Re: Almost officially done with Netgear Orbi and their support due to not fixing the wifi issues

jojo2go · ‎2017-01-25

Farfromovin - did you enable beam forming as well?

farfromovin · ‎2017-01-25

I do not use implicit beamforming. Everything works awesome without that option and relying on the "explicit" beamforming that is enabled by default. Or at least that's what I've learned here on the forums, that explicit beamformingwas part of the AC wave 2 standard that Orbi complies with. Implicit is just Netgear's attempt to get more modern wifi performance on legacy devices and can cause issues with some manufacturers. I don't need that "extra" feature.

Retired_Member · ‎2017-01-26

Hmmm, mine is still turned on. I know when I turned it off the speeds dropped dramatically on speed tests. I may have to try it again.

brasax · ‎2017-01-26

I tried everything that was possible and mentioned here in the forums and nothing was helping. My iOS devices frequently reconnecting.. As I mentioned I'm in contact with the Netgear Support and I opened also a defect at Apple. But to be honest I do not think it is an issue at Apple side as I never had the probelms with my Time Capsule.

DarrenM · ‎2017-01-31

We are aware of some customers having issues with IOS devices and are working to fix the issue.

DarrenM

peteytesting · ‎2017-01-31

@brasax wrote:
I tried everything that was possible and mentioned here in the forums and nothing was helping. My iOS devices frequently reconnecting.. As I mentioned I'm in contact with the Netgear Support and I opened also a defect at Apple. But to be honest I do not think it is an issue at Apple side as I never had the probelms with my Time Capsule.

ah but thats cause the TC is also apple

the issue is more that apple devices have always been an issue on none apple wifi , its just apple's way of forcing you to use all apple products

bobby35ny · ‎2017-01-31

Sure hope you guys are working on the Andriod fix too!!

-bobby

Tooljunkie · ‎2017-02-01

I have been having the same problems with Orbi. YES, great coverage! Better than my R7000 at both 2.4 and 5.0.

However, I bought it in the beginning of December, then took it back as it was dropping all the time.I took it back.

I purchase it again on Costco's sale and I've updated all three units to the 1.4.0.34. However, I'm still getting the drops all the time on my home computer, which has only 1 wall and has never had a problem with the R7000. I've also noticed that my Note 4 phone is going through the battery like crazy when wifi is on. When I do wifi calling, I'm getting dropped calls all the time.

I believe the problem is that the Orbi is constantly switching bands back and forth. My TV was dropping video from the internet and not able to reconnect without turning the feed off and on. I was getting Network Socket errors on speedtest.

I couldn't connect on my desktop tonight, as it kept dropping all the time. I went into the advanced tab and turned off MiMo and that seems to have helped it stablize - at least my desktop hasn't dropped any more. I'm hoping that they figure out something soon, or they should make an advanced tab so that you can assign devices to one band or the other to avoid all the drops.

DarrenM · ‎2017-02-02

Hello Tooljunkie

If you believe that your devices are dropping because they keep switching back and forth between the units try to move the satellite a greater distance away from the main unit.

DarrenM

Retired_Member · ‎2017-02-02

Mine was doing it within 1 foot of the router/base. lol

Rustproofcorn · ‎2017-02-02

Move it farther away then. Smh.

bobby35ny · ‎2017-02-02

I have 3 units, I moved them everywhere for testing, nothing helped.

peteytesting · ‎2017-02-02

@bobby35ny wrote:
I have 3 units, I moved them everywhere for testing, nothing helped.

in what sized area , eg how big is your house as my 3500sft house only needs one router and one sat max , actually running the second sat cause issues as there was too much wifi and too much overlap

Rustproofcorn · ‎2017-02-02

Yup overlap hoses u. I have 4700 sq/ft and I don't see how I could install another sat. Would over saturate me for sure.

MarkC1024 · ‎2017-02-02

I've got 2 satellites and only 3100 sq ft. Router on the main level, and satellitess both upstairs and in basement. 1 would cover it, but I need ethernet both up and down. My upstairs is probably just 30 ft, and one wall, from my router. I'm not seeing any issues with connectivity/saturation - that I'm aware of.

Tooljunkie · ‎2017-02-03

I have a 3300 sq ft house. My cable comes in at the middle of the basement, which has (2) 8' cement walls (daylight rambler). I put the Orbi in the middle of the basement and then one satellite about 40' away and the other one about 10' away (both upstairs).

