If you're plagued by slow WiFi speeds or have weak wireless signal - or none at all - in
some areas of your house then in this video I'll be showing you how I took my home WiFi
from awful to awesome with the Netgear Orbi whole home WiFi system.
Hello, welcome back to Switched On Network, I'm paulfp and if it's your first time here
this channel covers technology, gadgets and the internet etc., so click on the subscribe
button and the notification bell so you won't miss any great new videos! In this video I'll
give you a quick overview of the Netgear Orbi WiFi system, and how mesh networks are leaps
and bounds better than using just a single WiFi router or WiFi extenders. I'll go over
how to set it up and then take a look at some before and after speed tests in various areas
of my house to see how much of a difference it really makes.
Spoiler alert! - it's awesome and it made a huge difference, so if that's all you needed
to know then open up the video description and click the link to find the best Orbi system
for your house!
We're also giving away a Netgear Orbi to one lucky winner! Details are coming up at the
end of the video so stay tuned for your chance to win.
A mesh network like Netgear Orbi or Google WiFi works by using multiple wireless access
points around your house, and the units all form part of one system, intelligently providing
WiFi service to whichever devices are nearest to each access point and that it's best placed
to serve. The "backhaul" connection between access points, ie. the way they're connected
to each other, uses an additional dedicated and completely separate high-speed wireless
channel, or in some cases a hard-wired cable connection, so that each unit is able to provide
the maximum bandwidth available, just as if it were the main router. That's why you'll
see the Orbi calling itself a Tri-band system; as well as the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands for general
use, there's that third 5GHz band reserved for backhaul. By contrast, range extenders
usually gobble up half the available bandwidth for the connection back to the main router
creating a disadvantage before you've even started, or they sometimes use Powerline plugs
which use your home's electrical wiring. I'm a great fan of powerline if it's the only
option, as it's very clever and works quite well - but it'll never get close to a proper
hard-wired connection or a dedicated 5GHz backhaul!
Another advantage of a wireless mesh system like Orbi is that each access point broadcasts
the same SSID - that's the wireless network name - so you get the convenience of just
one name throughout the whole house, and no more annoying "upstairs", "downstairs", "garden"
etc., and your devices should seamlessly roam between them all as you move around - just
like your mobile phone does if you're on a long phone call whilst doing 70mph on the
motorway and crossing over county boundaries, moving from mast to mast. This is true even
for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless bands - you'll just see one network, and Orbi ensures your
device uses whichever is best at that moment.
Mesh systems like this are already commonplace in a large businesses, schools and hospitals
etc., and you've probably seen the little white access points dotted around buildings
and up on the ceilings, well now we can have the same technology in the home too.
To put the before and after results later in this video in context, I'm going to give
you a very quick overview of my current setup. If you couldn't care less about my setup,
no hard feelings, you can skip forward to the timestamp in the video description.
My ISP is Virgin Media, which provides a fibre-to-the-cabinet service and luckily for me the cabinet is
directly outside my front door on the other side of the street, meaning the final copper
stretch is very short, just a matter of a few metres. I'm currently on the 200Mbps package,
and the speed I actually get is usually around the 220Mbps mark, so it's a very good service.
The "SuperHub" they provide, though, is pretty basic and the WiFi it provides is really only
good for a very small house or flat.
My Virgin Media hub is located in the living room, and the house is a 3-bed semi in South
Liverpool in the North West of England, with a downstairs of approximately 60 square metres
and an upstairs of about 40. We've also had the loft converted into a fourth bedroom.
The walls are quite thick, and the signal from the router downstairs in the lounge doesn't
reach all areas of the upstairs, and where it does it's pretty slow. The signal up in
the loft fluctuated from sometimes pretty good to other times slow or unusable. However,
I ran an ethernet cable up the old chimney from the living room to the loft whilst the
conversion was taking place, which means there's a nice hard-wired connection up there, into
which I plugged an old WiFi router and configured it as a secondary access point.
The gardens on our street are very long, so the signal from the house hasn't got a chance
of reaching to the summerhouse near the bottom of the garden. Connectivity down there is
actually useful as it's nice to be able to work from home down there in the summer, as
well as to listen to music with a Chromecast Audio during BBQs or on nice summer evenings.
For this, I ran another length of cable, armoured for outdoors this time, from the living room
- and used yet another old WiFi router I had knocking about to create a Garden access point,
which worked OK but was a very old router so only provided pretty slow WiFi speeds,
and it wouldn't allow me to add a Guest network down the bottom of the garden so it's no use
for visitors.
