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

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

Same. House is ~3800 sq ft including basement. I have one unit on each level. Great coverage everywhere.

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.

I have an Orbi RBR850 with two satellites, been pretty solid so far

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.

I have an orbi rbrr850 with two satellites that works fine

I used the IP passthrough feature in the BGW gateway and am using an Orbi RBR 850 and the satellites to create a mesh network. The IP passthrough has the BGW gateway merely act as a modem and the Orbi does everything. It works very well, great coverage, even outside.

If your phone is dropping off WiFi it's probably due to weak signal. Upgrading to WiFi 7 won't necessarily improve signal range. What you might need are APs or a "Mesh" system with better antennas to improve your signal. These are the models my network planning software indicate have the best signal range (> 29dBm signal): * Eero 6, Pro 6, Pro 6E, 7 (not the Max 7 or Pro 7) * TP-Link Deco BE63, BE65 Pro * Netgear Orbi RBE770, RBE771, RBE973, RBKE963, RBR850, RBS850 There might be additional, newer models that also put out > 29dBm. My network planning software doesn't list every consumer-level mesh system, and mesh system manufacturers don't specify power levels in their specs. Ironically, these are all "Mesh" systems; standalone APs put out around 20-24dBm. Each 3dBm results in twice the signal strength, so the difference in range between 23 and 29dBm can be considerable. To get > 29dBm from an AP you'd have to step up to an audience-level AP that would cost over $500 each. It doesn't matter whether you use APs or a "Mesh" system with wired Ethernet backhaul. I put "Mesh" in quotes because, according to standards, that only applies to nodes interconnected via WiFi. But consumer brands have hijacked the term to describe both wireless backhaul and support for seamless roaming (802.11k/v/r). Anyway, APs tend to be more expensive than Mesh systems, and most require a controller (on the same brand router or dedicated appliance, or running on a Win/Mac/Linux or cloud system) to support seamless roaming. The only benefit of using an AP vs Mesh system is support for multiple, user-defined VLANs/SSIDs instead of the standard two or three VLANs that can't be modified (main and guest, sometimes also an IOT network).