Orbi RBK50 - Speed issues, Wemo compatibility issues, etc

[smithy37]

I replaced an ageing Airport Extreme set up that alos included a Time Capsule set as a wifi extender along with an Airport Express as an extender.

The speeds were never blazing fast, but it was reliable. Over the past year I have been having issues with inconsistent connections, so I put it down to old hardware and many decvices connecting, so thought I would finally upgrade.

I did my research and opted for an Orbi AC3000 as this would best cover the area in my house and deal with my 200mbs+ fibre speeds.

I set the unit up and at first I was blown away with the speeds I was seeing (190mbs+ on wifi). However, it didn't take long to see those drop and in some instances less than 1mbs. Yes, 1 mbs!.

I honestly thought this was down to a specific dead spot in the house, so I splashed out and bought another RBS50 Satellite unit.

To my horror I am still experiencing wildly different speeds, mainly of the sub 30mbs variery, but occasionally less than 5mbs. Very rarely 190mbs.

I decided to google this issue and I was mortified to see all the threads on this issue.

I have Cat 6 wired throughout (yes I know I could have just bought an WAP) so decided to take an element of uncertainty out of the mix and wire the satellites so they backhaul over Cat 6 cable.

I upgraded the firmware to 2.1.something last night and still saw random speed drops.

I have factory reset so many times I consider myself an expert now, but I am still seeing depressing wifi speeds. In fact, I factory reset this morning and the first speed test of the day failed as it couldn't locate a server. When it eventually established a server I got 2 mbs download. Eventually settling at about 30mbs (incidentally worse than my old Airport set up).

I have about 55 devices connected to my infrastracture from wired to wireless, but don't think this is particualry excessive, nor a cause.

I am also having tremendous issues with my Wemo switches (7 in total). But I am more concerned about the wifi speeds. If I can fix the speed issue I will then work on the Wemo's.

I would return the blooming lot if I hadn't thrown the boxes out. I currently feel conned and want to try troubleshooting as I desperately want this system to work.

Help!!

[smithy37]

I have the system connected from a Virgin Media Super Hub set in modem mode (wifi off). This feeds the Orbi which is set in Router mode.

My satellites are both wired trhough Cat 6 cabling via a gigabit network switch.

I have the 2,4GHZ network set up on Channel 11 and I have HikVision cameras that I have port forwarded.

I do not have mumimo, beamforming or fast switching selected.

I have never ran the inbuilt speed test since my last factory reset.

The factory reset was done by pressing the button with a pin and not the telnet NVRAM way as I don't quite follow that mode (still a newbie, running a Mac).

The satellites and the router unit are all at opposite ends/sides of the house.

And I think that is it.

I am prepared/willing to try anything, so fire away......

[smithy37]

The system is mega unstable at present. My phone is dropping in and out of the internet although the signal indicator shows great reception.
I tried to run an online Speedtest & the graphics wouldn’t even load. My son tried to watch YouTube and never got past the spinning wheel. My wife is also complaining the internet is down too.
It’s funny because my smart tv is wired and I was able to stream a 4K program with no interruptions.

I honestly think I’ve wasted £450. I’m contemplating what my legal rights are because this is quite obviously not fit for purpose.

I suspect a factory reset is in order again (my 2nd in less than 24hrs).

Moving forward, does anyone know of a good router and access points I could buy with good speed?

Anyone mentioning a Netgear product may be subject to ridicule.

[smithy37]

So I spent the entire Sunday resetting the Orbi system. Did a factory reset (pin hole) & also found that the Orbi stores back up files so I deleted those as well, which resulted in another reset.
I renamed the SSID & removed any spaces from the title.
I then went around the House reconnecting the 50 or so devices.
At first the system seemed stable. The last devices I connected were the WeMo plugs. These were challenging to integrate & still function flakily. My impression appears that the network seemed more reliable prior to the WeMo integration. However, I didn’t do enough testing to conclusively say that.

What I have found is my Wi-fi is rock solid & fast if I am only a few feet away from either the router or any one of my two satellites. The issue appears constant when I am between the two satellites.
I have one satellite down stairs & the other over 40 feet away upstairs. The speed drop is brutal (<1mbs to total drop out) in between the two units and it doesn’t seem to matter which floor I am on.
I have tried messing with the settings and have 5ghz channel on 36 & 2,4ghz on channel 11.
I have tried beam forming & mu-MIMO on & off. Neither improved things.
All my devices are IOS or MacOS. So not sure if that is an issue.

This weekend I am going to attempt to set up my virgin media super hub back into router mode & turn off the Wi-fi. Then I will set the Orbi in to AP mode & give that a whirl.

I am desperate to try anything here. I am prepared to follow any advice & will do my best to troubleshoot. The trouble is I am a relative novice with Networks so could really do with some help.
I am not on here trying to kick the system as I have invested a lot of money (& now time) into getting this working. I am just disappointed with many aspects. Coverage is great and speeds and two foot from the unit are great too. I just need to find out what is causing the speed to drop (out) in my dead spots.

I beg you to help.

Thanks

[smithy37]

Given up!

No help offered on here and the intermittent drop outs are too much to bear.

I have bought a new AirPort Extreme to replace my ageing one and I am going back to something that I know works. Yes I might not have the speed but I will get back my reliability.

Thanks Netgear for fleecing me of £400 & offering no support. I was particularly riled by the email you sent this morning saying that a solution had been accepted. By whom, may I ask?

Anyone want some stylish paperweights then they will be on flea bay shortly.

Anyone googling and stumbling across this thread, then my advice would be stay well clear!!

[mjwelters]

Regarding Wemo, I was able to set up Wemo to connect to my new Orbi wifi.  But occasionally they'd just lose connection and I have to wait 15-20 minutes for them to re-connect.  I followed the following advice from another discussion here:

"Changed the default IP on Orbi from 192.168.1.xxx to 192.168.0.xxx and all switches, including reprogrammed ones starting working immediately."

I made this change, and no more Wemo problems.  After making the change I had to unplug every Sonos device to restart them before they'd show up in my Sonos app, but otherwise everything else connected fine post-change to 192.168.0.xxx.

[smithy37]

I have only just sorted my issue today funnily enough & in the interest of fairness I think it only share what I have done.

I am fortunate to have a couple of Cat6 access points around the house so I removed the Orbi’s & replaced them with Airport Extremes.
I was still experiencing random speeds & occasionally a drop out or two but probably not as bad so I kind of lived with it for a bit.
Eventually the drop outs became more frequent so I set up a LAN monitor & connected a PC 24/7.
This revealed a disconnection from the internet every 2 hours, on average, for around 2 to 3 minutes at a time.
I replaced Ethernet cables & moved the ports the cables connected to, but still no luck.

I spoke to my ISP who insisted nothing was wrong and it must be third party devices attached so I persevered again. Eventually I threatened to leave & was finally offered a new modem.
On Friday I connected the new modem & configured. I set up the Lan monitoring & waited with baited breath. By Sunday morning I had no drop outs.

Next it was random speeds I was after. I’d noticed my iPad connected to one access point pulling super fast speeds but my iPhone, connected to the same access point, was not.
Looking in the airport utility I could see my iPad was on A/N/AC but my iPhone was on B/G/N. A bit of googling revealed a few people having issues with Iphone x’s Wi-fi speed so I forced to connect it to A/N/AC by creating a dedicated 5GHZ band.
This has fixed my issue.

I can’t solely blame the Orbi’s as I obviously had other issues but as you cannot separate the 2.4 & 5 GHZ I think my problem would still be here.

As for Wemo. They just work with the Airport Extremes.