NETGEAR - Orbi 850 Series Tri-band WiFi 6 Mesh System (RBK853)

I have an Orbi RBS850 system now that i have had for years and it has worked great. 1 router with 2 satellites. I need to expand the wifi coverage in our house as we added an addition. I looked on line and I can buy used satellites to add to my system as Orbi has stopped supporting the product. So I was just going to buy a new Orbi 970 system to upgrade as I am assuming that it is better performance than my current system. But I just saw this post. I went on line and looked at the Ubiquiti products. From what I can see their products are not tailored to the home user. I had no idea what I would need. This is what I am looking to do with replacing the current Orbi system. The internet comes into the house in the basement - so router would go in basement. I currently have 2 satellites throughout my house and would like to replace them to extend my wireless coverage. I do not have hardwired connections back to the router from these satellites- they work solely off wifi. So I need the new system to work this way as well. Does the Ubiquiti system work like this or do I need a hardwire run to the router? I also need to be able to run an ethernet cable from a satellite point to my PC as it is currently hardwired to the Orbi satellite and the PC does not have a wireless card in it. If I wanted to try the Ubiquiti system what would I need or should I just stick with Orbi as my old system has worked well so the new Orbi system should be an upgrade for me? Thank you!

I have and RBR850 with two satellites. Upgraded from the RBR50. Had issues on the first one with drop outs and random reboots and I work from home so it was pretty annoying. I put them in AP mode behind a TPLink router I had. All was fine. New home and Gigbit fibre thought I should upgrade the wifi speeds. Now I have the Satellites back haul wired but still getting drip outs a few times a week at best sometimes multiple times a day. I read on another thread about the Ubiquity Cloud Gateway Fiber and using that as the router and putting the Orbi’s into AP mode. The best combination of a solid router that doesn’t have issues plus exceptional management capabilities and still great Wi-Fi speeds. So I ordered one and it comes next week.

My ORBI 50 series worked flawlessly, until lightning got it. Then I bought an 850 and it's been great also. Running three satellites with it. Connected to a Netgear CM-2000 modem.

Having also got a property without scope to wire the place, I've recently dipped my toe into the UI world with a UCG Fiber and a couple of USW Flex 2.5G switches, whilst retaining my existing Netgear Orbi (850) mesh, which has been pretty rock solid. Despite having wife approval for some wholesale network changes, I decided to stick with the existing kit in AP mode at this point as the UI mesh definitely seems lacking according to research here. The killer, as I understand it with UI Mesh, is the lack of dedicated wireless backhaul at this point which degrades the speed at each hop (there is an article on the UI support site explaining this better than I can. Also, quick search suggests that the Google mesh doesn't have dedicate backhaul either, which may explain issues you experience with it). This sub will overwhelmingly tell you wire it, that's the way UI kit works best and wireless mesh is a fallback - but, many of us simply can't wire it (my house is made of brick and very little drywall to be able to run cable). I guess it depends on what speed you get and how much you want/need from each AP, but, it's an expensive experiment to find out how things perform in your exact building. My Orbi is running really well in my setup, I appear to have the best of both worlds at this point (for me); the wireless backhaul that works and gives me peak of c750Mbps on my satellites and the excellent OS that the UCG Fibre gives, allowing me to have 5G failover for those occasional ISP outages and copious amounts of data and control to the nth degree of what is happening on my network which the Orbi simply doesn't provide. Mesh generally is about finding the optimum spot for your nodes to maximise performance. Not sure that necessarily answers the exam question, but, thought it might help.

My 850 has not skipped a beat since I got a UCG Fiber and put the Orbi in AP mode. It’s not like I’m losing any notable functionality on the Orbi side, given there really isn’t any of note and the UCG gives so much more insight to what’s going on on my network.

What is the size of the home in Sq Feet? Do you have Wifi 7 or 6Ghz supporting devices? You could theoretically get up to 2.5Gb speed over wifi on the 850 series. But would need more 4x4 supporting devices.

Id keep with the 850 series. It's a solid system on v.21 FW and works well. If it's still working for your needs, hold off for now. BE WiFi is still maturing and seeing various wifi issues across different router Mfrs and device Mfrs, like Samsung and Apple with there latest wifi 7 devices.

Sounds like a user mis-configuration issue here. The 850 series is a solid system. If it's not deployed well or not configured well, then ya, Orbi or any other brand MESH will not work well. I had my 850 series online a short time ago. Zero issues: [https://community.netgear.com/discussions/en-home-orbi-ax/share-your-orbi-350-750-850-or-960-series-system-uptime/2339936/replies/2450694](https://community.netgear.com/discussions/en-home-orbi-ax/share-your-orbi-350-750-850-or-960-series-system-uptime/2339936/replies/2450694)

The rbr alone probably can’t handle you home. My 853 system handles my 5k sq ft home beautifully.

I have an orbi rbrr850 with two satellites that works fine

Same, had issues with Orbi for years. I had the 852 a d the RBR50 before that, but upgraded to the Dream Router 7. Instantly my speed went up 50%. Plus actually having 2.5gbps ports is amazing. I absolutely love the features on the app.

I bought an 853 and it sucked. Even bought a Netgear cable modem thinking it could improve the experience. Nope it was bad.

I’ve been very happy with the Orbi 970 which I’ve had for the past year. I previously had the RB850 and this has been more stable and substantially higher speeds (with devices that support wifi7). Up to 1300Mbps on my Surface laptop and maybe 800-900 on my iPhone (not sure why it’s slower) I used to have to reboot the RB850 about once every few months when things started getting slow for no reason and haven’t seen that on the 970. It’s kinda overpriced though IMO but I’d still get it again.

You aren't being entirely coherent. I have had 0 issues with 3 different orbi systems. 852, 962, and 353 (beta tested this system). I have a whopping 2 apple items on my network and they have 0 issues. My point is in all my years it's apple products trying to use non-apple "things" that have issues. Not sure if it's because of the apple infrastructure not playing nice outside of "Apple" or it's Apple users not knowing how to use the more prevalent non-apple stuff. I'm thinking it's a combo.

RBR850 works fantastic. All satellites connected to cat6. 600Mbps on wifi from an iPhone.

Your title says this brand sucks. I’m pointing out that the brand does not suck. The Orbi model I have works flawlessly.