NETGEAR - Orbi 770 Series

Hi, i recently got the orbi 770, upgrading from an orbi RBK752. First thing i would definitely say is that with this new system i am getting ping spikes randomly, on my previous orbi i was not getting this at all. The only reason i upgraded my previous system was because that was gigabit, but my ISP provides me with 3GBPS up and down. I will say tho, the speeds between the router and satellite is amazing, but not ideal if you need low latency. I wanted to get the orbi 970 but it is very expensive.

Yes. Barring any potential for back doors baked in via firmware, I'd consider TP Link. They usually pull consumers in with price. The specs on both the BE 75 & 85 look very nice. Better than the Orbi, actually. 4x4 on all bands. And you don't absolutely need that dedicated backhaul band on the 85. The Orbi 770 wouldn't be a terrible choice for a smaller network, but your 5 Ghz WiFi 6 clients would suffer with those 2x2 radios. When I see 2x2 on 5 Ghz, I think pre-2020 tech. Although some can get by perfectly fine with it (especially with Ethernet backhaul to mesh nodes), it's not ideal for someone with the odd range consideration or latency via WiFi considerations.

I just replaced my Orbi seven mesh system for an EERO max seven. Same experience. Once you have reliable Wi-Fi, it’s hard to understand how we tolerated the Orbi for so long. I really wanted to make it work! Good luck with it!

Got the 770 with the CM3000 had an old Orbi and I have had no issues after being online for 3 days. Only thing I did was download latest firmware. I am not sure what others are complaining about

If you need a mesh I recommend the Orbi 7 series or higher have 2.5GbE WAN and LAN ports on both the main router and satellite units. A lot of WAN is 1Gbps or less, so companies like TpLink don't really prioritize the high end as much.

Just replaced my ORBI RBR / RBS20 Mesh system with new ORBI 770 series. Happy with speed and throughput improvements and more consistent and reliable coverage. So far so good

I tested 770 and range was pretty good. I had to move my satellites to avoid congestion

I never tested older system but I am using 970 right now. You can always buy a 3 pack of 770 from best buy and and test it out. I tested 770 and then went with two pack of 970 because I dont have large space so three pack was overkill but since I am using wireless Mesh i went with 970 for quad band in the end.

Speedwise 770 worked fine for me. I di dhave issues with new iphones disconnecting but that happened with 970 as well until they pushed out new firmware and I relocated my satellites. Looks like 853 had better antennas compared to 770 and that might be the cause for range issues. 770 is considered an affordable Wifi 7 option so some compromise is to be expected I guess.

Personally, if you don’t think it’s likely that you’ll upgrade to internet service beyond 2.5 gigabits, I’d go with the 770 series. I have a set myself and it has performed well.  The IoT network is primarily to limit stubborn devices to 2.4 GHz, for instance. It isn’t segregated from the primary network. So far, I’ve had no need for it. Your mileage may vary. 

I had good luck with Eero, but the problem with Eero is that unless you’re looking to spend serious $ on a Max 7 set, the ports are somewhat limited. The Pro 6E, for instance, has one 2.5gb and one 1gb port. You need to choose between more internal bandwidth or handling up to 2.5gb internet bandwidth but limiting your internal wired devices to 1gb.  I went with the Netgear Orbi 770 last year since every port is 2.5gb. It has been great. 

Agree with all of this. My 770 was nothing but problems. NETGEAR support was more interested in trying to get a floor plan of my house than actually helping (my issues had nothing to do with placement). They take forever to release new firmware and when they do, problems aren’t fixed and more problems are introduced.  The price is crazy for a steaming pile of shit. I gave up and went back to Eero. 

Eero. I've historically had good luck with Eero. After Amazon bought them and it was time to upgrade, I switched over to Netgear Orbi. Awful mistake. It made me appreciate Eero that much more. I picked up the Eero Pro 7 on the Prime day sale, despite being an Amazon company now. So far so good. Performance has been great. I'm not a fan of TP-Link personally since they don't have the best security track record.

