Add-on Orbi Satellite (RBS50)

Don't buy this product. The hardware is great. When it works, it works wonderfully. However, as of the date of this post, the Orbi has been crippled by its firmware for around three weeks. Appreciating that a firmware update can have unintended consequences, and hoping that a fix may be forthcoming, Netgear's completely inadequate handling of the situation suggests to me that this company is one you will not want to trust going forward. I purchased this product about 6 months ago. I have a system with a router and two satellites. At first, all was good. The setup was particularly easy. Some users reported occasional drops on ios and android devices which they attributed to the Orbi. I experienced some drops, but nothing particularly troublesome and who knows if it was the Orbi. Functionality always restored quickly, and my overall coverage was so much improved that I was very happy. Eventually, Netgear pushed a firmware update, and my measured wifi speeds dramatically decreased with distance away from the router. Logging in to the router, it was clear that the two satellites had ceased to communicate with the router/hub. Every effort to wipe, reset, and resync the system was useless. Tech support should have been aware of the firmware problem within a day or so but continued to obliviously suggest doomed-to-fail efforts to reset and resync. Eventually, after 4 or 5 hours of escalated phone support, the support technician acknowledged what should have been completely obvious, there was a firmware problem, and there was no ETA on the fix. On my last call, I was told it "should be about a week." That was about 4 days ago, but I am not holding my breath. As it stands, with the new firmware, my system is not a mesh network at all. It is a single access point with two dead satellites. For weeks now, the Orbi has done nothing more than the cable modem/router it replaced. It is possible to manually roll back the system to older firmware. After a roll back, all is in order and running great. What is really infuriating is that Netgear, in its wisdom, configured the Orbi to auto update firmware in a manner that cannot be turned off or blocked. So, you can roll back the firmware and have a working mesh system that breaks itself in a day or two after auto updating. Netgear support advised that preventing users from stopping the auto update was a feature for easy operation. Thanks for that Netgear. A big ol' rock is also easy to operate and is as useful to my network as the Orbi satellites. You will see some good reviews here. Aside from shills, those are understandable. The hardware once worked terrifically, and some users claim the newest firmware works for them. Don't believe it. Maybe you will get lucky, but my experience is that Netgear pushed firmware that made my system completely non-functional then hid from the problem while I wasted hours on support calls. Even if you get lucky, do you want to deal with a company that forces autoupdates of broken firmware? You don't. If you are still tempted, take a look at the Orbi message boards maintained by Netgear. You will see almost a month of upset users postings with no meaningful response from the company. Netgear could simply disable autoupdates or push the older firmware while it works on a fix. For whatever reason, this company prefers a strategy of radio silence. I believe that Amazon should delist this product, at least while so many users continue to report that it is not functioning for any aspect of its intended purpose. UPDATE: After posting this review, Netgear replaced both of my satellites. Counterintuitively, this seems to have fixed my system. It has only been up and running for a few days. I have experienced a couple of wifi drops, but I have not reached a conclusion as to whether I expect this to be a frequent problem. There is still no new firmware, there is still no way that I can determine to get around the firmware auto updates, and there are still apparently folks with non-functioning systems posting in the forums. I would like to see Netgear address these issues. If my system stays functioning well for a fair period of time, I will definitely up my one star review. When it works, it is a FLAMETHROWER. If Netgear fixes the underlying issues with the firmware in a way reproducible for all users, it would really be a top-notch product. UPDATE (12/22/17): I am changing my initial 1-star to a 4-star. The new firmware is, in fact, working great. Per my earlier review, when this system is working, it is hard to beat. The new firmware is killing it. I used conventional range extenders before, and there was always a huge drop in performance with the extenders. This Orbi system has fast speeds everywhere even at the farthest reaches of my property. Compared to old-fashioned range extenders, it's like magic. The satellites, which once did not work at all, are suddenly very stable. I also just received the firmware push including the Circle parental control feature, and that is a really great surprise added bonus. I do think users of network products need more control over firmware, and the several weeks I spent with a non-functioning system due to a push of bad firmware really prevents me from a full 5-stars at this point. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that experience, but it is going away. I am loving this system today. I am happy with the purchase and would recommend it to others.

