What's new

NETGEAR Introduces Orbi Wi-Fi Mesh system

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

thiggins

Mr. Easy
Staff member
Capture.JPG
NETGEAR today introduced its Orbi High-performance AC3000 Tri-band WiFi System. Available next month at a $399.99 MSRP, Orbi is aimed squarely at quashing "mesh Wi-Fi" upstarts eero, Luma and Amplifi before they reach critical mass.

Orbi adopts a router, satellite architecture using a dedicated 4x4 802.11ac 5 GHz connection between the two units and separate 2x2 AC1200 class 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz radios for device connections. The dedicated backhaul connection eliminates the problem of balancing client and backhaul bandwidth demands that competing "mesh" Wi-Fi systems have.
orbi.jpg
A kit of one router and satellite will be available at launch next month. But NETGEAR plans to make the router and satellite available separately, each at $249.99 MSRP. The company said the system will initially support up to two satellites and have only browser-based setup at launch. But support for up to five satellites and app-based setup is planned in future firmware releases.

Band-steering will also be supported at launch both for devices supporting 802.11k and v and those that do not. AP steering / roaming and transmit power adjust will come in future releases as more satellites are supported. MU-MIMO is also supported on both backhaul and device connections.

Both router and satellite have four Gigabit Ethernet ports, with one on the router dedicated to WAN connection. The USB 2.0 port does not support storage sharing.

orbi_conns.jpg
Check NETGEAR's Orbi page for more information.
 
How does it even remotely make sense to use the 1733Mbps, short range 5GHz radio to connect the two devices to each other? This seems to be QCA based, but Broadcom claims 1000Mbps on 2.4GHz, which would make a lot more sense for linking these type of devices, as you get decent range so you can place the "satellite" at some distance from the main unit. In fact this would be useless in my home, as i can't go up or down a single floor with 5GHz due to an excess amount of steel in the floors...
 
How does it even remotely make sense to use the 1733Mbps, short range 5GHz radio to connect the two devices to each other? This seems to be QCA based, but Broadcom claims 1000Mbps on 2.4GHz, which would make a lot more sense for linking these type of devices, as you get decent range so you can place the "satellite" at some distance from the main unit. In fact this would be useless in my home, as i can't go up or down a single floor with 5GHz due to an excess amount of steel in the floors...
Well, in your case, any system "mesh", extender or WDS won't work, right?

By using 4x4, they should get some additional link gain that other 2x2 systems won't have. I would think 2.4 GHz is too crowded to get a decent link. 1024 QAM can't even hit full link rate in the same room. With any distance between AP and STA, they will need to fall back to lower MCS rates. 1000 Mbps also requires 40 MHz in 2.4 GHz, which is a non-starter.
 
Broadcom claims 1000Mbps on 2.4GHz, which would make a lot more sense for linking these type of devices, as you get decent range so you can place the "satellite" at some distance from the main unit.

Nobody ever succeeded in getting a 1 Gbps link with NitroQAM. And since it's the 2.4 GHz band, you can effectively divide this by two, as it's also next to impossible to maintain a reliable 40 MHz connection on the 2.4 GHz band in today's crowded space.

5 GHz might make sense as long you don't put the satellites too far away from the primary router.
 
MU-MIMO on the backhaul would only make sense if satellites were only 2x2, right? In which case, this might be a good use for MU-MIMO (provided you have multiple satellites).
 
I wonder, is there any standard to a channel width wider than 40MHz on the 2.4 GHz band? It may be useful for getting better throughput, while possibly keeping it's range.
 
I wonder, is there any standard to a channel width wider than 40MHz on the 2.4 GHz band? It may be useful for getting better throughput, while possibly keeping it's range.
No. With only three non-overlapping channels, 40 MHz is pushing it.
 
I wonder if they will support a wired link between router and satellite.

its not supported as yet but is being considered for a future update

the max rate on 2.4 gig is 400M and on 5 gig its 867M on the lower channels only , the upper channel bandwidth is used for the backhaul

---------------------------

and since its been announced i can now tell you it works as its advertised , its aim is to give a whole house wifi coverage and this it does and does it very well ( yes i was on the beta test team )

i now have my full speed 100/40M fiber connection available no matter where i am in the house via wifi and up till now that wasnt achievable even with the likes of the asus rt-ac88u and other high end AC single point transmission routers

when the beta test group was asked if this solution worked for the the feedback was well over 80% suggested it did for them and work out of the box even in beta stage

its still got that netgear gui which im no fan of and have suggested changes that may or may not be looked at

this is what the mass want in a wifi system its simple , its set and forget , its ascetically pleasing and it just works

a neat point here is the router can be run in AP mode while still using the sat and thus this can be added to an existing wireless router and not create any dual nat situations

i also see in the advertising that they intend to release them as a stand alone router and single sat units so you can add more sat's as needed

the question is will anyone wanting a plug and play whole wifi solution pay $300 , its is 2 devices and RRP is never what we see on the street , but will the price tag scare ppl of ?
 