So in summary, the house and garden consists of 3 access points - the living room Virgin
Media router, giving 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, and 2 old 2.4GHz wifi routers providing "Loft"
and "Garden" access points.
This did work better than just having the one router for the whole house in the lounge,
however we found that our wireless devices were constantly connecting to the "wrong"
device, ie. a far away one when we were right by one of the others, which was very annoying!
It is possible to improve this and try to emulate a mesh network setup by setting the
SSID and password to be the same on all boxes, but with other differences in the access points
that doesn't always work and can cause problems that are hard to diagnose.
I did speedtests in all the main locations in my house and garden where we use WiFi,
and then averaged them out to get an overall average WiFi Internet speed. Bear in mind
that on that day the speed I achieved with wired devices such as my Desktop computer
was 223Mbps, so the average WiFi speed around the house of 39Mbps means that over WiFi I
was only getting just under 17 and a half percent of what was coming into the house!
Some areas of the house were so patchy that when using our smartphones, we quite often
ended up switching off WiFi and using 4G data instead, which is ridiculous really when you've
got an ultra-fast fibre optic connection to the house!
That's especially true down here at the bottom of the garden - just outside the summerhouse
- the old WiFi router is so rubbish that switching off WiFi and using 4G gave a much better speed!
So let's get the Orbi set up and installed. I've already done a video going over what
you get in the box, so click the "i" up there if you want to watch me unboxing the Orbi
and see exactly what your money buys you.
You can do all the setup on the Orbi via the app on your smartphone or tablet, but I prefered
to do it on the big screen via the web interface. You can also install the Netgear Genie app,
too, if you want some additional handy features. More on the apps later...
If your ISP gives you a combined modem/router then the first thing to do is set that to
modem mode if you can. On my Virgin Media router it's just a case of going to the router's
web-based admin pages in a web browser and finding the option to set it to Modem Mode.
That disables the WiFi and all routing features, so it becomes just a standalone cable modem.
If you ever need to switch it back for any reason, the admin interface is usually accessible
via a different IP address, in this case via 192.168.100.1
Before you do that, if you have any settings such as port forwarding or a specific DHCP
range, make a note of those settings so you can recreate them once Orbi acts as your router.
Once that's done, disconnect all ethernet cables from your current hub, or if you already
have a separate modem and router then disconnect and remove your current router. Make sure
you have the Orbi router and not a satellite - this is easily identifiable by the yellow
port labelled "Internet" and it's also blue on top. Connect the yellow Internet port to
your modem and power on the Orbi. If you also have other network hardware such as a switch
like I have here, you can either connect this now to one of the other 3 ports or you can
wait until you've finished setting up.
Next, connect to the Orbi either via an ethernet cable or wirelessly using the default password
from the label on the router. Open a web browser and type in orbilogin.com and then follow
the prompts on screen. This will detect your Internet connection and prompt you to do things
like set a private Admin password for your router as well as give you the option to change
your WiFi network name and password.
Quick Tip: If you want, you can set your WiFi network name and password to be the same as
your previous setup, and that way you can avoid having to re-enter new details into
everything that connects to your WiFi. In my case, because I had several different names
for 2.4G, 5G, loft, garden etc. I'm creating a new unified name for the whole house. Plus,
if your current password isn't that secure, take the opportunity NOW to come up with a
really good, strong password!
Once the initial setup is complete, you may also want to change the IP address of the
Orbi to match your current network. This is only really going to apply if you have devices
using static IPs on a particular subnet. In my case I do have that, and the previous network
IP range was 192.168.0.1 rather than 1.1 so for convenience you can change that here.
Now's also a good time to input any other port forwarding rules and other DHCP range
settings you might want.
Next, it's time to set up the satellite. From the web interface screen, click on Add Orbi
Satellite and you'll be taken to a page with some instructions and advice on ideal placement.
Press next in the top right corner once you've placed your satellite and powered it up, then
wait for the ring LED on the top of the satellite to turn white, and press the physical Sync
button on the back of the satellite. Then, click the Sync button on the web page on your
computer. The process will take a few minutes, during which the ring on the top of your satellite
will light up one of three colours; Blue for a good connection, Amber for an OK connection
(but you should move it a bit closer really to make it better) and Magenta if it was unable
to connect.
If, like me, you have the pack with 2 satellites, do the same now for the third. You should
now be good to go if you're using just the wireless backhaul setup. Or if (like me) you're
planning on having a wired connection between them then you may need to upgrade the firmware
first to enable this feature, as it wasn't included with the Orbi when it first launched.
