New NETGEAR Orbi Breaks $100 / Node Price Point

[Julio Urquidi]

NETGEAR's new Orbi Dual Band Mesh Wi-Fi System is a three-node mesh Wi-Fi kit that lists for $229.99, or a little over $70 per node, making it cheaper than Google WiFi.

The new Orbi system is an AC1200 class dual-band Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) design, which means it's the first Orbi to not have a dedicated 5 GHz backhaul radio. The RBK13 kit includes one Wi-Fi router and two satellites, each powered by a quad-core 710 MHz processor, 256MB flash and 512MB RAM.

Each node's dual-band radio supports maximim link rates of 400 Mbps @ 2.4 GHz and 800 Mbps @ 5 GHz, AC MU-MIMO downlink, implicit and explicit beamforming and "seamless" roaming between access points/nodes.

Physical interfaces provided on the router node include two gigabit ethernet ports (one LAN and one WAN). The satellites do not have an Ethernet port, so cannot be connected via Ethernet backhaul.

Other features include NETGEAR Armor for anti-virus, anti-malware, and data protection, Circle Smart Parental Control, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support and setup and management using NETGEAR's Orbi app for Android or iOS.

Available now, the three-piece Netgear Orbi Dual Band Mesh Wi-Fi System is available through Netgear retailers and priced at $229.99.

 

[gfondeur]

It sounds like it can be a nice present for the holidays

 

[pete y testing]

Other features include NETGEAR Armor for anti-virus, anti-malware, and data protection, Circle Smart Parental Control

just a note here , both of the above are subscription based services

 

[10gig]

Interestingly, the 3-pack wall plug system was on sale for only $170 yesterday. It's the one where you've got one regular base unit, and the two mesh units plug straight into outlets like the Plume: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072ZN4PSB/?tag=snbforums-20

I wouldn't pay $230 for an AC1200 dual-band system at this point. That's too close to the price of much more powerful mesh systems, and well above the price of numerous excellent conventional routers with much higher throughput.