NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (RBK752) – Router with 1 Satellite Extender | Coverage up to 5,000 sq. ft., 40 Devices | AX4200 (Up to 4.2Gbps)

If money is no object and strong reliable WiFi signal is the objective, this is the solution. Like many, I’ve transitioned to a work from home environment and more than ever need a strong reliable WiFi signal at home. For the first few months working remotely, I was fine using the dining room table as a make shift home office, but that was a temporary solution. I eventually relocated my home office to a spare bedroom on another floor. The relocation was an improvement in my personal life, but my internet speed suffered. Significantly. I was dropping calls, had slow download speed and needed to find a solution. Initially, I opted for a simple, inexpensive WiFi extender/repeater. The WiFi extender/repeater worked fine for a couple weeks and seemed like a reasonable solution. I actually reviewed that product very favorably. For the price (less than $50), it was a reasonable attempted solution, but like the dining room table as my home office, the repeater was a temporary solution. It required a shadow second network and the connection would bounce in and out. The repeater was a bandaid; I needed stable reliable internet for video conferences, data heavy downloads and uploads and I was paying for a lot that I wasn’t getting in certain areas of my home — mainly, my new home office! The WiFi extender worked, but only gave me about 60% of the signal I was paying for. I looked at Upgrading my internet package and then looked at a mesh system. The Orbi system was literally 10x the price of my prior bandaid, but WOW! 10x as good. Problem solved. Solid, stable, strong, reliable WiFi signal in every nook and cranny of my home. I went from unstable 60% signal strength to a blanket of strong reliable 99% WiFi connectivity throughout my home. I obsessively checked and rechecked Speedtest.net — bingo! No bouncing in and out. No checking which bandwidth or competing for signal; this product provides strong, solid, stable, complete WiFi signal through out the home. I’m thrilled and can’t believe I paid so much, but also can’t believe I wasted my time and money on anything else. The Orbi is next generation awesome. Easy set up, same network and while I worried I would need more of the signal/units to cover my 3000 sq/ft home given the experience with the WiFi extender/repeater, I did not. One router and one signal was plenty for my concrete 3 story home with the router tucked in the basement and office on third story. The app is easy to use, intuitive and frustration free. I am no tech guru and I had zero problems installing or making it work. This is a no brainer for anyone that needs a reliable blanket of WiFi signal through out their home. I considered other mesh systems but read reviews, did research and decided that this system was an investment in the next generation technology and would last the longest. With out question, it is among the most expensive solutions, but I have complete confidence that it is the best solution on the market at the time of this review. The WiFi signal strength in my home is now so strong that the WiFi picks up outside. If you have money to burn and are demanding of excellence, this is 100% the way to go. I read dozens of articles and watched and read reviews and talked to every tech person I knew before sucking it up and crushing my internet speed problem. If you are on the fence, go for it.

Wanted to post this specific review in hopes to help someone in a similar situation as I was in.I recently moved into an apartment complex that offers Google Fiber, up to 1 Gig speeds. After I signed up for the service they sent me their Google Fiber mesh package which included the main mesh, and one additional mesh wifi point. My setup had the main mesh connected directly, via cat8 ethernet cable, to the fiber jack. The second mesh point was located in the office, about 25 ft away. I then connected another cat8 ethernet cable from the second mesh to my desktop. What I noticed was that I was not getting anywhere near the 1 Gig speeds as promised. This being to my various wireless devices, nor my desktop. My desktop was averaging about 100-125mbps. Cell phone speed would vary depending on proximity to the main mesh point. Cell phone speed would be about 70mbps in the bedroom, which was about 10 ft away from the second mesh point, and about 200mbps when close to the main mesh point. Nevertheless, the speeds were not even close to what was expected. I then proceeded to try the following troubleshooting techniques:1. Desktop internet configuration, based on various internet articles, and blogs.2. Google app configuration.3. Purchased a brand new, gaming computer, in hopes that the hardware was more up-to-date compared to my 4 year old moderate gaming desktop.4. More desktop configurations.Nothing above seemed to help or improve my speeds. Finally called Google Support. Spent 3 hours with support, trying various techniques and situations. When I connected the desktop directly to the main mesh point, via ethernet, the speeds would reach 950mbps. So the apartment was receiving the correct speed but distribution via the wifi mesh points were the issue. At the conclusion of the call, it was determined that there was simply too much wifi interference from the neighboring apartments. Which I could understand to some degree but I was determined to at least get some kind of increase in wifi speeds across the apartment. So then I tried replacing the Google Mesh setup with a 3rd party mesh competitor through amazon, was priced at $100. Still same speeds. Then tried purchasing the Netgear Nighthawk. Speeds were a bit slower. Finally landed on purchasing the Orbi RBK752…success! My desktop speed increased from 125mbps to 275+/-mbps. Upload speed greatly increased as well. Cell phone speed, from the bedroom, increased to 200-250mbps. While this is still nowhere near the speeds I would ultimately desire, it was an increase that I could settle on and be happy with. Hope this article helps!

I bought the Orbi system based on a friend's suggestion/review of the product and now that it is set up and working, it is great. Wifi signal is at the highest strength consistently and my devices aren't randomly disconnected from the network anymore.My only issue with it was the setup process; I can't really say that it's totally on Netgear because I think having a modem/router in one from AT&T added complexity here. It took me several attempts to get my Orbi working because I had to search online for help. The Orbi app was not super helpful in my situation and that was the one point of frustration.Long story short, I found out that because my ISP provides the modem and router in one box, I needed to change the Orbi to AP mode instead of the default router setting. It took a few hours of Googling and reading through forum posts to learn that there's no way to do this in the app; I had to use the laptop to access my Netgear account and go into the advanced settings to make the change. Once I did, everything connected and the wifi signal in the house is at full strength with no issues.Not gonna lie though, I was about ready to give up and return the Orbi because I couldn't get it to work -- so my only suggestion to Netgear would be to somehow incorporate the workaround for this situation into the app during the setup process. Maybe a prompt that asks if you would like to set up the Orbi as a router or AP mode? At least this would give the consumer a starting point for what to Google to make it work.TLDR- Setup is a pain. If you have AT&T modem/router combined, you need to set up your Orbi as AP mode instead of the default router setting! Once you do, it works great!