NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Orbi WiFi System
394 TopicsBandwidth monitoring by device
I've been searching the forums and the Internet in general, today, as I have gotten my first notice from Comcast that, lo, I am over my 1 Terabyte limit, this month. It has been inching toward that mark for a bit, and last month was around 944 Gig. What can I say: We are a connected, gaming, streaming family and our Comcast link is a vital utility. I have seen suggestions on this forum to "just disconnect everything and reconnect until you find the hog." With 30ish devices on the network, 4 kids, 2 renters, and countless visitors, this is simply not a possibility. What I could do is set up a different router (preferably one with this feature) and move the connections over to it one-by-one until I find the offender. If I have to go that route, I highly doubt the Orbi would get reconnected. Which is a shame because it is a pretty decent solution for everything else. I would like for Netgear to seriously consider giving customers an option for this data. There are many ways to do it, but ANY of them would be acceptable to me. I'm a long-time networking pro, so even if these are scary for some people, at least it would be an option. Do the metering in the device with display of the statistics in the interface and in the app. This is obviously going to make the most customers happy because it would give us a report per-device of the usage. This isn't rocket science: Even if the device has a database limitation of 100 devices to monitor, or even 50, it would be useful. COMCAST does it on their modem devices for xFi. It can't be that hard. Do the metering externally by providing SNMP statistics on a per-device basis for smaller timeframes. This would mean that the Orbi doesn't have to store "dead" devices forever and would be up to whatever stat-gathering tool was used. Do the metering externally by providing some app that collects the data to a desktop. Maybe Java so you can hit Windows, Linux, and Mac all at once with it. Provide traffic mirroring to a selected wired port. This would at least give me the ability to plug in Wireshark or other tools to see what is going on. It would be super useful for troubleshooting intermittent issues and not just bandwidth monitoring. Provide netflow/sflow output to a collector on the home network. This would also have broader uses than just bandwidth monitoring, but it is potentially the hardest to use solution in this list. If it is easy to implement in the Orbi (i.e., the chips already support it), then I'll take it happily. Other things I haven't mentioned. Look, I'm desperate, here. I will find a way to use anything that helps. I get 2 months free "warnings" from Comcast, but the cost of not knowing this outweighs replacing the Orbi. Once I start getting charged $10/50 Gig, I'm going to need to know right then and there. And if I don't have a reasonable answer by that time, another Orbi will be going out to eBay.55KViews505likes195CommentsOrbi System: Disable automatic firmware updates
Although automatic firmware updates should probably be the default, there should be a method (easily accessible in the firmware settings) to disable firmware auto-updates. The foregoing would allow those experiencing issues with the latest firmware to remain on an earlier version.80KViews127likes82CommentsImplement OpenVPN client for Orbi
Please implement the OpenVPN client in Orbi. I would like to use a VPN connection without having to configure a VPN client on every device. There are multiple devices that benefit from a VPN but do not have VPN capabilities themselves, such as game consoles (Xbox, Playstation) and smart tvs (e.g. Roku, LG webOS). The OpenVPN client feature has been added to XR500 Nighthawk Pro Gaming Router and for PureVPN on Nighthawk X4S in R7800 Firmware Version 1.0.2.46. OpenVPN client support would be preferable, as I use a VPN that is not PureVPN. Please add the OpenVPN client support to Orbi too.48KViews119likes73CommentsA great idea: Act Upon Ideas!
