Netgear Orbi

I bought one base + one satellite a couple of months ago. Easy to setup. I just follow the manual and complete setup in minutes. (Probably because I'm an IT engineer) It provides mesh network and the speed of online surfing, streaming is good. But the coverage is not as good as it advertised. I have a room 2 walls behind the base. Sometimes, I can't get connected to the WIFI in that room. And it's too expensive.

I bought one of these two unit packs because I was having some issues with wireless coverage at the back of my house. It works quite well, however I had found that it was too powerful for my house (medium sized house) which meant I had to turn down the power of the antennas down to 50%. Before doing this I would find that my devices were switching between the two units too often.

Netgear support was not very helpful in setting this up, which is why I have taken one star away. I had to find support elsewhere online to resolve the issue. I also had a few glitches with the initial setup, and found that I needed to upgrade the firmware in 4 stages because the unit I got was so far behind I couldn't simply go to the latest version. This was frustrating and made for a poor experience, and would be impossible for a non-technical user to follow.

In closing, I would recommend this unit to fairly technical people who are comfortable with firmware updates and manually setting channels and power output, but I would not recommend this as a plug and play solution for the general user. Instead, the general user should probably stick to the ISP recommended modem/router so that they can get proper support for it.

We linked up to the NBN and the internet speeds were TERRIBLE! 0.5 - 5.7mbs on a good day using Netgear's earlier system. It dropped out regularly too requiring us to reboot the modem. We even had a tech guy come out and try and tweek it but to no avail.
We upgraded to the Orbi Netgear system and BOOM the speeds went up to to over 30mbs!!! I can't rave enough about it. - we had 2 extenders included for a our large house. Expensive but worth every penny.
Easy to install, zero dropouts and copes well with multiple users too.
Don't waste your money on cheaper systems. You have to get this system. You will not regret it.

I can’t really recommend this product. The app is buggy and the satellite access points are very difficult to set up. I gave up trying to get additional access points working. The range of the access points is terrible like the tech support. My networking knowledge is intermediate to advanced and I can confidently say its not user error.

Our IT guy set one of these up at home as the modem is in the office but it needs to service devices such as Apple TV, Streaming Hifi (Naim Audio) plus all our devices.
Since we've ad this there has been almost zero problem with wifi as we've had in the past.
connectivity is excellent, it was quick and easy to set up and the reach for signal is impressive.

i would highly recommend one of these for anyone that relies on strong wifi for all devices.

I had this for 30 days but have to make a return as the automatic firmware updates breaks the wifi.

I replaced my Google wifi with Netgear Orbi RBK50 AC3000 due to the good reviews it ave received. I must try it.

It great when it works:
- great wifi coverage anywhere inside and outside the house.
- consistent wifi speeds with no or little black spots
- simple Web interface and IOS App
- easy too setup and you are good to go after 20 minutes

But:
- I had to make an initial call to Netgear support to get a stable firmware as the internet connection consistently breaks without any reason.
- unit automatically updates the firmware overnight. This broke the wifi and internet connections. I reverted to the good firmware but next day it updated again.
To fix it, I need to do a factory reset and configure the router again. All while my family is on my back asking why the internet is not working.

I cannot do this every time Netgear releases a FW update. I opened a Netgear support case on the app, but I don't think they look into that. No response after a day.

I have to decide let it go while I could and sent it back where i brought it from.

I have a larger 2 storey house - federation style with pressed tin ceilings, fireplaces etc; lot of interference. WiFi signal struggles to get half-way across the house. I had some older 3x Apple Extremes scattered across the house and ethernet cables connecting them, but they operated as 3 different wifi networks.
Decided to upgrade and selected the Netgear Orbi AC3000 (incl. 1x RBK50 & 1x RBS50) based on a number of good reviews. Installation wasn't too bad, not as easy as described, but no major challenge either.
Found that the distance was across the house was too much so had to install 2 more satellites (1x RBK router next to the cable modem, 1x upstairs, 1x middle of the house and 1x other end of the house) to ensure full coverage & optimal performance.
When everything is functioning correctly, performance is great. I do find that every now and then I need to re-sync all the satellites because one has lost its backhaul connection. Considering there are 4 units, they should perform a little better than that. Price isn't cheap once you start adding more satellites. Would be better if they could be networked/ backhauled via ethernet cable instead of radio.
The App struggles to see all the satellites and you need to wait for it to pick them up. It functions fine, albeit a little unstable (when compared to the older Apple Extremes, albeit a different standard).
Would certainly recommend the product if you want the latest technology (higher speeds), just need to be a little patient with it.