I don't know that I can move the satellites further away. I could take one down and leave it in the box, but this seems like a waste of money. The issue I was having was lack of wifi above the 2 cement walls (backyard, garage, driveway). Would I be better served taking the Orbi back and getting an AC2600 type router or something with more signal strength? I was running a Netgear R7000 before; however, we were dropping phone calls all the time.

The Orbi seems to drop when we walk around the house, too.

Tooljunkie · ‎2017-02-06

So, I turned off one satelite. I moved the other one further away.

My wife started yelling at me tonight that the internet was constantly dropping her Apple laptop. She was tired of the interupted service all the time (me too, constantly dropping!). I turned off the satellite so that it was only running on the Orbi Router. Still dropping off every few minutes. Plugged in the R7000 and no more drops. Speed test speeds went up to 205 mps (with the Orbi, it would go up to 180 mps, then drop to around 100).

This is ridculous for a $500 router to be dropping all the time, even when only the router is turned on and 10 ft from the laptop.

I'm tired of waiting for a fix from Netgear. It's a great product for some people, but not worth the headaches for us. Maybe in a year or two they'll have their mess fixed.

peteytesting · ‎2017-02-06

and again the word apple is involved , this isnt a orbi issue , its apple and its apple centric bull shyt , and then they go dump the express and extreeme and tc and leave you guys stuck on real wifi , sorry buy steve jobs has much to blame for in this

almost 80% of complaints here and other mesh systems are apple based , yet they dont seem to see the coin drop

brasax · ‎2017-02-06

This is bull**bleep**. Apple hater, right?

Just for your information:

My Frtitzbox had no issues, my Vodafone router had also no issues. The problem - my flat is to big to have a good wifi in all rooms. My Fritzbox was never disconnecting, but I had only 5-10 Mbit in my office. Now I have 90 Mbit, but a lot diconnects.. It is also interesting, that other router from Netgear don't have this issue.

Do me the favor and post only something if you have someting meaningful..

Retired_Member · ‎2017-02-06

This isn't an apple issue dude. My android phone does it. Multiple tivos do it. Don't come in here spewing your apple crap.

st_shaw · ‎2017-02-06

I'm not going to say the Orbi issue some folks experience with Apple is Apple's fault or Orbi's fault. However, if you do a little research you will see that other vendors (e.g. Ubiquiti) are also having issues with Apple WiFi, and have been off/on for a couple years. There's also folks reporting wifi drops on Apple's site as of today.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7841910?start=0&tstart=0

Cisco even has an entire 47-page document devoted to tuning their APs to work properly with Apple iOS products. Maybe the recommendations in there will help someone. One Cisco recommendation is to turn off 2.4 GHz completely.

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-3/Enterprise_Best_Practices...

Whatever the problem is, it's not necessarily solvable by just changing firmware on Orbi.

Retired_Member · ‎2017-02-06

It is and will be resolved by the firmware on the orbi. I for one have had no issues with any other router with my android or Apple devices. This is only with this router.

Retired_Member · ‎2017-02-06

@Retired_Member I feel your pain!

Unfortunately netgear has always been crud when it comes to timely firmware updates/fixing bugs. They recently had a huge security issue with a range of their products and it had been in their firmware for a couple of years, it took someone threatening to go public after notifying netgear 6 months prior with no reply, before they rectified it.

I think you will be waiting a while for a firmware fix unfortunately, however if you are of a technical persuasion I would suggest you take a look at Ubiquiti Networks (enterprise company) their UniFi Access Points are rather inexpensive, if you are less technical they also have a TRUE mesh system they have released called AmpliFi which may suit your needs

Good luck with getting those bugs squashed @Retired_Member I hope netgear dont drop the ball on this one too.

peteytesting · ‎2017-02-06

prob because its the first router you have use with nodes or more and same ssid

there is certainly something that apple does that upsets the cart so to speak , its a matter of finding out what it is and crippling the orbi somehow to make it work with apple products , in the past it was to force 2.4 gig to 20mhz mode only

Retired_Member · ‎2017-02-06

I've worked in the IT field for 25 years and this isn't the first router that I have worked with like this. Businesses have had these features for years. Again, it's not just Apple.