I would recommend the Netgear Orbi 770 and it offers excellent coverage, strong performance for streaming and gaming, and the app is really easy to use. If you're looking for a more budget-friendly option, the TP-Link Deco XE70 Pro is a great alternative with solid value.

I had the exact same experience when upgrading from an old Orbi to the 770...random pauses, outages, etc, including after firmware upgrades...total garbage. Replaced it with a TP-Link and everything immediately ran smoothly.

I own the same system and I agree it's fucking terrible. I walk to the other side of the house (10 feet from satellite 2) and I lose connectivity. Have to restart wifi on my phone to get it to reconnect properly. The fucking app takes 2 minutes every time you go to a different screen. Satelittes just randomly disconnect. No notifications in the app. App has no issues sending me notifications for every little device that connects to my network, but for some reason it can't notify me when a satellite is down.

I went from an old Orbi RB system to the 770 and have loved it! Sorry to hear so many haven’t. But so far it’s been great for me all around.

971 user here. Had the RBR50 running for years and decided to upgrade to these expensive tubes of garbage. I could have learned to play banjo or do oil painting in the amount of time I’ve spent upgrading firmware, resetting devices, reserving IPs, changing settings- changing recommended settings, changing them back - researching. Good lord. And they still drop connections and calls and my iOS devices generally don’t work on them. But aside from that they are ok. They haven’t blown up or sprayed toxic gas in the house yet. So that’s a positive.

I have a NetGear Orbi 770, 1 x router and 2 x satellites (wired backhaul), works very well and has a stable 5Ghz connection to all my Sonos speakers.

I’m a massive fan of the Orbi 770(3) (1 x router and 2 x satellites). I upgraded from my old Nighthawk MK63 and haven’t looked back. Speed throughout my home is consistent, topping out at over 900Mpbs, my fibre package is 900Mpbs so I get more than I pay for. I have a wired backhaul set up which works well, haven’t tried with wireless backhaul but I’m sure it’s more than up to the job.

Orbi 770 will do the job. Easy to set up and you can add additional satellite if required. For a house of your size I would start with maybe 2 satellites to give you good coverage. If you can, run Ethernet to the satellite units.

Mine broke in a year. Terrible software, terrible customer service. Do not recommend.

My experience with the Orbi 7 mesh router wasn’t entirely positive. I wouldn’t recommend it to others.

Running 771 with two wired satellites. Runs like clockwork for a year now. Sorry to hear that others are having issues.

Most mesh systems take a few days to adjust and will move channels until it finds the best scenario. Netgear orbi’s do this as well as the eero systems. But once there fully optimized they should be set it and forget it and just work. Speed fluctuations are normal but I did find the eero did have less speed than my netgear with identical locations and settings. So I reset the eero from scratch and then the speed was where it needed to be. I believe it has something to do with firmware as I get the feeling the updates don’t always go well with some older firmware lingering after the upgrade. Reset seems to clear it out

If you have the XT8 and are satisfied with there performance you can always get the ET8 which is the 6E version. I would avoid the Orbi 770 series they have been firmware nightmares as of late. The Orbi 960 system is very solid and has insane range and speed. I have personally had the all 3 systems I mentioned the ET8 is my backup system just incase the my 960 fails at my summer house. The 770 I had for 3 weeks and returned it as it was very unstable and went back to my 960 series Orbi

The 770 870 and 970 are all just hot garbage. The firmware is absolutely atrocious. I had a customer want the 770 for there home I said ok but there not very reliable at the moment they wanted it anyway. It took 3 days and they got fed up with it then they decided they wanted the 373 series and lone behold it actually worked better than the higher end models and hasn’t been a problem for them go figure. I actually installed another 373 series a week ago for a friend of mine and that one is also very solid. My only conclusion is it’s something in the firmware of the true wifi 7 models that have 6ghz band. The 373 doesn’t have the 6ghz band but as a dual band system it performs well from what I have seen so far.