After building an extension, including upstairs, I needed a wifi extender to reach all parts of my house. After doing my research, I decided to get the Netgear Orbi AC3000, and have been very happy with its performance. With the base station and one satellite, I now have full wifi signal upstairs (when I used to have weak or no signal), throughout my downstairs house and garden, and even a couple of houses down when I'm walking down the street. The range is excellent, speed of streaming on multiple devices is excellent, and I have had no problems with stability.

I did have a problem with the initial setup, however, and that's why I didn't give it 5 stars. After setting up the orbi base and satellite with no problem, I then did a firmware upgrade, because the app told me that there was new firmware. This was a big mistake, as after the upgrade the orbi could not connect the base station, and was giving me error problems, despite the fact that it worked perfectly prior to the upgrade. It seems that there have been some issues with different firmware updates, and it took me a lot of fiddling before I finally reset to factory defaults, to get it working again. So no more firmware updates for me at the moment, and I'm very happy.

I had minimum bar levels with my router downstairs so when I installed the RBK50 it delivered what it stated. I am very happy overall with its performance as the speeds are very good ensuring very good WiFi coverage downstairs. Foxtel Go works very good with very minimal or hardly any video buffering.
I highly recommend this product.

I bought the Orbi Ac3000. This solved every problem I had with the net. I have approximately 22 devices connected to the net and there is no lag anywhere. Streaming with apple tv has no buffering or delay everything works. I get off my wifi 8 ping and 100+ download so there is no loss of speed. I have also installed it at my factory and now everything runs faster and no delays the speed we got from the supplied router was about 7mps now with the Orbi we get 13 - 17mps and no delays. It was the best investment I have made for internet usage.

I'm really happy with the WiFi signal of my Orbi system (base and satellite) in my 3 bedroom, 2 storey house. I don't think I've had any wireless dropouts but there have been a number of issues with the automatic firmware updates and the subsequent connectivity issues. It appears that Netgear are now allowing you to perform the updates when you want to rather than them being automatically pushed - this is a welcome change! There are a minimum of 11 devices connected (mostly wirelessly) and I never experience performance issues. My favourite feature is the single SSID. I'd definitely recommend this product to someone wanting whole home WiFi!

Overall the product does what it's supposed to, ease of implementation, good coverage and speed around the house. However, if you're a gamer playing FPS games that requires response time to be priority, look elsewhere! Their QoS menu is dismal, with the only option is to run a speedtest and manages it automatically in the background.

We had very bad WiFi coverage with the NBN Modem/Router supplied by Telstra, but with the ORBI problem solved! NBN modem is located in the garage so with the supplied modem WiFi signal in the living room was terrible but with the Orbi system, coverage is perfect all the way in the backward! (House area is 320m2)

Easy to setup, great design, and the Orbi App is a great tool, specially when you are able to manage the usage by individual devices, specially to control children's usage!!!

Had Orbi for exactly a year and it has been good as gold connected to my NBN box, with great coverage everywhere. The latest set of firmware updates to 2.1.2.18 (automatic) have left me with a non-functional system, connections lost on a regular basis, app unable to connect, unable to login to Orbi and more. A quick look at Netgear communities shows hundreds of frustrated Orbi owners "Very frustrating because I've had the Orbi for a few months now and cannot return. It WAS rock solid before upgrading. " I have tried downgrading firmware, resetting everything and all to no avail. Planning to dump the whole Orbi thing and move to Google Wi-fi unless I can get this sorted. Total waste of $600!!!

I’m very satisfied with my Orbi RBK-50. I’ve had it set up for about a month now, and have found good positions for the router and satellite. I get full bars all through the house, even on my original iPad mini.

One reviewer mentioned slowdown with Apple products, but I believe this issue was resolved in an early firmware update. Certainly, I have not experienced any issues, and our house is full of Apple products of varying ages- 2010 Mac Pro, 2012 MacBook Pro, iPhones 4 & 5, iPad mini’s.

I live in an awkward house for wifi: it’s very old and has a tin roof, tin carport, and strangely the middle two rooms have zincalume (“tin”) cladding that was left behind the gyprock. This makes it hard to get signal throughout the house, even though it’s only a single storey. I am also eagerly awaiting the NBN, as my current internet speed tops out at just over 2 mbps (sadly, not mBps!).

My previous setup was pre-802.11ac: it was rated at n600, dual band with separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks (Netgear DGND3700v2). I also had a wifi extender (Netgear WN2000RPT) which created a third, 2.4 GHz only, network. I often had to select the network manually because as I walked around, my devices tried to hold on to their current network even as the signal was fading. My laptop was powerful enough to pick up full bars in most parts of the house (on the 2.4 GHz network), but it is exceptional in that MacBook Pro’s have very powerful wifi antennas compared to most devices. All my other devices had to make do with poor signal unless they were quite close to the router or extender.

