For compatibility information about Orbi Pro WiFi Systems, see Which Orbi Pro routers and satellites are compatible? It’s better in the snapshot version than the current release candidate. In either case, support and stability may not be good for a network you rely on #YOLO. With its MU-MIMO technology, the Orbi served several devices simultaneously. It stood up well to our informal saturation test, in which we played videos on Surface Pro 3 and iPad Pro tablets as a Samsung Tab Pro S moved data on and off a network-attached storage system and a MacBook Air played an online radio station. The video and audio came through on all devices without a skip, stutter or drop-out. Netgear Orbi RBK50 review: Setup and support

Our remaining evaluations looked at the data transfer performance of the NetGear Orbi and the other routers. For both the 5 GHz. and 2.4 GHz. bands, we conducted the same series of tests using the iPerf3 software, with the average result of three separate trials for each test being used for the final score. We ran a test with a short distance (10'), medium distance (35'), and a long-distance (70') between the router base and our test computer, including a line of sight and an interference test at the short and medium distances for a total of 5 different throughput tests for each router at each bandwidth. The NetGear Orbi got off to a great start in the 2.4 GHz. metric, outperforming many of its competitors. The NetGear Orbi performed slightly worse in the 5 GHz. metric compared to its results in the 2.4 GHz. metric but it still did pretty well overall. Netgear's firmware update process remains confusing. There seem to be three independent processes going on:

To support this configuration, each Orbi device has six high-performance amplified antennas around its perimeter. There's also a Bluetooth radio and antenna, but they're dormant for now. The Orbi ships with a semi-random network name and a unique alphanumeric administrative passcode that should be safe enough to use during the short setup routine. Still, you should change both the name and code to something more personal as soon as possible.

compatible with your Orbi WiFi System. To use the table, locate your Orbi router or gateway model number on the left and find where it intersects with a satellite model number on the top. To You can specify the power for each radio on each AP to further reduce radio interference and promote a better roaming handoff.

Performance Comparison

Firmware updates in 2018 have added more fine-tuned parental controls with the Circle with Disney app. This app allows parents to set up profiles for each member of the family, complete with age-appropriate content filtering, time-limits for online use, and curfew settings to cut off connectivity when it’s time to be done for the night. (We mostly liked Circle with Disney when we reviewed the standalone device. The app should provide similar functionality.) Netgear Orbi RBK50 review: Verdict In the Purch Labs material-penetration tests, the Orbi router's transmissions were powerful enough to punch through a metal-frame wall, a ceiling and a soundboarded wall with little drop-off. (The soundboard figure actually improved throughput by about 8 percent; we're not including regular drywall because it has little effect.) At some point, Netgear activates the Automatic Update feature which allows the router to "find" this new firmware and offer to load it. Customers who never look at the firmware update feature will be blissfully unaware of it. This process appears to be "rolled out". My RBR50, for example, continues to report "No new firmware available." Looks like you’re not connected to your Orbi’s WiFi network. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. Try the following steps to get connected: Configuration changes are isolated to the device or to the interfaces that are affected, reducing outages when something has to change.

If you want a resilient network that automatically adjusts when AP’s are down, you will have to manually configure it, e.g. use batman-adv to manage the mesh networking. Again, this router did well with the medium distance tests, following a similar pattern to the short distance tests. None of the closed source QSDK special sauce, so NAT accel is out... for most this might not be an issue, but LAN-WAN performance will not use the NSS cores in the IPQ80xx chipset by default - there are community builds where folks have merged closed source in, but that's a community build, not something that someone can just do a git clone from Master (or release branches) It’s a manual step to change each device to a satellite by deleting the WAN networks and connecting the ethernet port into the existing bridge.It recorded an average of 52 Mbit/s in the unobstructed test and 53 Mbits/s when some walls separated the router from the test laptop. Decrease in throughput (vertical axis, in Mbps) per distance (horizontal axis, in feet). The Orbi has a smooth falloff, and its results over five test runs (thinner lines) were very consistent. (Image credit: Purch Labs) Performance didn't drop too much when we moved to the medium distance, with the NetGear Orbi averaging 193 Mbits/s in the line of sight test.