Like a few other reviews I read, updating the firmware wasn't quite plain sailing, however
whilst I was struggling to do it manually it just did it itself automatically, which
was nice of it and meant I could then connect the satellites via wired backhaul instead
of wireless. I prefer to use a wired connection as wireless will always be subject to some
degree of interference and the signal can be degraded by things like thick walls, filing
cabinets and even reflective surfaces and materials, whereas with wired you can expect
close to a gigabit. You might not actually have gigabit internet (yet!), but those internal
LAN speeds can be useful right now for local traffic such as streaming HD or 4K video from
a NAS or other shared hard drive, not to mention providing some good future-proofing.
So now that everything was good to go, what do I think of it? Is it any good? Has it fixed
all my WiFi woes?
Full Disclosure - this is ALL my own honest opinion. I'm not getting paid for any of this
and Netgear didn't give me the Orbi for free - I paid with my own money. I actually got
in touch and asked them if they'd be willing to sponsor the competition at the end of this
video by providing the prize, but they said no! So this is a completely impartial review.
If you decide, after watching this review, that Orbi is for you and you click the link
in the video description to buy from Amazon, that will help support this channel - but
I'm not getting paid for a favourable review.
Even with my extra WiFi access points that I had before, with the Netgear Orbi I've seen
a HUGE improvement - after my INITIAL setup WiFi speeds were on average 281% faster throughout
the house! I actually managed to improve that even further - I'll get to that in a moment.
I calculated that figure by measuring a "before" and "after" speed at all the main locations
in the house where WiFi is used, and calculating the percentage increase in each location,
then averaging those all out. Obviously, I'd advise taking the numbers with a pinch of
salt as every setup and situation is unique - two of my old access points were very old
routers using WiFi standards which have been far superseded in recent years - but even
so that still gave faster speeds than not using them at all, so I was doing the "before"
results a favour, if anything.
Here in my living room, right next to the Virgin Media router I was getting around 120Mbps
previously, but now the Orbi has taken over the WiFi isn't losing anything and is giving
the same speed as a wired connection, here about 219Mbps. Moving upstairs to my office
where I was only managing a measly 9Mbps previously, that's now increased to 40Mbps. In the kitchen
the WiFi speed has more than doubled from 21Mbps to 44Mbps, and at the top of the stairs
it's gone from 15Mbps to a far more respectable 124Mbps. And finally, as you'd expect, with
the Orbi satellite in the loft fed by a hardwired ethernet backhaul, we're now getting full
speed over WiFi up there where previously it was only managing between 30-40 Mbps.
Now the results were great, but I did have some complaints, mainly that devices didn't
always roam properly from Access Point to Access Point. I could be stood next to one
satellite and get full speed, yet walk to stand by another and get a much slower speed
- my phone had clearly not switched to use the access point which was now closer, as
if it needed to fully lose signal from the now-far-away device before it would go searching
and connect again to the closer one. I looked online and the Netgear forums seemed to suggest
that all 3 should be on the same channel to facilitate seamless switching - using the
WiFi analyser app I could see that mine clearly weren't.
Here you can see what happened when I was stood right by the summerhouse router, with
my phone still clinging on to the very weak house signal. Then if I switched WiFi off
and on again, it would connect to the close-by satellite and give excellent speeds. The same
happened - to a lesser extent, in the bedrooms on the first floor of the house.
Whilst contemplating this issue, I decided to change the setup by bringing the Garden
satellite back into the house and placing it on the middle floor in the room that I
use as my office/studio, because although the overall speeds were greatly improved,
they still weren't as fast as I'd have liked in the office and bedrooms where WiFi gets
used a lot, due to being on a different floor from the router and satellite in the house.
Plus, as it was winter and the temperatures were dropping I didn't want to leave it out
in the cold anyway.
(As a side note, there's an outdoor Satellite which is protected from the elements and meant
to be mounted outside. It's not available in the UK quite yet, but it might be by spring/summer
when we next want to use WiFi at the bottom of the garden. Click on the Thumbs Up and
Leave a comment below if you'd like to see a review of that when it's out.)
So I moved the third satellite into the house and placed it in my office on the first floor,
and after a reboot of whole system the roaming between access points started working flawlessly.
This was even with all 3 indoors and much closer together, so the "weaker far away signal"
would be a stronger one - and you'd expect any problems of not dropping off one and onto
another to be worse - however that wasn't the case, it now worked flawlessly!
