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Forum Discussion
What you can expect with your Orbi system
I'm writing this mainly because a post like this would have saved me a lot of time and effort. If you're thinking about buying an Orbi system, or recently purchased one, here's a few things you can e...
rphsiawrote:I suspect most of the people who made it as far as this forum already tried disabling all the added features to get better stability, and, like me, found it made no difference. Of course it begs the question if I have to disable key selling points like MIMO and beam-forming, why did I buy this product in the first place?
Sadly, it appears the majority of users are not seeing these issues (yet), and posting 5 star reviews on Amazon. Just in the past few days there have been dozens of 5 star reviews, so any lower ratings are drowned out in the noise. I'm guessing people post immediately, and even if they later see the problems don't come back to revise their review. Will be interesting to see if more people end up here after time passes.
I bought my system a little over two weeks ago and immediately updated the router and both sat's to the dreaded 2.1.2.18 firmware. Router and sats are showing 16 days of uptime and if I had not found this forum I too would be singing the praises of the Orbi. It has exceeded my expectations. I dont know why we have this dichotomy and it cant be different devices or different ISP/modem/router. It doesnt seem limited to people in AP mode or people in Router mode.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that we have different hardware and some systems work and some dont. Even hardware with evolving chips can evolve with with the hardware differences accomodated in the software. If chipset A then do this, if chipset B then do that etc.
It is unlikely that Netgear makes the Orbi, they probably buy it from an ODM and for all I know Netgear product management is still trying to figure out what is going on. For sure they are not sharing much here.
I'm glad you're having a good expeirience. What rphsia has been getting at, is that you may never notice the issues being described here. Depending on your usage, the issue can range from "glaring and impossible to ignore", all the way to "gee, seems to work for me". The specific and transient nature of the bugs are what makes this so maddening.
Now, since you've posted here a few times, I do have a test case that I've used to demonstrate the issue with support. It always reveals the issue in somewhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours and has been reproducible for the last 8 firmware revisions. If you're intereted, I'll post it. Though, it's not the easiest test to perform.
I'm very confident you are also experiencing the issue and that it's not a result of any specific hardware variations from manufactoring. However, depending on your usage - and specifically how many active devices connect to sattellites - you may never notice it. And, if you never notice it, then it's definitely an acceptible problem in your case!
t_kwrote:I'm glad you're having a good expeirience. What rphsia has been getting at, is that you may never notice the issues being described here. Depending on your usage, the issue can range from "glaring and impossible to ignore", all the way to "gee, seems to work for me". The specific and transient nature of the bugs are what makes this so maddening.
Now, since you've posted here a few times, I do have a test case that I've used to demonstrate the issue with support. It always reveals the issue in somewhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours and has been reproducible for the last 8 firmware revisions. If you're intereted, I'll post it. Though, it's not the easiest test to perform.
I'm very confident you are also experiencing the issue and that it's not a result of any specific hardware variations from manufactoring. However, depending on your usage - and specifically how many active devices connect to sattellites - you may never notice it. And, if you never notice it, then it's definitely an acceptible problem in your case!
In the interest of science I would be happy to do some tests that would result in the bahavior that people are reporting - spontaneous reboots, devices disconnecting, speed drop off, devices unable to connect. I have the router and two sats with 36 devices connected. Multiple Windows tablets, android tablets and android/apple phones to test roaming scenarios. Router in the middle on the lower floor, sats at either end of the upper floor.
How big is your house/building? sq ft?
Try just the router and one satellite?
Having 36 device maybe hitting what the orbi system can handle as far as how many devices can be connected. Most home class routers usually only support 15-20 devices. Maybe 30 on higher end wifi. Theres bandwidth that that wifi and router have to alow for each device and each device can have more than just one connection.
You might start with disabling Beamforming and MiMO first. See if the system still experiences problems. If so, then I would turn OFF most of your devices, then start with maybe 10-15 devices online. See what the system does. If you notice it's better, then start to graduate adding a device untill you notice something happen.
I have a 5000sq ft house and have the base router at one end and at Satellite at the other. About 50 feet in between them and building materials in between. Orbi system has been really good. Only using 1 Satellite. However I only have about 20 devices connected wirelessly and not all online at the same time.
Roamaboutwrote:
t_kwrote:I'm glad you're having a good expeirience. What rphsia has been getting at, is that you may never notice the issues being described here. Depending on your usage, the issue can range from "glaring and impossible to ignore", all the way to "gee, seems to work for me". The specific and transient nature of the bugs are what makes this so maddening.
Now, since you've posted here a few times, I do have a test case that I've used to demonstrate the issue with support. It always reveals the issue in somewhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours and has been reproducible for the last 8 firmware revisions. If you're intereted, I'll post it. Though, it's not the easiest test to perform.
I'm very confident you are also experiencing the issue and that it's not a result of any specific hardware variations from manufactoring. However, depending on your usage - and specifically how many active devices connect to sattellites - you may never notice it. And, if you never notice it, then it's definitely an acceptible problem in your case!
In the interest of science I would be happy to do some tests that would result in the bahavior that people are reporting - spontaneous reboots, devices disconnecting, speed drop off, devices unable to connect. I have the router and two sats with 36 devices connected. Multiple Windows tablets, android tablets and android/apple phones to test roaming scenarios. Router in the middle on the lower floor, sats at either end of the upper floor.
Just to add to this discussion? I've been running the Orbi RBK43 setup (router and 2 satellites) for a while now. The primary router sits in the family room, near the middle of the house on the first floor. One satellite is upstairs in a bedroom and the other satellite is outside in a detached garage. (House is about 2,200 sq. feet in size.)
When I first set this up, I thought (like many new owners) it was working flawlessly. Even running the latest firmware though, I've starting running into some glitches. Primarily, I've noticed my iPhone 7 Plus will occasionally stop responding on the wifi until I toggle wifi off and back on again to force a reconnect. I'd say this happens once per night, on average. Interestingly, I also have an iPad Pro 9.7" that seems to remain connected reliably. (To be fair though, I don't use it nearly as much as the phone.)
Additionally, I just started setting up some home automation products, including several Belkin Wemo switches. (These all use 2.4Ghz wifi only.) I noticed I was having issues with one of them randomly dropping off the network and then coming back again if I just waited an hour or two and checked for them again. There was no rhyme or reason to when or which Wemo would disappear.
I just ran into a problem about an hour ago where all the wireless devices in the house quit communicating on the Internet. I could ping a random web site address and it would immediately resolve DNS properly to an IP address, but the pings would just time out with no reply. The wired Ethernet devices continued to work normally though! I rebooted the Orbi router and everything started working again.
I did try a suggestion I saw posted to turn 2.4Ghz wifi signal strength down from 100%. I tried 75%. It actually *may* be helping the Wemo switches stay connected reliably but it's kind of early to say for sure.
Bottom line? I agree with the people who say this product needs more work. I hope it's something Netgear can solve with firmware and not a hardware limitation of some sort. I'm past my return window on this setup and it works well enough overall, I'm still inclined to keep it for now and see if Netgear addresses these issues.