Our experience... We tried/tested the 770 setup (because we NEEDed that sweet WiFi 7... we didn't) and went back to our RBK863 system. Maybe we should break the 770 back out and try it again now, but for whatever reason (and I can't really give specifics, but the 863 system just "feels" like it works better) for us anyway. Not sure that helps in any way, but we tried a 770 setup and went back to the 863. (Realize its 853 vs 863 but it's what we have). MAYBE we used the 770 too early on in its release/development/firmware cycle (as they do tend to improve things some after initial FW release) but as I type, it is on the RBK863 system. (At least that was our experience, 1 adult, two constantly streaming/gaming young adults). We are using the RBK863 all wirelessly currently (no wired backhaul) and everything just works well, it's solid and stable and as intended and no one whines about internet as set up.

If you’re heavy on Apple devices then WiFi 7 won’t be coming for a while and you should be okay with a WiFi 6E router for the next 5 years. However, if you want to go forward with you can look at Ubiquiti CG Fibre and U7 or UX7 AP. The router should be future proof and allow you upgrade your AP nodes based on which band you want. If you want a different mesh brand then you can look between Deco (best on budget), Asus Zenwifi BT10 (tri-band) / BQ16 (quad-band) or Orbi 770 / 870 / 970. This are the top 3 brands with top mesh systems and best coverage. Nevertheless, your bandwidth and devices should decide your choice (added with budget) Honorable mention will be Eero Max 7 but it’s barely customizable and you have to do things the Eero way

Sounds like OP already made the switch, but I can provide my specific experience for the benefit of others. I ran the RBK852 config for the past three years and it was absolutely rock stable. Never had any issues with it despite a house full of devices and multiple 4k streaming TVs. I was itching to try Wi-Fi 7 though as my Pixel 9 Pro comes with it. As luck would have it, I was gifted the Orbi 770 for Christmas. I ran benchmarking speed tests all over my house and yard with each setup. I'm on 1 gig fiber internet. To start, the 850 does have better max range. In most locations (short and medium distances) there's not much difference on the download speed, but at farther distances the 850 performed better. For example, on my outside patio I would get 40mbps with the 850 and 18 Mbps with the 770. Where the 770 really shines is in the consistency of both upload and download performance. With the 850 I would get something like 500mbps down and 300 Mbps up. With the 770 I get 480 down and 450 up. Imperceptibly less down performance, but way better up performance. I saw this pattern in every location around my house with the 770. I was nervous about the 770 using MLO for back haul instead of a dedicated channel like the 850, but the back haul works perfect. Satellite performance just has the same range limitations as the router, no fault of the back haul. I'm keeping the 770. I like knowing that my future devices will be on the newer 7 standard. For my house I don't need the absolute most amount of range. I just need solid performance within the walls and the 770 does that great.

TBH, I basically stream my work laptop and I find that it works well for me. I use the 770 with 2 satellites. It took a while to set up, but it doesn't drop.

My experience: The Orbi 850 has a better range, but the stability is much better with the Orbi 770, especially with iPhones not dropping anymore. Additionally, the design is sleeker, faster Ethernet ports (although less), you can use all WiFi channels (no channel is reserved for wireless backhaul although you might not use it), it got virtual patching, and WiFi 7, of course. I am happy with my change to Orbi 770.

I also love my Orbi 770 system.

It just works perfectly with my iPhone and other Apple products. I am still very happy.

Agree. I love my Orbi 770s as well!

If you don’t mind me asking, how big is your place? Recently bought the Orbi 770 w/ 2 satellites to replace my standard AT&T router for an approx. 1800 sq ft home. Reading through this thread has me regretting my decision tbh.

Yea ngl. So I bought the orbi 770. Installed it. Was on the phone with customer service before the day’s end. The signal dropped so many times. On top of that, the signal that was relayed to the satellites sucked. No more than 20 megs more than what my ATT modem provides. Highly disappointed and would not recommend for a home. Back to the drawing board I guess. Feel free to rec any mesh WiFi products.

Orbi Wi-Fi 7 products perform incredibly well compared to older Netgear products I’ve had. Downsides are they’re expensive, physically big and unless you have a complex house layout, they may be overkill.