This product is super. It connected right into my Orbi router quickly and with no hassles and is providing an even larger additional coverage area than expected. One hang up is that when I tried to install the satellite using the iOS Orbi app it didn't work but as soon as I followed the instructions that came with the satellite (essentially just plug in satellite and hit the "sync" buttons on both the satellite and the router) it worked great. The two things I don't love about this product are: 1) The price. $249 is hefty when this is replacing a $29 wireless extender. This product does have the benefits of not having to have additional network names (AKA SSIDs) (and all the network switching for mobile devices) as well as much higher throughput and better range than the extender but it does seem crazy expensive. 2) Lack of an ethernet backhaul. That is to say, satellites have to connect to the router via wireless and can't connect via an ethernet cable. For most people this isn't important but I have two separate buildings on my property that share internet. Ideally I'd like the same network name in both places but they are too far for an Orbi satellite to reach the router via wireless (but there's just enough signal that I can't just name the wifi network in the 2nd building the same name). If it could communicate back to the router via ethernet I'd simply need to plug it in. They have said they may update the firmware to allow this in the future. I sure hope they do! Despite those shortcomings I still gave it 5 stars because it does what it said it would do and it does it extremely well.

I was shocked at the performance of these units along with the coverage and seemless transition from one unit to another. Single SSID for multiple devices with a seemless transition to a higher signal unit is wonderful. There are units with better coverage and there are units with better throughput but the expandable nature with the extra satellites along with the aforementioned surprised me. I work in the technology field so I do not make these comments lightly. You are not going to mount these on a wall would be a limitation if you wanted to be picky but they are not ugly by any means. I would recommend these units. I have a 5800 sq ft house along with a lot of land and I can actually still be connected in my yard up to about 200' from the house. I added 3 satellites and could have likely got away with 1 or 2 satellites. If you buy I would suggest getting the base unit and then seeing your coverage before buying a satellite at a time until you are happy. The Ethernet ports on the back are helpful for devices that require hard wire so you can connect them and let the Orbi shoot the connection over wifi on the satellite units.

Orbi simplifies your home wifi with a single SSID and an expandable mesh network that reaches the farthest corners with blazing speed. Can be configured as a hub and spoke (Router is hub and satellites are spokes around the house) or in a daisy chain (router is at one end of the house and talks through satellite(s) to get to other satellites. Tech support at netgear is non existent but dont worry. There is an excellent user community that will help you online if you have any issues. This piece of equipment appears to be simple, but the operations it performs are complex. It has dozens of settings and security options that depending on your setup you may want to change. Pro tip: If your cable modem has a router built into it, I highly recommend you disable or bridge that router and turn off the modem's wifi before installing Orbi. You can only have one router in a network else you will end up in what is known as a double-nat situation and become extremely frustrated. Bridging is normally easy to do, but you might want to jump on the netgear community board before install if you dont have a simple cable modem. At the end of the day, this thing is scalding fast and works superbly with excellent security and controls from either a web browser or a smart phone app.