Last edited:
the question is will anyone wanting a plug and play whole wifi solution pay $300 , its is 2 devices and RRP is never what we see on the street , but will the price tag scare ppl of ?

I stopped speculating what the people might find to be "too much", ever since AC5300 routers appeared on the market.
 
The 2.4 Ghz band is quite congested in places so using that for connecting the satellite to the router was never going to be an option.

One possible configuration would be to put the router in a fairly central location in the home. However it does need a wired connection to your modem so this may not be practical.

So more commonly you would connect the router to the modem at one end of the house and put the satellite in a central location in the middle of the house. Additional satellites would enable you to cover a larger area.

The more feedback that is received requesting a feature in general the more likely it is to be added.

Personally, a wired link does sound nice. I already have a lot of ethernet wiring at home and could leverage that. But in most cases a wired link shouldn't be necessary. I'm sure I could use it without needing a wired link between the Orbi router and satellite.
 
Last edited:
MU-MIMO on the backhaul would only make sense if satellites were only 2x2, right? In which case, this might be a good use for MU-MIMO (provided you have multiple satellites).

That only benefits one way. Not a good engineering either.

imo the WiFi mesh system doesn't make sense. The backhaul must be non WiFi technology with high penetration. It's a little ironic to be frank someone suggests connecting two by wire.
 
if you define what mesh means its actually not the case for the netgear and im puzzled why the word mesh was used

the term mesh means they communicate with each other as well as other nodes , where as i believe the sat's will only connect back to the main router via the back haul and not the other sats
 
imo the WiFi mesh system doesn't make sense. The backhaul must be non WiFi technology with high penetration.

i can assure you the 5 gig backhaul does have very good penetration

floor plan.JPG

see the above , the orbi was tested in location A , the sat was placed in the void in location D with max sync across the backbone at a distance of about 15 meters and quite a few walls inbetween
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i can assure you the 5 gig backhaul does have very good penetration

View attachment 7128

see the above , the orbi was tested in location A , the sat was placed in the void in location D with max sync across the backbone at a distance of about 15 meters and quite a few walls inbetween

Thanks for the illustration.

For better penetrations, vendors have to compete on antenna designs. Dont know if the early birds have breakthrough on it. Again utilizing WiFi bands for intra-node communication (the backhaul) leave less bandwidth for user devices. And in places with WiFi mesh installed, likely to find other WiFi mesh there. Further congest the available bands. Sound like niche product category. Call me skeptics of WiFi mesh for the time being. lol
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Again utilizing WiFi bands for intra-node communication (the backhaul) leave less bandwidth for user devices. And in places with WiFi mesh installed, likely to find other WiFi mesh there. Further congest the available bands. Sound like niche product category. Call me skeptics of WiFi mesh for the time being. lol
But will you have all the devices in the same area of the house? Chances are you probably will have some devices connecting to one of the router/satellites and some to another of the router/satellites.
 
But will you have all the devices in the same area of the house? Chances are you probably will have some devices connecting to one of the router/satellites and some to another of the router/satellites.

Hmm...I went through the four "homes" illustrated on eero's homepage. All do not look like having bandwidth congestion nearby. lol. I've to wonder why no ethernet cable installed in those home's. If they do, why people have to choose a WiFi mesh system. For eero's credit, it can use ethernet as backhaul link.

Seems to me the current WiFi mesh system is a wireless controller + 1 or more APs + possibility of backhaul link using WiFi bands...in a user friendly way. Consumer techs change fast. I usually got the trend wrong.
 
Looks interesting. Goes on sale in September with 2 units(Router and satellite) for $399. Has 3 wireless radios with one dedicated for the router to satellite connection. Netgear claims this will eliminate the speed being cut in half for devices connected to the satellite. Any thoughts?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Most users would find the Internet connection speed is the bottleneck rather than having a huge number of Wi-Fi devices.

Anyway that other brand you mentioned is dual-band so if you'd end up congested on the tri-band Orbi you'd also be congested on that alternative.
 
WiFi mesh system

and here is the point the orbi is not a mesh system , its not indicated in the advertising as mesh and its technically not a mesh system

it is advertised as a whole home wifi solution , its designed for those that dont have ethernet installed
 

Latest threads

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top