 wire connected to a netgear gigibit switch providing ethernet to the remote building. What's the best way to get seamless wifi coverage?

 

Thanks very much for any advice!

 

 

Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Message 26 of 58
st_shaw
Master

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

@rwiegand

 

You already have an AP in the barn, but your phone is not switching because the signal from the AP in the house is too strong.  You should be able to make this work with the gear you have now.

 

Try reducing the power on the AP in your house.  You probably just need to reduce power on the 2.4 GHz band.  This should force your phone to swich to the barn AP when in the barn.

 

If you buy new hardware, you could try the wired APs from Ubiquiti.  You can set a minimum RSSI level, below which the AP will disconnect your phone.  This would prevent the phone in the barn from connecting to the house AP.

 

It will also help seamless roaming if you use the same SSID, same password, and same security settings between the house and barn AP, but use different channels on the two.

Message 27 of 58
rwiegand
Aspirant

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I'll give this a try, thanks. The router is currently on the side of the house nearest the barn, and gives poor/no connection in my music room on the far side of the house. I'll try moving it to a more central location and perhaps solve both problems. I appreciate the response. 

Message 28 of 58
st_shaw
Master

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite


@rwiegand wrote:

I'll give this a try, thanks. The router is currently on the side of the house nearest the barn, and gives poor/no connection in my music room on the far side of the house. I'll try moving it to a more central location and perhaps solve both problems. I appreciate the response. 


Good luck.  You can make it work for sure.  I have one site wth two Ubiquiti APs and the roaming is seamless, with Apple iOS devices at least.

I also have an Orbi at another site, and the roaming works well there too.

 

I'm not demanding my devices to instantly connect to the absolute fastest band at all times, however. I judge based on always having a usable connection without having to reset the WifFi.  Sometimes devices can take a little while to switch to a faster AP when they still have a good connection on a slower AP.

 

Message 29 of 58
Jmmelgaard
Tutor

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I purchased this hot mesh expecting it to work.
It doesn't.
I purchased a very expensive wifi because I thought Netgear would provide versatility and workarounds in case one of the satellites met with interference.
It doesn't.
I sought help from its forums because I thought it would provide a useful explanation.
It doesn't.
I thought a large company could provide a response free of aloof and arrogant down talk.
It doesn't.
Does my money go to Netgear?
It doesn't.
Message 30 of 58
powrby4d
Guide

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Can't disagree. I came to this forum to find out when my requirements would be met by the product which was designed with a feature present in every other router, switch, and AP crippled. 

I got the same as you - some clown who apparently has never installed networks in the real world telling me that my requirements for a combination wired / wireless network were just not valid because they don't fit the brilliance of the Orbi crippled design. (It's not a bug, it's a FEATURE that we stupid people just don't appreciate!) Not to mention telling people what is or is not too expensive for them.

Message 31 of 58
loomis1975
Luminary

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Jmmelgaard,

 

You do realize that this is a publicly accessed community forum and that the "aloof and arrogant down talk" was provided to you by a fellow forum user and not a Netgear employee?

Message 32 of 58
Jmmelgaard
Tutor

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I'm not too smart.
The company provides the forum to save on long distance calls to India.
Call me the MissingLinksys.
Message 33 of 58
loomis1975
Luminary

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

So you think everybody but you is a Netgear employee?

Message 34 of 58
Jmmelgaard
Tutor

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

The company provides the forum.  The company is responsible for my customer experience.  

 

Thanks to those who actually provide solutions.  All others need not participate.

Message 35 of 58
loomis1975
Luminary

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Thats not the way community forums work.

 

Look at: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Our-Community/NETGEAR-Legal-Disclaimer/ta-p/4047

 

If you don't want input from the community, I'd suggest working directly with technical support.

Message 36 of 58
powrby4d
Guide

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

No, I think no one else on this forum is a Netgear employee, based on the absence of any occasional authoritative responses to either good questions or bad answers.  There is no point in Netgear setting up a public community if it's ONLY a public community.

Message 37 of 58
SamirD
Prodigy

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite


@powrby4d wrote:

Can't disagree. I came to this forum to find out when my requirements would be met by the product which was designed with a feature present in every other router, switch, and AP crippled. 

I got the same as you - some clown who apparently has never installed networks in the real world telling me that my requirements for a combination wired / wireless network were just not valid because they don't fit the brilliance of the Orbi crippled design. (It's not a bug, it's a FEATURE that we stupid people just don't appreciate!) Not to mention telling people what is or is not too expensive for them.