I have an Orbi Wifi 7 Mesh and it works well for me. Might want to think twice about TP Link. The government is considering a ban. [https://www.wired.com/story/tp-link-router-ban-investigation/](https://www.wired.com/story/tp-link-router-ban-investigation/)

Yep I got mine in October. 0 issues unless j forget to do a firmware update. I to connected all my slower devices to my LOT 2.4ghz only network. Works exactly the way it's supposed to

I have an orbi wifi 7 mesh system, it's not cheap but it works extremely well

Run away from orbi. I got the WiFi 7 and I hate it. Stops for no reason. Latency spikes. Needs rebooting (potentially DHCP issue). Weirdly crap firmware that doesn’t even confirm to its own documentation.

In the process of ditching my 50 series Orbis now for similar outdoor expansion reasons. Bottom line, hardwired is always better and more stable unless a specific device has firmware or hardware issues like the new WIFI 7 Orbi series all have. Swapping all of my Orbi units with Grandstream's outdoor/indoor GWN7664ELR AX6000 wall/pole mount access points instead which have dual 2.5Gb ports for a redundant 5Gb lagg fiber optic & POE backhaul. My 50 series Orbis do still run great and rock stable 866Mb wifi at each satellite with CAT-6a wired backhaul. Netgear's current options could never accommodate the outdoors well for full bandwidth AND signal coverage even in their top tier models, wireless backhaul on any brand is trash if you have more than one room or any walls or floors in your house or trees outside between each node, slower and slower each node down the chain. The RBS50Y would be an entirely different contender if only it had a wired-backhaul port. Been using my Orbis in AP only mode with pfSense as my router for years now so migrating to more reliable simple access points was just one step away.

Not crazy. They bought back my Orbis when I gave up on NetGesr and switched.

I agree with your thoughts on UniFi, that’s what I have, works great, but significantly more complicated setup than others. However, I do not agree on NETGEAR/Orbi. Yes, they are easy to setup and fast, but NETGEAR is so slow and unresponsive to security vulnerabilities that I would never recommend them. I say this as a former Orbi user, had multiple issues with the router itself getting hacked even with strong passwords and most features disabled.

I have also had fantastic luck with Orbi systems over the years.

I had a bad experience with orbi also. Took it all back.

I've had an Orbi router for years, and while frustrating, it's worked okay. It finally crapped out on me and is stuck on, but without the ability to access its interface, so I'm looking into a new setup. The network diagram is mostly correct, but omits ioe stuff like garage doors, thermostats, lights, etc. I'm looking to purchase unifi's cloud gateway ultra, but could use some insight into access points, as I'm unfamiliar with the market and have been using Orbi's mesh satellites as quasi APs. I'd like 3 or so APs, but I have a rental house next door that I've been providing wifi as a free utility (my guest network) via Orbi's satellite. It's not wired, so am also looking for thoughts/recommendations on a device that I can put in their house that extends my network.

I have an e7 and another wifi7 AP that I don’t care to remember its name, and I went back to using my old orbi mesh system. It was nothing but headaches with the ubiquity WiFi. If I were you I’d try a decent Deco mesh system. Ive set a few of those up at clients and they are very nice and super long range. If it don’t work good you can always return it :)

Same here. Orbi was pain in the ass. Netgear told me to factory reset after every firmware update. It took over one hour every time…They write it in every forum thread. They never fixed their firmware. This was an awful experience. Never netgear again. And you cant configure anything that matters with orbi. For example the router and ALL Satellites are alwayw on the same wifi channels. You cant so anything about it.

Orbi is rough to configure and keep running. Many complaints on this sub that everytime they push a firmware update connections break. I've had mine almost 2 years and have many times wanted to throw it out the window of a moving car.

I do this with Netgear Orbi. I have a router running in bridge mode and 2 satellites with a wired backhaul. Great coverage and works flawlessly. The key with the Orbi is running the backhaul on its own vlan. I use 5 port Netgear or TP-link Mansged switches. I get them on sale for 25.00.

