+19 votes
by (2.5k points)
Is anyone using orbi mesh wifi? What's your thoughts on it?  
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YQGS...DhH-w
Is anyone using orbi mesh wifi?

14 Answers

+14 votes
by (2.1k points)
 
Best answer
Stay away from netgear. I’ve used it in the past and had nothing but problems. They regularly release firmware for it that will break things and then take months to fix it m
+10 votes
by (3.2k points)
I have a different version of the Orbi mesh and it is really a nice system. It just works.  
+7 votes
by (1.2k points)
Eww noooo. Go with Ubiquiti.  
by (5.6k points)
UDM plus Unifi Beacon AP. No wires other than modem to UDM. The beacons are wireless AP's and work pretty well in my house
by (2.4k points)
@excrescence 2fl.  
by (2.5k points)
That's the kind of build
by (2.4k points)
@excrescence gotcha. If you can get to 2fl center of house
by (2.5k points)
@mastrianni will have ago.  
+7 votes
by (1.6k points)
Eero is better
+1 vote
by (240 points)
+1 from me. Had for more than a year. Probably have 3 or 4 dozen wifi trinkets so mesh was almost required. No problems and great speeds. The Orbis I have also have ports for various thi gs that aren't wifi.  
+7 votes
by (680 points)
Love my ORBI RBK50s, they've been rock-solid for 2 years now, plus with the dedicated 5ghz backhaul channel they are fast, very fast.  
+2 votes
by (1.3k points)
Ignore whatever anyone tells you because environment factors matter most. And they don't know your environment, nor did they ask which tells you something big. Best advice is. If you don't need mesh, don't use it. Get a very good single router if it covers your house. Which most highest-rated routers can for most people. I have a difficult house: odd shape, several large steel beams running throughout but I do have ethernet backhaul all over so my experience is having tried location with and without ethernet. Quick results in my 3 level, 3800sqft. Two old Asus AC68 (top and bottom floor) had best coverage inside and outside the house, by far. Roaming was crap so I wanted to try others. Unifi was ok with one AP but literally stopped working when I added another. Fought it for two weeks with expert help. I tried TP Links new Wifi6, it was horrible in every way. Running Orbi 50 Series now. It's so-so. Has good Dbm coverage inside the house but doesn't go into the yard at all. It still drops/reconnects cameras often. The firmware is super buggy. had to install Voxels to get it working stable. It's not fast as the asus, about 20-30% slower in actual use. NOT impressed at all with Orbi. But it is better than the Unifi and TP was in My House, YMMV. Plus Netgear support sux. 90 days. No exceptions even though I had problems since day 1 I'm going to back to ASUS with one upgraded to a newer model and using the older for the remote AP. I'm expect, based on the initial Asus setup, I'll get better coverage and stronger signal than Orbi.  
by (840 points)
@kaciekacy I’ve done dozens of unifi installs - they’ve always outperformed what was there before. It’s likely your unifi install was not done correctly (which wouldn’t surprise me, we frequently get called to fix up unifi installs by other technicians).  
by (1.3k points)
@morphogenesis5 I was super disappointed the Unifi did not work. still a Unifi fan, just not for my house right now. I may try again when I switch to AX and they get the prices in a reasonable range. I'm glad to hear your setups have benefited from Unifi. mine did not. I know how to setup, test, and tweak Wifi networks. Its not magic, and there are not a lot of things you can tweak. yes, Unifi has more than most. I also have 20+ years experience and spend 2 weeks working on it, daily. I really wanted it to work because Unifi has some really great features. It just didnt work in my house. I tried 1 and then 2 AC-LRs also to ensure I had signal strength to cover the 10k sqft lot. which it didnt. the very old ASUS AC68P covered better.  
by (840 points)
@kaciekacy dunno what’s so special about your home. We did a 16 wap install in a concrete constructed 4 story home last month. We used the floor plans to help build a heat map within a controller, deployed, job done. FWIW - we don’t use LRs. Did your heatmap analysis show the LRs capable of providing sufficient coverage for your home? Because if not, there’s your problem. And if it did - the problem was configuration/
