Netgear Orbi suffering flaky WiFi for ~4 months now; new FW update coming

[ikjadoon]

In case Orbi users here are suffering from the constant WiFi disconnections (the WiFi network dies every few hours), Netgear says there's an update coming.

But, the beta (can be requested on Netgear's forums) seems to still not have figured it out. 6+ threads, with nearly 700 messages total, are discussing this prevalent issue.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Or...et-connectivity-outage-with-Orbi/td-p/1144719 = 218 messages

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Or...ially-announcing-Improvement-in/td-p/1274142= 199 messages

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Or...etgear-Orbi-and-their-support-due/m-p/1215411 = 127 messages

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Or...Pad-Pro-iPhone-7-and-Macbook-Pro/td-p/1220137 = 82 messages

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-disconnecting-continously/m-p/1248199#M5311 = 61 messages

From SNB's review, this isn't mentioned so I presume it wasn't exhibited in testing? I bought my Orbi last week after reading SNB's review and got hit by this quite widely reported problem instantly. Holding out on Netgear to get a proper fix out ASAP; blanketing your house in WiFi is no good if the blanket disappears every few hours and then magically pops back.

 

[RogerSC]

Glad I haven't experienced disconnects in the 7 months I've had the Orbi. Just great wireless.

 

[Chairman007]

Same here ... no disconnects since I've had orbi with close to 30 devices. Multiple Apple iPads, iPhones, Macbooks, Chromebooks, Streaming devices ... rock solid far reaching. It simply works.

 

[ikjadoon]

Oh, that's awesome! I'm glad to hear that--hopefully, then, it's just some corner cases that Netgear's figuring out.

Cheers, mates. I'm excited to go back "not worrying about WiFi".

 

[ikjadoon]

I ended up returning the Orbi; Netgear's support was nigh useless and I realized this is a widespread bug. Turns out the 5GHz highband "innovation" can't keep a stable connection, even in the same room. I isolated the backhaul and it dies every 20 seconds:

Turns out I'm not the only one. Shame. Hopefully Netgear can figure this out. They've already disabled MU-MIMO & implicit beamforming, too. Until then, I'm back to my sturdy Linksys E4200.