It depends on what you want to do. I’m not familiar with the TP link systems you mentioned but I use an Orbi system with a primary and a couple of secondary AP’s. The secondary’s have a dual radio link to the primary and all full duplex (send and receive at the same time - unlike wifi) and have a mini switch built in to connect wired devices.  This gives our Apple TV’s and PC’s better performance. It also depends on your home construction. If possible you want to just have 5Ghz, so having multiple access points around the home is beneficial. The furthest room away from the primary is the “throne room” in the master bathroom. I get awesome signal and because of that, three units are not excessive for a 2,000ish sqft house ;)

+1 to this, I had Orbis and they never worked well. Both my Asus router and Unifi APs have worked far better

I switched from eero to Orbi back when Amazon bought eero. Nothing but odd behaviors and frustrations with my Orbi’s. Switched back to eero’s last year — rock solid. Both were/are configured in bridge mode. Eero’s just work.

I've had good experiences with Netgear Orbi and with TP-Link Deco mesh systems. I'm currently on a Deco BE22000 WiFi 7 3-Pack mesh and it works very well, some teething pains when it first came out that were fixed via firmware but that's about it. I get well over 1Gbps via on WiFi 6E and 7 devices. My past Mesh was an Orbi and that worked great for 5 years or so. Primarily consider the speed of your internet connection and try to look for a mesh that can make use of that bandwidth. Generally speaking a WiFi 6E mesh should do the job and considering your layout, a 3-unit mesh would be ideal specially if you can connect them via ethernet cable for backhaul.

My Orbi system works reasonably well except for IoT stuff. I've basically given up on that. We're moving soon and I plan to install a Ubiquiti set up. We have one in a vacation home and it is bulletproof. Everything just works.

I had nothing but problems with my Orbis. Dropped packets, dropped connections, and way too many reboots. I agree with OP, these are garbage. Went to Ubiquiti, never looked back.

Pls don’t get a Orbi mesh network anymore… they where great years ago but nowerdays… u can read my post that I have in this sub if u wanna.

https://www.synology.com/products/routers They not bundle like others but they support mesh. And yes Orbi mesh, my other neighbour using it, not bad, just no VLAN.

I picked up the BE1100 last time it was on sale at Costco. My old Netgear Orbi main router crapped out after 5 years. The main reason is the 2.5gbe ports. I run them with a wired backhaul. I live in a pretty congested wifi area about 5 strong signals not including mine. After optimizing the channels (unfortunately you can't manually pick) the speed with wired backhaul has been amazing. I have 2 wifi 7 devices that can max out my 1gb isp, though they aren't battery optimized so they drain the mobile battery like crazy. The signals are strong on all my 40 devices. Pro tip: any devices that's stationary and don't move, I would select them and turn off the mesh connection. This way it locks them to a single node. This prevents hunting wifi signals between nodes if they overlap too much (that single dropping and connecting) After doing that the network has been solid since I bought it.

I currently have an Orbi with 2 APs downstairs and 2 upstairs. Occassional dropouts but rare so its doable.

Have orbi before and so many problems with homekit but since changed to eero been working perfectly fine

Netgear orbi is fantastic, but it's not cheap

I used Netgear Orbi mesh Wi-Fi for 2 years and had issues only once. Now my setup is different and I’m hard wired via Ethernet to one of the satellites which, in turn, is hard wired to the modem. No issues as well.

MoCa is just Ethernet over coax. You can get gig speeds with them now. You're better off keeping Fios for your internet. Then find all the coax cables in your apartment and put them and only them together on a splitter. Then get however many MoCa adapters you need and connect them to the coax jacks in your rooms. Then connect whatever to the Ethernet. You can throw your wifi adapters on them and keep wifi. You can put a small switch at each one and use a wired connection for what you can and wifi for the rest. That said, does your mesh connection give you a status of everything? I have an Orbi setup and it tells me if my backhaul connection is good or not.

I gave up on orbi a year or so ago after running them for a couple of years. I switched to eero (despite resisting due to not liking that they're Amazon-owned) and they've been a dream. No issues, no interruptions, no speed degradation at all.