Apple people behave the same way...I blame them...lol.

Message 38 of 58
SamirD
Prodigy

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite


@powrby4d wrote:

No, I think no one else on this forum is a Netgear employee, based on the absence of any occasional authoritative responses to either good questions or bad answers.  There is no point in Netgear setting up a public community if it's ONLY a public community.


There's benefit even from it being solely a public community because of the crowdsourced knowledge, some of which the company would never want to official acknowledge, but still provides solutions for problems with the products.

Message 39 of 58
Hirrdgoon
Apprentice

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Please add this wired backhaul feature. It's stopping me from buying the orbi!

It's silly not to have this feature since all the competition has it.
Message 40 of 58

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

the is no specific competition for orbi as its not a mesh system 

 

ethernet backhaul  has been mentioned over and over and i think ether the dev's are keeping it under their hats or they have made the decision not to have ethernet backhaul because it was never a feature they considered and still dont consider it  needed for the coustomer base they arer aiming at 

 

it would be good if netgear came out and made a stand on this one way or the other , even if just to stop ongoing commentary on this feature 

Message 41 of 58
Hirrdgoon
Apprentice

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Even though Orbi is not actually mesh system, Netgear still markets the Orbi as a mesh wifi solution. Thus its specific competition is all the other Mesh systems, and is always reviewed against them. All these other mesh devices support the wired backhaul feature.

 

It also seems to be the most requested feature, as there is lots of talk about it here and other posts.

 

Finally, its pointless to have a 4 port switch on the back if not usuing the full ability of a wired network. Simply buying a switch and plugging devices into that would be a better idea.

 

 

Message 42 of 58
st_shaw
Master

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite


@Hirrdgoon wrote:

 

 

Finally, its pointless to have a 4 port switch on the back if not usuing the full ability of a wired network. Simply buying a switch and plugging devices into that would be a better idea.

 

 


 

Devices plugged into the 4-port switch can communicate with each other at full Gigabit Ethernet speeds.  How is that pointless?

Message 43 of 58
DublinB
Initiate

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Just getting back to point......

 

Has Orbi Netgear decided to allow an ethernet connection to their satelite box yet? Does anyone think this would be useful i.e. would it give a stronger signal from this satelite unit. Thank you for your responses

Message 44 of 58
Random12
Apprentice

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I think a lot of folks in this forum would like to see this feature (myself included!). It would help with a variety of things. It may or may not help give you a "better" signal, there are so many factors involved, but there are clearly tons of scenarios where it can help. I think the main thing is this:

 

*Where* does it fall in Netgear's priority list? i.e. there are probably more important things (wireless stability issues, other important features, etc..). Personally, there a few higher priorities for them IMHO.

 

 

Regards

Message 45 of 58
SamirD
Prodigy

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

It is next to impossible to get internal schedules and priorities from companies on their products.  If this system doesn't fully meet your needs, the space is getting new systems added every day that introduce a different mix of features that may meet your needs.  The price ranges are all still about the same as well.

 

It is important to note that a lot of enterprise systems can be purchased for the same price of these 'high-end' consumer systems with much more robust design and implmentation.  It does take a bit of learning and setup, but the benefits are a system that is designed to perform perfectly without fail--because that's what it does in business environments every day.

Message 46 of 58
Hirrdgoon
Apprentice

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

I understand what you are saying and do agree the wireless backhaul feature is great and does work well for the wireless devices.

 

However, I find its still slower in real life testing vs a wired connection. The wired connection is just more stable to the point i still have a dedicated switch connected for wired devices to avoid the use of Orbi. If they enabled the feature, it would make all my gigabit switching redundant and would help clean up most of the rat nest of cables. I would buy go buy another sattellite if they did.

Message 47 of 58
sugino
Aspirant

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

Doesn't Mesh allow hanoff while multiple WAP's do not?

Message 48 of 58

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite


@sugino wrote:

Doesn't Mesh allow hanoff while multiple WAP's do not?


 

handoff is a client desision at this stage as no clients have the standard to allow the AP or mesh to control what the client does

 

however both mesh and multiple ap's allow roaming

Message 49 of 58
SamirD
Prodigy

Re: Wired Connection to Satellite

While it is true there is no standard on client handoffs, mesh systems generally do roam from AP to AP much more seamlessly in well-designed systems.  Our older meraki system was so seamless that it only dropped at the max one packet between handoffs.  It was completely transparent and covered 4 acres.

Message 50 of 58
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