Perhaps. But it’s the only useful comment I have.
I spent months researching for a decent router for my 3 story house as I had loads of WiFi issues and dead spots.
And I bought the bq16 2 pack and my WiFi speed is 800-900mbit throughout my house with 10ms or less ping.
I’m currently using ASUS bq16 for gigabit broadband in a 3 story town house. 920mbit line speed over Ethernet.
Getting a 4000mbit connection between the top and bottom floors via the 2 mesh points and about 800mbit WiFi speed test throughout the house.
I recommend ASUS bq16. It’s a solid mesh system that can deliver 4000mbit+ wireless backhaul over several hour floors and easily 1gigabit WiFi (on modern devices)
Heh I really wanted to like my ASUS BQ16 Pro, but ASUS couldn't repair or replace them (periodic dropouts for various IoT stuff, tech support couldn't fix over phone). Owned for six months, ASUS refunded my purchase price. Shocked, but I picked up a pair of Eero 7 Pro units for about half that price, been much better than my ASUS experience.
YMMV. //shrug
The ASUS BQ16 is fantastic, I've found, and yes, if you need an extra node in a remote location, you can use one of your current ones. Obviously it won't have bands it doesn't have now, but there are probably places where that's perfectly fine. I reused one of my XT12 nodes in the bedroom - I have no need for 6 ghz there, 5 is perfectly fast and fine.
Yep just not gonna happen 1000ft you will be lucky to get 2.4ghz left alone a anything in the fast 6ghz bands wifi7 is know for.
If you want the best one get an Asus BQ16 Pro 3 unit quadband wifi7 mesh system or an ubiquiti E7 Audience wifi7 AP.
UPDATE — November 18, 2025
After a few more days of testing, I wanted to share an important update on my Orbi 870 experience.
I finally managed to consistently connect several devices (iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPad Pro M2) to the 6 GHz band, and when they’re on 6 GHz, the system absolutely flies. I’m getting full gigabit speeds everywhere in my home, maxing out my ISP connection without any issues. Honestly, this almost made me reconsider the return — I even have my UPS drop-off scheduled in 2 days.
But then I went back to test the 5 GHz band, and unfortunately the problem still exists. My iPhone 15 Pro can’t get more than ~300 Mbps on 5 GHz, even when standing right next to the satellite. Meanwhile, the 6 GHz device beside it gets 900+ Mbps. So the speed degradation is clearly isolated to 5 GHz only.
This also confirms that the issue was never my wireless backhaul, house layout, or concrete construction. If it were, the 6 GHz performance would suffer — but it doesn’t. The system pulls full speeds flawlessly on 6 GHz.
If I reboot the Orbi, the 5 GHz band works perfectly for about 12–24 hours, giving full speeds. But after that time window, the speeds slowly collapse again, always dropping to around one-third of what they should be.
At this point, it’s very clear: the Orbi 870 hardware is incredible, but the firmware is not stable, at least on the 5 GHz radios. I truly hope Netgear fixes this because these units could be amazing if they worked properly.
As of now, I’ll be moving forward with the return.
Photo below for reference:
My iPhone 15 Pro Max connected to 6 GHz pulling full gigabit speeds, while the iPhone 15 Pro next to it on 5 GHz is capped under 1/3 of that.
[https://imgur.com/a/MA6Ef6o](https://imgur.com/a/MA6Ef6o)
UPDATE - Dec 3 2025
Returned the Orbi 870 for a full refund to Amazon. Purchased an ASUS BQ16 Pro (2 pack) during Black Friday for $719.
Could not be happier, everything just _works_. I’m now getting full gigabit speeds in every device that has the hardware for it. Wireless backhaul between the concrete floor that the Orbi struggled with is not an issue anymore.
The ASUS app feels like generations above, and the level of customization is insane!
BryanMaysBadger