Buyers beware. If you buy this product and are on firmware V1.12.0.18 you will run into this terrible bug where all Satellites will show up as attached devices instead of Satellites. I purchased a second Satellite a few months back to increase the range of my Wifi through my backyard. Instead, I ran into this bug that you will hear a lot in Netgear Community. After adding my second Satellite, I noticed that both my Satellites were showing up as attached devices under the router list. Logging into the Satellite shows it has the appropriate firmware, but it says both 2.4 and 5Ghz radios are disabled. They both say "Wireless AP: Off". Several people in the Netgear Community have pointed out a workaround of doing a factory reset but if you power off the Satellite and move it to another location you will run into this bug where they will show up as attached devices instead of Satellites. Making your Satellites pretty much useless. If you downgrade the firmware you will have your router and Satellites working for some time, until the auto-firmware update kicks in and you will run into this bug again. There are workarounds on Netgear community to enable Telnet and then disable auto updater. That will help you install an earlier version of firmware and prevent V1.12.0.18 from auto updating. For an expensive product such as this, Netgear is surely not in any rush to provide a fix. I have a support case open with them for three weeks now, still waiting to hear back from their engineers. If I had the option to go back, I would have selected Google Wi-Fi over Orbi. 08/28/2017: Update to my review. After working with Netgear Support they RMA my Router and both Satellites. It has been a little over a week now, the new units have been working fine on the latest v.1.12.0.18 firmware. Hopefully, their engineers are able to identify the root cause of this issue from the Router and Satellite that I have sent over and provide a fix. I will update my review once I hear back from Netgear for my open support case. 08/31/2017: Netgear has provided a beta release for the bug I have mentioned in my earlier review. I have not tested this beta release as the RMA units have been functioning normally. Expect a official patch from Netgear for the Orbi Satellites soon. From my conversation with Netgear support, I gathered the issue is relevant to older units and does not affect newer units. The fix will resolve older units from running into the bug I mentioned above. Changing my review from "I hate it" to "I like it." Product itself is excellent when it works as advertised. My goal was to expand Wifi throughout my backyard and have a Satellite close to my Wifi sprinkler controller. The only way to accomplish that without wiring was either buy an extender or add another Satellite. Orbi works excellently, I hardly see any drop in speed when I move from one floor to another. It would be nice if Netgear can offer an option that prevents their products from auto updating. An option to select the auto update feature or disable it. It helps when you run into issues like the one I mentioned in my initial review.

Love it!!! Works very well. High speed keeps up with the whole house. Seems expensive when buying but I think it’s worth the money.

My signal strength and speed increase significantly when I installed this router and 2 satellites. I probably could have gotten by with only the one satellite in my 2300 sq ft home, but this was a reasonable price to pay to boost signal in a portion of my house that improves the signal outdoors. I used a wired backhaul solution vice wireless since I already had Ethernet cables routed. While it's not needed since these routers have a dedicated frequency to communicate with each other, I figured I'd take that out of the equation to reduce the number of devices that rely on WiFi - admittedly overkill, but I sleep better :) After replacing my Apple Airport Extreme routers, my before and after results using the Spectrum Speed Test on my WiFi devices and an app on my phone for signal strength are as follows with 400Mbps service coming into the house. Before: ~ 350Mbps and a signal strength range of -45db to -75db After: ~ 440Mbps and a signal strength range of -35 to -55db

Okay, I had the router and satellites installed by Best Buy and all worked fine. Then I tried Roku with my TV's and got rid of the cable boxes. All worked well until one day it did not. I was using one satellite to extend the signal across a garden to another building... about 25 feet. The folks at Orbi spent hours on the phone with me troubleshooting the problem and in the end determined walls and doors were now a problem. They recommended an outdoor extender. I purchased it. Again, things worked well until they didn't. Long story short, I ended up this stronger satellite, moved some satellites around and all is well again. I wish the person I spoke to first would have recommended this stronger satellite as I probably would have bought two instead of the outdoor extended. Anyway, I have a small fortune invested in Orbi products but seven TV's using Roku and multiple products (phones, tables, computers, etc...) are using the system as well. I am a five room bed and breakfast in a 200 plus year old house and no complaints. Customer service at Orbi can be frustrating but they will work with you until it's right.

Fácil de instalar, desde que salió esta tecnología me ayudo a cubrir todos los puntos de casa y jardín.

I bought this satellite to add to my existing Orbi RBK50 network. The coverage has imrpoved and there are no deadspots now. I get the same download speeds over my WiFi as my ISP allows - 300Mbps. All 3 units work as one and ensures a single SSID network spans my home. So no disconnections even if I move from one area to another while on a video call or conference within my home. Not once the router had to be restarted after its latest firmware upgrade that was done 6 months back. Reliable and steady performance and I am happy with it.

Great product

Excellent, works like a charm in our duplex house. Have 1 router and 2 satellites and it covers every nook and corner of the house. Get uniform speeds now at every corner of the house.

I have 4 satellites and 1 router now for a full coverage of my home. Adding a new satellite is breeze and they pair among themselves dor daisy chaining or star topology. This way router can be placed somewhere with all its wiring and then these satellites can be mounted on walls with broader and deeper range and away from any mischief.