Review on NETGEAR Orbi RBS50 Extender - Extend WiFi coverage by 2,500 sq. ft. at lightning-fast speeds of 3 Gbps with AC3000 by Andy Tran

Do not buy this product. The equipment is excellent. When it works, it works beautifully. However, at the time of writing this post, the Orbi had been corrupted by firmware for about three weeks. Recognizing that a firmware update can have unforeseen consequences and hoping a fix will arrive soon, Netgear's woefully inadequate handling of the situation tells me this is a company you won't want to trust going forward. I bought this product about 6 months ago. return. I have a system with a router and two satellites. At first everything was fine. The setup was particularly easy. Some users have reported random crashes on iOS and Android devices, which they have attributed to Orbi. I've experienced a few falls but nothing particularly bad and who knows if it was an Orbi. Functionality has always bounced back quickly and overall coverage has improved so much that I've been very pleased. Finally, Netgear released a firmware update, and my measured WiFi speeds dropped drastically the further I got from the router. When I went into the router it was clear that the two satellites were no longer communicating with the router/hub. All efforts to clean, restart and resync the system were useless. Tech support should have noticed the firmware issue within a day or so, but continued to offer failed reset and resync attempts without paying attention. Finally, after 4 or 5 hours of escalating phone support, the support specialist admitted what should have been pretty obvious: there was a firmware issue and there was no expected time of arrival for the fix. When I last called I was told "in about a week". That was about 4 days ago, but I'm not holding my breath. Currently, with the new firmware, my system is not a mesh network at all. This is a single access point with two dead satellites. For several weeks, Orbi did nothing but the cable modem/router it was replacing. It is possible to manually roll back the system to an older firmware. After a rollback everything is fine and works fine. What really annoys me is that Netgear wisely configured the Orbi to automatically update the firmware in a way that it can't be disabled or blocked. So you can roll back the firmware and have a working mesh system that fails a day or two after the automatic update. Netgear support said preventing users from stopping automatic updates is a feature to make things easier. Thank you Netgear for that. The old Big Rock is also easy to use and just as useful to my network as the Orbi satellites. You can find some good reviews here. Advertisers aside, that's understandable. The hardware once worked amazingly and some users claim that the latest firmware works for them. Don't believe it. You might get lucky, but in my experience, Netgear released firmware that rendered my system completely inoperable, and then hid from the issue while I spent hours calling support. Even if you're lucky, would you want to work with a company that forcibly updates broken firmware? You know. If you're still tempted, take a look at Netgear's Orbi message boards. You'll see messages from frustrated users for almost a month with no meaningful response from the company. NETGEAR can easily disable auto-update or download older firmware while it works on a fix. For some reason, this company favors a Funkstille strategy. I think Revain should delist this product, at least until so many users continue to report that it doesn't work in any aspect of its intended purpose. UPDATE: After the publication of this review. , Netgear replaced my two satellites. Oddly enough, this seems to have fixed my system. It only works a few days. I've had a few Wi-Fi dropouts, but haven't concluded whether I assume this is a common problem. There is still no new firmware, I still can't figure out how to bypass the automatic firmware update, and apparently there are still people with broken systems on the forums. I want Netgear to address these issues. If my system works well for a long enough period of time, I will definitely increase my rating by one star. If it works, it's a FLAMETHROUER. If Netgear fixes the underlying firmware issues so it can be played by all users, it will be a top-notch product indeed. UPDATE (12/22/17): I'm changing my original 1 star to 4 stars. The new firmware works really great. According to my previous review, when this system works, it's hard to beat. The new firmware breaks it. I used to use regular range extenders and there was always a big hit in performance with them. This Orbi system has high speeds everywhere, even in the farthest corners of my property. Compared to old-fashioned range extenders, this is like magic. Satellites that didn't work at all before suddenly became very stable. I also just received firmware that includes Circle parental controls and that's a really great surprise bonus. I really think that networking product users need more control over the firmware, and the couple of weeks that I've been shutting down the system due to an influx of bad firmware really doesn't allow me to get a full 5 stars at this point. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the experience but it will pass. I love this system today. I am happy with the purchase and would recommend it to others.