I bought 6 of TP-Link’s newest Deco WiFi 7 mesh access points, as well as 4 of their Deco outdoor units. I just tested them last night at my other house from my neighbor’s house to mine (their house is 200’ away and brick). I plugged one indoor Deco into their modem, then put one of the outdoor units 60’ away from their house, then another one 60’ further, then one on my back porch, and then one more indoor Deco in my house which is also brick. All of the APs had full signal strength and I got 657mbps speeds at these huge distances. Just the one Deco WiFi 7 I put inside my house was providing full signal strength throughout my entire house and even in my garage. I currently have a Netgear Orbi system that can’t even do that with 3 APs. I’m hoping when I go back to my other house tomorrow and install all of these new Deco units they will be strong enough to fully bathe the indoor and outdoor with WiFi signal. Supposedly 3 of them can do up to 10,000 square feet and I bought 6 of them, plus the four outdoor units. Everything seamlessly connected together and it scanned for interference on each channel and set them to the best for each band. If this works I’ll be happy. If not I will just ship them back to Amazon. They are expensive (~$350/unit) but if they work they’ll be worth it.

We use a Netgear Orbi base station and two satellites and it works pretty well. I was looking on eBay to pick up a third satellite to extend the signal out into the garage.

Wifi range extenders are the devil. They literally cut your speeds in half. Best thing to do is to get the Starlink Mesh units or a mesh wifi system such as the netgear Orbis.

my comment may have come off as overly critical, wasn't really meant to be. I was trying to say that as far as *hardware* goes, the Orbi is a good premium mesh system and it was overall a good choice on your part, but yeah, the software fucking blows and you need a dedicated and better gateway with actual features. I didn't mean a whole ubiquiti system from soup to nuts, I just meant getting one of their gateways to attach to your Orbi in AP mode. But I don't even have ubiquiti, I went with the first Firewalla gold years ago. Once I realized NG severely nerfed the software for power users (I'm a network admin by trade), I got a dedicated gateway. I thought about the dream machine for just the gateway portion to pair with the Orbi, but Firewalla had better parental control reviews than the dream machine at the time. it's been great and rock solid since 2020. Firewalla continuously update it with new advanced features too. I bought it for around $400 at the time and it's only got 1Gb ports but that's fine enough for me as my ISP doesn't even get past 850Mbps. Now they are up to 3 different versions of the Gold and the bottom one (gold SE model) is what they released to replace the original model. It now has 2x2.5Gb and 2x1Gb ports and goes for $479. Price went up but I Still think it's a value. The other two--"plus" and "pro" models are too expensive imo. As far as Orbi overall Ive had my issues with Netgear over the years (fuck Arlo), but my best performing wireless devices I've owned were my nighthawk and my Orbi. I've had Asus, Linksys, tp link etc etc. Around 2019 I wanted to go mesh and bought several different systems without breaking the bank and they all sucked in one way or another. The Google stuff wasn't fast enough, the newly released eero wifi 6 had weird stability issues, Asus wouldn't allow AP handoff properly, etc etc. As you mentioned, at the time, ubiquiti required the APs to be hardwired so I passed on it. Out of desperation I dropped a lot on a 4 station orbi triband and it just worked so well out of the box. I have a 3,000 sqft home so 4 strategically placed APs wirelessly connected to each other over the dedicated 5ghz third band works really well.

If WIFI, go Netgear Orbi. It's set and forget and just works, quite awesomely. If you can go wired, definitely run CAT 6 cabling, preferably "plenum", which is fire resistant. Good luck!

I had a 4 story with a central staircase, all concrete with infloor heating, so very thick floors. I ended up putting mesh units right by the stairwell on each floor to get full coverage and it worked decently. This was 8 years ago and were orbi units, you’ll probably get better results with newer mesh APs.

I had the same issue when I moved into my current home. I bought the Netgear Orbi mesh system with three satellites and it’s worked brilliantly for me

My experience with a very expensive orbi system a couple of years ago convinced me to never buy another netgear product. Switched to ubiqui and it was game changing

We have the same thing. The people we bought our house from said don't even dream of having WiFi here it's impossible. Well, we made the impossible, possible. We have internet coming in to our flagstone basement, and use a MESH system to have excellent WiFi throughout our house. We have an Orbi system it goes through all the layers and delivers full (5 bars) connection throughout our over 3500 sq ft 1730 home.

