Let’s face it: Dealing with Routers sucks.
The one your Internet Provider gives you definitely sucks and the rest, it's like courting a partner
for marriage.
Ultimately all we want is really fast speeds and lots of coverage and that brings me here
today to the Netgear Orbi.
This hefty 450 Euro device for two pack was installed in our home last year so how did
we get on?
Well in this video you're going to find out.
The Netgear Orbi is what we call a Mesh Wi-Fi system which is a really fancy way of saying
that by placing these satellite routers around your house, they'll boost and repeat the signal
from the main router and in this case the package we bought came with this Satellite
router that also happens to be a Harman Kardon speaker with Amazon ALEXA built in so for
that particular reason this was actually a great fit for our Kitchen.
We upgraded our router because our home wiring system has also been upgraded.
You see we know have Fibre to the home gigabit internet speeds so we needed a new Wi-Fi system
that was going to be up to the challenge of that.
Now the router that Vodafone Ireland supplied us had coverage issues and my old Apple Airport
Extreme which I was using a lot for the past few years: that had speed issues because now
we're on a faster internet connection so that's the thing; years ago we get by fine with just
one of these regular routers maybe even the router your Internet company would give to
you but now because speeds have gotten so much faster the actual bottleneck has become
our home Wi-Fi networks and that is why Mesh Wi-Fi systems like the Orbi have become so
popular in recent years.
Now this review wont have comparisons.
In the past year that I've been using the Orbi Amazon's Eero is now being sold in the
UK and Ireland and it's a competitor product and many networking reviewers would say that
it is the superior product to the Orbi.
Now I haven't personally tested that but it something to consider.
Another thing to consider is that Orbi hasn't been staying still, they also released a new
version of their Networking.
So they have a new faster and more expensive version with Wi-Fi 6 built in.
This will give you faster speeds even than the router I'm using currently however it's
very expensive and not a lot of devices have Wi-Fi 6.
So the latest Apple iPhones for example would have Wi-Fi 6 but Apple's MacBooks wouldn't
have the system so while it could be a great investment as more devices do support Wi-Fi
6 I would also suspect a lot of Wi-Fi 6 routers will drop in price because now it's an emerging
technology but once it becomes the standard there's gonna be a lot more supplied it's
going to be more competitive, Wi-Fi 6 routers will drop in price so if you don't need Wi-Fi
6 speeds now, I would not recommend buying a Wi-Fi 6 router.
So let me tell you what you wanted to hear: Yes, the Netgear Orbi worked as intended and
around our house we're consistently getting about 200 MB of Wi-Fi speed and if you're
in striking distance of the main router you can get about 500 MB and of course if you've
hooked up with a wire you'll get full speeds, I'd hope you'd get full speeds on anything
with a wire.
You know that's obviously a far and beyond upgrade of the 7 Megabytes we were originally
getting in the Kitchen with the supplied router from Vodafone Ireland.
But warning: The Orbi is not for the beginning networking user or someone who doesn't know
their way around Computers; the big issue I've had with the Netgear Orbi and it could
be a breaking point for many of you is that it had a really hard time deciding whether
my devices should connect to it on a 2.4 GHz radio or a 5 GHz radio.
Essentially you want to be on the 5 GHz radio it's much faster speeds - it got so bad that
it basically turned me into a hacker where I had to go on to the Netgear forum and I
found out I had to Telnet into my Orbi device and separate the radios that way; I mean that's
pretty ridiculous.
Now if all your devices are 5 GHz compatible you can disable the 2.4 radio on the Orbi
user interface however being realistic there's probably one or two devices around your home
that are still on the 2.4 Ghz radio and for us that of course was the Printer.
It's been pretty lousy that over the past year Netgear hasn't been able to fix these
issues with firmware updates, it's still persistent so I still recommend you do it and on that
note it's also pretty annoying that because they know it's an issue they just don't build
it into their user interface or control panel like there's no button that would allow you
to separate the radio signals instead you still have to hack into the Orbi using Telnet
and again for something so expensive that should be something that's an option you shouldn't
have to hack into your Orbi to do that.
But beyond that the Orbi did work great, it worked as intended it was just a lot more
setup than I hoped for, particularly at that price point.
Now as for the satellite router itself it's great, it does a great job of boosting the
signal around the house.
It's great playing radio and music but the novelty of having ALEXA does wear off over
time unless you actually have a proper use for it but the sound from its absolutely fantastic
for things like the radio and the music playing which I mean is probably what you're going
to use it for anyway.
Well ultimately there is no clear winners when it comes to Mesh Wi-Fi networking there
certainly is one loser: your wallet.
Again this damn thing was 450 Euro and I still had radio issues and problems with it which
just goes to show that in 2020, it doesn't matter how much money you throw at them, you're
still going to have issues with Internet routers however if you do spend the money you will
be rewarded with the fastest speeds possible.
Thank you so much for watching this video and if it helped you make a buying decision
about Mesh Wi-Fi networking do leave a comment below and I'll see you all in my next video.
Bye.