+8 votes
by (400 points)
We just bought an Orbi with a single satellite (4000 sq ft home) and are very happy with it. Speeds are incredible and set up was super simple. The only thing we wish there was more configurability.  
+11 votes
by (420 points)
Love love love Orbi Before vs after internet speed
by (2.5k points)
@euripus13030 wow that's a big difference. I don't understand how it increases your ISP speed tho. Am I missing something?  
by (420 points)
@excrescence I honestly have no clue. I thought it was my router and that Orbi was a router system. I was disappointed to find that it plugs into the router you already have BUT it still increased the speeds to where I wanted. We can stream as many devices as we want at once and it hasn’t ever buffered. We got this system.  
by (2.5k points)
@euripus13030 yea that's out of my price range at the moment.  
by (980 points)
@excrescence IT didn't increase the ISP speeds, it increased the speeds of the wifi connection allowing more throughput from the wireless network to the router/modem. It would be clearer if there was also a test run while plugged into the router instead of just wifi.  
by (2.5k points)
@batavia you would of thought the WiFi would outrun the ISP speed by a mile.  
by (980 points)
@excrescence Not in my house with Gig. The best/most stable connection you will get to the Internet for a speed test is using a cat6 cable to connect direct to the router. Wifi will never be as fast or as reliable as wired ethernet.  
+6 votes
by (5.2k points)
We have Orbi. It's been excellent for us
+14 votes
by (500 points)
Orbi solves our black spot issues plus it’s all one network it’s expensive but been amazing
by (2.5k points)
@pall616 have you got that same product?  
by (500 points)
@excrescence we have an RBR50 with a satellite. I looked into extenders etc even tried one then decided to spend the money on the Orbi and it’s been a dream
+9 votes
by (620 points)
I have Orbi. 1 router and 3 satellites. STELLAR. Highly recommend. WiFi speeds are easily 500Mbps on Gigablast whereas they're around 200Mbps using Cox's Panoramic WiFi. They run 6 Nest cameras on high quality flawlessly. Could barely get 3 cameras on mid-quality to work with Cox's router.  
+16 votes
by (1.5k points)
Never bothered with a mesh system with my home: 4, 800 sq ft home on an acre with full strength everywhere inside and out via three plain old cheap vanilla WiFi hubs, optimally positioned. I wish that once and for all someone would give a good simple explanation as to what the need for these meshes is. Given that nowadays most mobile devices on the move will seamlessly and effortlessly hand off to the nearest/strongest router, what's wrong with simply deploying multiple cheap vanilla WiFi hubs with unique SSIDs and pwds? So you have to click on three SSIDs once, then type in three pwds, also once; hardly a big whoop.  
by (3.2k points)
Because that seamless handoff to the stronger signal is something mesh does. if it were doable with multiple separate ssids or bssids then there would be no need for mesh to exist. your method works great if the client never moves away from 1 AP. but the moment a client moves away from the ap its connected to, it disconnects. but not until it loses the signal entirely. then it will scan for and connect to a different known ap. that isnt mesh.  
by (1.5k points)
Thank you Ken. The first concrete benefit of a mesh explained simply. I guess in practice what you describe proves to be no problem in my particular instance, but now I can understand why you'd want it.  
by (1.5k points)
Also, it seems that if clients got smarter about when and how they switched APs, that could further obviate the need for meshes.  
by (3.2k points)
I'm doing this right now. multiple ssids with a bunch of old wifi routers, it works fine for wifi switches, and other iot sensors that never move. but not so much when you're mowing the lawn, circling 3 different ap's while trying to stream music.  
+3 votes
by (2.5k points)
Ok so I jumped in and bought it. Load of bloody rubbish! Internet dropping out. Alarm system was keep losing connection, some sonoff items refused to connect. Roaming didn't work. Returned.  
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