I've had two out of three Orbi RBK50 kits and one RBK852 (wifi 6 models) fail almost immediately for me. Horrible satellite speeds, main router locking up and rebooting multiple times daily, just a generally horrible experience. Obviously that's a small sample group but 75% failure rate is enough to make me never touch the brand again. Maybe the pros are different, but I wouldn't get my hopes up
I have this system, with a single satellite. Outstanding router.
I have a different tri band mesh Orbi product that is relatively new. Pretty fast and excellent coverage, however they rush their firmware before proper testing. The most recent release of the Orbi firmware got messed up due to daylight saving time. Then when I called I found they require you to pay for $80/yr subscription tech support even when the product is under the 1 year warranty window. So, a good product if it doesn't break, but if it does be prepared to go buy a new one even within the warranty period.
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HIDDEN04-24-2021
at
04:30 PM
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Was previously look at the ASUS CT8 till it went out of stock everywhere for $300. Takes a month to get in stock so ordered this instead from B&H. Will report how it goes. It's for a home where a new Spectrum provided AC router won't reach a certain room.
I bought this last week from Amazon for the same price. It's a garbage product.
1. Netgear forces you to type your password during account creation, making password generators hard to use.
2. You have the option of changing the admin username during setup, but the app forces your to log in as 'admin', so you can't use the app without changing the username back to 'admin'.
3. Getting the satellite to connect was troublesome. I don't remember if i was able to get it connected before giving up.
4. The app kept flipping back to the 'searching for device' screen, which basically breaks any activity you were doing.
If you read the orbi subreddit, these and more seem to be common issue, and new and exciting issues are added with every firmware update.
Maybe once everything is working it's an ok router, after an hour or two of toying with it I decided to not risk it and return it.
I have an original orbi and it's been a decent mesh router but I did have intermittent issues with wifi that required restarts. I ended up buying a ubiquiti access point and plugged that into the orbi router. Haven't had an issue since.
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04-24-2021
at
06:44 PM#10
I've had two out of three Orbi RBK50 kits and one RBK852 (wifi 6 models) fail almost immediately for me. Horrible satellite speeds, main router locking up and rebooting multiple times daily, just a generally horrible experience. Obviously that's a small sample group but 75% failure rate is enough to make me never touch the brand again. Maybe the pros are different, but I wouldn't get my hopes up
Our community has rated this post as helpful.
If you agree, why not thank ?
04-24-2021
at
06:50 PM#12
I have a different tri band mesh Orbi product that is relatively new. Pretty fast and excellent coverage, however they rush their firmware before proper testing. The most recent release of the Orbi firmware got messed up due to daylight saving time. Then when I called I found they require you to pay for $80/yr subscription tech support even when the product is under the 1 year warranty window. So, a good product if it doesn't break, but if it does be prepared to go buy a new one even within the warranty period.
I bought this last week from Amazon for the same price. It's a garbage product.
1. Netgear forces you to type your password during account creation, making password generators hard to use.
2. You have the option of changing the admin username during setup, but the app forces your to log in as 'admin', so you can't use the app without changing the username back to 'admin'.
3. Getting the satellite to connect was troublesome. I don't remember if i was able to get it connected before giving up.
4. The app kept flipping back to the 'searching for device' screen, which basically breaks any activity you were doing.
If you read the orbi subreddit, these and more seem to be common issue, and new and exciting issues are added with every firmware update.
Maybe once everything is working it's an ok router, after an hour or two of toying with it I decided to not risk it and return it.
This is an excellent router for the hoi pilloi. Strong coverage. More than sufficient speeds. Tri-band. Business router that provides for multiples SSIDs. Mesh, etc. a few potential drawbacks: no WPA3 encryption. No WiFi 6.
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but your price is nothing special
it is also 180 at the netgear site this offer comes up with a 199.00 price
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https://www.netgear.com/business/...gLLhPD_BwE
It also has 3 separate SSIDs since it is a business class router.
1. Netgear forces you to type your password during account creation, making password generators hard to use.
2. You have the option of changing the admin username during setup, but the app forces your to log in as 'admin', so you can't use the app without changing the username back to 'admin'.
3. Getting the satellite to connect was troublesome. I don't remember if i was able to get it connected before giving up.
4. The app kept flipping back to the 'searching for device' screen, which basically breaks any activity you were doing.
If you read the orbi subreddit, these and more seem to be common issue, and new and exciting issues are added with every firmware update.
Maybe once everything is working it's an ok router, after an hour or two of toying with it I decided to not risk it and return it.
I have been renting their router and would love to not pay their equipment fee...
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
1. Netgear forces you to type your password during account creation, making password generators hard to use.
2. You have the option of changing the admin username during setup, but the app forces your to log in as 'admin', so you can't use the app without changing the username back to 'admin'.
3. Getting the satellite to connect was troublesome. I don't remember if i was able to get it connected before giving up.
4. The app kept flipping back to the 'searching for device' screen, which basically breaks any activity you were doing.
If you read the orbi subreddit, these and more seem to be common issue, and new and exciting issues are added with every firmware update.
Maybe once everything is working it's an ok router, after an hour or two of toying with it I decided to not risk it and return it.
I have been renting their router and would love to not pay their equipment fee...