Unfortunately I had an orbi and I learned what all these terms meant while troubleshooting! Now I have a different mesh network and it just works and I didn’t have to learn anything or do any troubleshooting. Why should you spend so much on an Orbi and yet have to do so much extra work and then pay Netgear for the privilege of using customer support? Quit while you’re behind and move on to a better system.

I would have probably kept going with Orbi if I could call support, but you need to buy a subscription from netgear! Dodged the bullet

As others have mentioned, UniFi doesn’t support a dedicated wireless backhaul, but you might be willing to make that trade off (cut bandwidth in half when mesh hopping) like I recently did. I went from a Netgear Orbi system which had a dedicated wireless backhaul to a UniFi Dream Router + U6 Extender (no wireless backhaul). I traded the backhaul for much more control over my network (VLANs, multiple SSIDs, etc.). Even with half the bandwidth over a mesh hop, I still have plenty of bandwidth for my needs. Also, my house is 2,500 sq. ft. and the U6 Extender is borderline unnecessary. You might be fine with just the UDR if you place it in a central location. Hope that helps!

I've tried Orbi several times over the last few hardware generations and it had been the same shitty experience for me each time. It seemed there was always something up with it, and the parental control options were junk.

I'm faaaar from a network expert, but I have used both WIFI extenders (few different tp-link ones) and mesh. I can tell you, it's night and day difference for my setup, the mesh works so much better, both in coverage, speed, and ease of use. I have an Orbi setup I got from Costco on black friday a few years ago, it's a couple gen old now, but still works fantastic.

Orbi to the rescue.

Go Orbi won’t regret it

I had a similar experience but with Netgear Orbi. They gave me so many problems and their support was absolutely horrible. Once I switched to Eero I was delighted. My only wish is that Eero Plus should be cheaper, half price if that.

TP-Link Deco BE33000 user here - I can’t compare this to other WiFi 7 devices, but I will compare it to my previous mesh networks. I have found that Netgear Orbi seems to be easier to manage all around. If i didn’t get a steal for my Deco BE33000, I would get rid of it and buy the Orbi (still might do that). Hope that helps.

I’ve installed hundreds of netgear Orbi products zero issues some systems are covering 15,000 square feet.

Get a managed switch, turn on igmp snooping. If you have a lot of iot multicast devices like chromecast etc, it overwhelms and crashes these devices. 16pro max here with 4 orbi.

I agree, had my orbi for 4 years it is one of the worst routers I used. My neighbor that I helped with his orbi router is equally terrible.

I have been using a UDM Pro with RBK852 system in AP mode since 2020 and it works great. Orbi in AP mode works much better in my experience but you also have to make some changes with the security for older devices. You may also need to change the channels depending on how dense of a Wi-Fi environment you’re in.

This item worked reasonably well with occasional drop outs.It was at one point the best technology for me to get a fair signal through my 3 story house. But The ORBI mesh system I now use is 1000% better. Not cheap but it works brilliantly.

I had Netgear (with an external firewall and generic access points) before they acquired Orbi, then tried Orbi which did not have enough info/options. Then went to at least 4 different types of AX Asus units for the longest time (10+ years with plenty of options and info but started to become unstable), then recently switched to Gryphon AX due to the need for parental controls for kids. I am thinking of going to Unifi next in a year or 2, as I miss the options/info that Asus provided, and get more with Unifi.

TP Link Deco definitely requires an app and an account and although there is a web interface, it can't do much. Nice gear, but not acceptable under your policy. Netgear Orbi may have required me to install an app and get an account to get it setup (I didn't try to get around it.) But the web interface is full fat and I've never opened the app since installing.

I personally have a Orbi system in my house (using a wired backhaul) and it is terrible - would not recommend

tp link makes a good mesh system as long as you get a triband system.. you might want to look at an Orbi system they cost more but they work and are very reliable. Just disable the wifi on your att modem and hook up the system and get a couple of satellites for a house this large, and you will have speedy wifi in the whole house top to bottom...

just keep the Orbi as your mesh and use it in bridge mode. If you want to do everything through firewalla buy their AP7s

Orbis have wireless back haul too. And with the firewalla AP7s it's VqLAN, not Vlan.  Small difference.  I had orbis for a long time before my firewalla and then as my wifi with my firewalla. They aren't bad. 