I used NetSpot, a free wifi survey app, to measure the signal strength throughout the house, with all doors closed except the open doorways through the middle room. The router and extender are as close to these open doorways as possible, about 5 meters apart. The survey showed poor signal away from the central corridor.

After I got the Orbi, I surveyed the house again, this time with even more points, and the results were clearly better, although not as good as I was expecting.

Then I read a Netgear tip that suggests the router and satellite should be 30-40 feet apart and the router should be near the front of the house, so I adjusted their positions as best I could (about 9 meters apart). The result improved a lot: this advice is worth heeding when setting up your Orbi!

Admittedly, 802.11ac tricks like beamforming and amplified antennas common to many ac routers account for some of this improvement; still I believe that a single router would not be able to cross my central rooms without the help of an extender.

Once I found a good position for my Orbi router and satellite, I wanted to test my wifi speed in realistic terms. Using LAN Speed Test by Totusoft, I ran a read-write test between my laptop at four popular locations around the house and my Mac Pro (not right next to the router, but real seating positions), with all doors closed. The test consisted of a 2MB file being uploaded and downloaded 50 times purely via wifi (i.e. not using the internet) and the result averaged. This showed that my wifi was faster than what NBN 100 can deliver at all locations except No. 4, which was well inside the dead zone of my house and still performed well. Values are in Mbps.

1. Upload 140.21 Download 138.38

2. Upload 162.34 Download 159.83

3. Upload 96.97 Download 148.07

4. Upload 41.90 Download 70.74

To put these numbers into perspective: if you want to stream HD 1080p video to your device you need maybe 7-8 mbps and for 4k video about 13-14 mbps…

I know that some people say the Orbi’s pricey (I was lucky enough to pay only $499 at JB HiFi), but even at full price a decent router and extender would probably cost as much or more, and the Orbi is a fully integrated system. It uses a separate, ultra-fast 5GHz network just for backhaul (communication between the router and satellite), leaving the main networks fully available to the user. Also, the user networks are combined under one name, with the Orbi automatically putting devices on the most appropriate network and frequency band. You can wander through the house and the Orbi hands you over from router to satellite and back without batting a proverbial eyelid.

I heartily recommend the Netgear Orbi RBK-50 to anyone for whom a single router isn’t enough to cover the whole house!

NOTE: I wasn’t able to post pictures with this review, so I have uploaded my Netspot survey snapshots and house plan to Dropbox (see link below). They are as follows:

Figure 1 shows the signal-to-noise ratio of my old n600 system: green is good, yellow is better, and blue is poor.
Figure 2 shows the signal-to-noise ratio of my Orbi in the new position.
Figure 3, signal-to-wifi interference ratio (Orbi), shows the wifi dead zone caused by my zincalume walls.
Figure 4 is the signal strength scale supplied by Netspot to interpret the surveys.
Figure 5 is my house plan showing the positions used for LAN Speed Test. X is the position of the Mac Pro.

Link to pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ee6ku75ozcwznlx/AABFDDiZKxFkzJHvrxWuR_6Oa?dl=0

I purchased this set-up from Netgear as it promised to blanket wifi across a large area given we had notable issues with our previous router over multi-storeys. The Orbi works fantastic and the only times there are hiccups are due to updates in firmware which may be pushed out to the main router and not the satellite - easily rectified. Would highly recommend.

Our tenant complained that the internet in our lower level granny flat was dropping out frequently. After looking at a few options we settled on the Orbi.

While expensive, it immediately solved our problems and has been the best router I have ever used. Simple to set up (20 minutes) and has been flawless since (no rebooting required in months). Highly recommended.

I got this with the satelite and its so good that i almost get no lag from the satelite connection.
This is definitley a great investment especially if you want good internet speed at home. Also works great if you have a big house with mutiple levels and if you want good internet speed

This has fixed so many nagging wifi issues I've had over the years. I should have made the upgrade earlier. For years, I just simply upsized my router to a more powerful one, but I was never able to get a stable connection for the far reaches of my house. The Orbi solved all of that. I even gave one as a gift, as solid steady wifi is lifechanging!

It took me 8 hours to get my Netgear Orbi to work. After having to manually download new firmware and then manually enter in my DNS settings from a screen shot of my old routers settings, it worked. It has also randomly stopped working once which was fixed by a manual reset and a repeat of my installation woes.

Wifi speed is great but I would not recommend as the Google Wi-Fi appears to be easier to use with the same amount of gain.