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Switzerland, Bern
1 Level
707 Review
33 Karma

Review on NETGEAR Orbi Wall-Plug Whole Home Mesh WiFi Satellite Extender - enlarges your Orbi router's reach by 1,500 sq. feet, delivering speeds up to 2.2 Gbps, AC2200 (RBW30) by Josh Cox

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Not working as advertised

I have a house that is almost 200 square meters. I have a Netgear Orbi RBR50 as my main router along with RBS50 and RBW30. The RBR50 sits in front of my house where it connects to my cable modem and sits on a shelf in my office/work space. The RBW30 sits about 25 feet in my wall-mounted island kitchen. The RBS50 is on the opposite side of my house - about 50 feet from the RBR50 and 25 feet from the RBW30. Download speeds typically hover around 15Mbps. The RBW30 satellite is constantly disconnected from the main router. The RBS50 also loses connection to the main base station; but not as common as RBW30. I have been happy with Netgear products in the past. However, the Orbi experiment proved to be a costly waste of time. I've been working with Netgear tech support for over a year trying to get this system to work as advertised. Their final recommendation was to set up three routers in sight and then send them an image. I've tried EVERY firmware version they provided. Nothing was stable. When my family members work in the kitchen (next to the RBW30) or living room (next to the RBS50), they often complain about the slow internet speed. When I run the Wireless Speedtest from my computer, the default speed drops from 130 to 140 Mbps and the download is in the 15 Mbps range. I would spend money on a wireless solution that is NOT on a mesh network based.

Pros
  • Nice item
Cons
  • Slightly torn