Here is a good idea.... Do something with the user-provided ideas listed. At least acknowledge them. Try to show you care about what your customers think, want and need in terms of capability. You currently have 330+ ideas -- many of them simple and excellent -- provided directly from your customer base. So far a grand total of ONE (according to your website) has been implemented. 329+ to go. A batting average of .0021 would have you thrown off any professional team. If you cant act upon them, at least remark why. Letting them languish on your website doesnt build consumer confidence. I submitted a simple idea many months ago -- that is easily implemented -- with several user endorsements. It remains listed as "new" Reference: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/Orbi-needs-ability-to-turn-off-radios/idi-p/1706190 I suppose if you wait long enough and do nothing, the idea becomes unsupportable when the router becomes unsupportable. Thats also an Idea.6KViews99likes10Commentsrealtime bandwidth monitoring by device
It would be great if you could see realtime bandwidth per device for the netgear r7000, similar to Google Wifi and Eero. It would be a really useful info and diagnostic tool to see what devices are currently taking up bandwidth. It would be great if this was added to the router web administration page as well theNetgear Genie and/or Netgear Up apps. I've attached a screenshot of how this feature looks on Google Wifi.26KViews93likes15CommentsFeature request: DNS privacy
While it's great that we can designate our own DNS servers on the routers, instead of just using the ones provided by our ISPs, it would be even better if you could integrate DNS-over-TLS and/or DNS-over-HTTPS into the firmware. This would allow us to query DNS servers (e.g., Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 or Google's 8.8.8.8) without our ISPs being able to monitor our requests, giving us confidentiality from our ISPs and anyone along the path between our LAN and the DNS server; without our requests being able to be changed, ensuring integrity in the replies; and without having to run a separate service or piece of hardware on our networks for this purpose, increasing availability, at least from a certain perspective, as not everyone has the resources or ability to run their own local DNS server capable of using one of these two standards.17KViews82likes33CommentsPlease provide more 5GHZ wifi channel options - restricting to channels 36-48 is too limiting
I live in London in the UK and nearly every house nearby has wifi and growth of 5GHZ routers is growing rapidly - the WiFI explorer application on my Mac is picking up at least 13 wifi signals on channels 36-48 and around half of those have a signal strength of over 50% in my house. But there are hardly any routers using the 52-64 channels. Now I understand Orbi uses some of the 5GHZ channels for the backhaul, but surley there is enough space above channel 48 to support the backhaul and allow a 5GHZ wifi signal for devices so you can get a more reliable and stable connection on 5GHZ - which is the whole point of having a fast 'mesh' router as all my main devices support 5GHZ and I have a 200Mpbs broadband connection. But the interference in the 5GHZ channels means my devices often default back to 2.4GHZ channels which kills the speed I can get down to around 50-70Mpbs vs the full 200Mpbs possible on the 5GHZ channel. I used to have a Apple Airport Extreme and to be honest it could deliver a better 5GHZ signal throughout my whole house because it could use channels above 48 - and that was having the Airport on the ground floor and I live in a three-story house made of brick walls and the signal would reach the loft just fine! Please Orbi team try and fix this as it is a major design flaw for most people in busy urban areas with lots of routers in the 5GHZ band - I don't really mind if it's a manual option or the Orbi is more intelligent and can automatically shuffle around use of the 5GHZ channels for the back-haul and wifi, but restricting use of wifi to just 4 channels makes the system no better than an Airport Extreme that is over 5 years old for my use case - hardly cutting edge performance as Negear claim and it is definately not living up to the marketing strap line of "Better Wifi. Everywhere"!19KViews82likes41CommentsAbility to import VPN Provider Profiles (ie ExpressVPN, Nord VPN, etc)
It would be nice if Netgear actually had an option to use the roters as a VPN client like ASUS allows, with the ability to import profiles from VPN providers like ExpressVPN, Nord VPN and others. Also the ability to bypass VPN for certain devices would also be nice. ASUS routers with similar CPUs & WiFi chipsets offer this on their routers which are also priced lower. If you are going to charge premium prices over your competitors features like this shoud be there.5.6KViews57likes7CommentsUrgent: intertet usage by device!
We urgently need internet usage monitoring!. Since I switched to my orbi ac3000 my internet usage spiked 40%. Same usage same devices over the last 3 years only difference the router. Need to switch back to my old timecapule to avoid paying $10 to comcast for each addition 50G. Come on guys!5.9KViews54likes2Comments