I had a set of very expensive netgear Orbi which I put up with for a couple of years. They were horrendous and I vowed never again. I switched over to the Deco BE11000 units and LOVE them - they just work and they’re always stable and blazing fast. It is sad to hear that you’ve had trouble with your decos - that’s just not the experience I’ve had.

I LOVE my Deco mesh system. I have base + 5 satellites and they work flawlessly and are easy to configure. The Deco replaced a crappy and very expensive Netgear Orbi which was absolute crap for me - constantly buggy and dropping out. If the power went out, it wouldn’t come back on until after I manually unplugged. The wired backhaul would constantly drop too - so in the end, I threw them out!

Unifi stuff is not very difficult to set up. It’s pretty plug and play. If you WANT to get into the weeds , sure you can do that too. And it’s much easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. I used to have Orbi and the web interface is a joke.

Still rocking my very old Orbi. Works fantastic as a mesh system.

You could always put the orbi in AP mode and use a different router.

Look it up in your owners manual. It will explain it better than I can. I have run my Orbi system this way for YEARS and it is rock solid.

I got rid of my Orbi system and switched back to eero. Won’t make the mistake of buying Netgear again. I’ve always regretted.

you need to tell us what kind of - internet service/speed - number of users - number of devices - budget but in general r/orbi is what i set up many with not impressed with eero, but depends on model been using/recommending mesh for over a decade now

I just use an orbi router with two satellites. The router and satellites each have ether net ports. Spread the satellites to the floors the other two stories. There may be better mesh systems for your application, but this works for me.

I used to ride on orbi, always had problems. Moved to eero maybe 4 years ago now, and i havent had a single issues.. its been 100% rock solid perfect. I hope y’all do yourselves a favor and upgrade during Black Friday sales

There is many variables to your question and I don’t think there a simple answer. Hardwired device and APs will provide the best coverage but if you can do that then you are looking as some type of wireless backhaul. How well it performance will depend on your environment and use. If your house is an open floor plan with a few users surfing the web and watching a few videos it will most likely be fine. if you have multiple gamers and have thick walls(plaster and brick) they will most likely be unhappy with the performance and latency using WiF. I personally have 5 hardwired APs in my house which has plaster walls/ceilings, and multiple fireplaces(consider brick) and a few corners that have poor coverage. Deployed 2 Orbis with wireless backhaul in my brothers house that is an open floor plan and he have the best coverage ever. Best situtio is try make your house and see where the dead spots are. if you can move APs do that and retest. There are a few free scanners out there to help. Hamina is pretty detailed and has a light version that is free.

Personally, we got rid of our Orbi’s. Too much hassle after each update they got slower and slower.

I bought an Orbi when it came out to cover some dead spots in my house. All my streaming video stuttered. I wasted days troubleshooting this issue. I went back to my old router for a couple of years then I moved to a Netgear RAXe500 recently and finally was able to coverall the dead spots in my (3100sf) house and get the performance I was looking for.

If you want good enough, simple outta the box, then Orbi mesh is great. I have a 2 story 2350sf house. I have an Orbi with the master AP upstairs in the hall covering all the bedrooms rooms. Downstairs I have 2 Orbi Client APs on either end of the house covering all the downstairs, garage, and outside. The master Orbi router is in pass through mode. In the wiring closet where the 1gb WAN comes in I have a unify UCG Ultra Cloud Gateway Router. That has 4 ports. 1 port goes to the Orbi master router in the upstairs hall way to provide WiFi. 1 port goes to the living room where it’s plugged into the Apple TV 4K Ethernet to provide streaming TV to the main TV without hogging up Wifi bandwidth. 1 port goes to the master bedroom TV to provide streaming TV without WiFi. 1 port goes to my office where I gave a switch for the laser printer, computers, NAS, etc. It’s been dead simple to administer. I’ve never had any issues with coverage or bandwidth.