They're still not all on same channel though, hmmm...
Now let's have a look at the test results with all 3 units inside... Now the speed improvement
has risen to be on average 523% faster than before!
I decided to treat the summerhouse figure as an anomaly due to comparing to a very old
router from 2010 so it's been removed from the overall figures due to skewing results.
Leaving it in gave a result of over 7,500% increase, due to how much it was dragging
down the "before" results. So essentially, with the summerhouse test excluded, this is
like a test of having 2 satellites versus 3 in a house like mine. In the house I saw
a 280% improvement with router plus 1 satellite and a 520% improvement with router plus two
satellites!
So finally, I can now just forget about WiFi. No fiddling, no slow speeds and no cut-outs.
The WiFi is just there, in the background, working so well that I can forget about it.
And let's be honest, that's what we all want from technology! With Netgear Orbi, WiFi in
the house will be far better for general internet use on smartphones, tablets and laptops, and
it'll be good for video calling family and being able to walk around the house without
losing connection.
Time for some other quick comments and observations. Firstly, the Orbi app - it's OK, but doesn't
really add a huge amount to the experience, I found. The screen showing which satellite
a device is connected to doesn't always seem to work, which is a shame as that's probably
the thing I'd find most useful. There's a very basic Traffic Meter, but forget it if
you want to look at internet usage for a particular day last week or by device - that's something
where the Google WiFi definitely beats the Orbi. We'll be doing a head-to-head comparison
of the Google WiFi versus Netgear Orbi soon, so subscribe to the channel to see that.
The Orbi also supports parental controls via the Circle with Disney app, as well as letting
you set up a VPN. I'm going to be doing in-depth video on both of those subjects too, so make
sure you're subscribed to the channel, and click the bell icon to get notified when those
videos go live.
There's also support for controlling your Orbi via Alexa and the Google Assistant, although
the things you can do seem more like a gimmick, and might cause a potential security breach,
so best to leave off? If you'd like to see a video on this, let me know in the comments
section.
Finally, the router and both satellites also have a USB port for sharing printers, but
you can't use it with a hard drive (well, not officially anyway). That seems like a
glaring omission - who actually uses ReadyShare printing? I suppose it could maybe be useful
for older printers, but it seems a strange thing to prioritise. Most people have WiFi
printers, or a printer that connects with an ethernet cable. So it's a shame that you
can't plug a hard drive in - after all, that's exactly what you do with the USB port on another
Netgear product of mine, the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. It would be a great and easy way of adding
a network hard drive to your home network - maybe Netgear don't want to cannibalise
sales of their NAS systems by allowing this on the router?
So in conclusion, I can definitely recommend the Netgear Orbi and think you should definitely
buy one if you want good, fast and reliable WiFi all around your house. There are several
versions available and the one you should buy depends on the size of your house as to
whether you'll need 1 or 2 extra satellites, and there are two variations: the AC2200 with
max speeds of 2.2Gbps or the more powerful AC3000 with a top speed of 3Gbps if your budget
allows. If you look in the video description I've included a special link to view the page
on Amazon in your country which has all the available size variants laid out in helpful
grouping with suggested uses, for example a 2 pack for a 4 bedroom house with 2 floors,
or a 3 pack for a 5 bedroom 3-floor house, etc.
Now it's time for the competition and we're giving away a Netgear Orbi Whole Home Wifi
System to one lucky subscriber, so if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning then
why not enter our competition? All the details are in the video description - click the link
and that will take you to the page on the Switched On Network website where you can
enter. There's no purchase required, and the form will give you various actions that you
can complete to get more entries into the competition. For example, you can subscribe
to the channel, watch or comment on a video, follow on Twitter, etc. You can also come
back for a bonus entry every day until the competition finishes, so definitely do that
- because you may also see new or different actions added over the course of the contest,
so you can complete those too for even more chances to win. Plus, if you refer your friends
you'll get extra entries each time anyone enters the competition from your referral.
So, open up the video description and click the link to enter now. Good luck!
So that's all we've got time for, please give this video a thumbs up, and if you've got
any questions or comments about WiFi issues, Mesh networks or the Netgear Orbi in general,
post them in the comments section below and I'll do my best to reply to as many comments
as possible.
If you've not done so already, please subscribe to the channel by clicking the logo on screen,
and you can check out the other videos in our series on the Netgear Orbi by clicking
the playlist here, too. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video!