NETGEAR - Orbi 870 Series BE21000 Mesh WiFi System

I was told by my tech who did the research they were considered the best in market tho expensive. Went with the 870 and it was constant aggravation with mine. Installed it and it was great for a few months. For the past 6 weeks, WiFi connected devices would just drop while using them. Would have to forget the network and re-login in order to reconnect. Tried all the suggestions to fix it finally gave up and got an eero system so far so good. Eeros management console app is much better IMO, and so far great speeds and no dropped connections.

My Experience With the Netgear Orbi 870 (Returning After 30 Days) Hey everyone, I wanted to share my experience with the Orbi 870 system after owning it for about a month. I’ve been part of the Orbi family since 2022 when I bought the AX4200 / RBR753 WiFi 6 mesh system (three-point setup). That system served me extremely well for three years — truly a set-it-and-forget-it experience. With my ISP upgrading to gigabit speeds and new devices supporting faster WiFi, I decided it was time to upgrade to WiFi 7. I found what seemed like a good deal on the Orbi 870 — not cheap, but $699 on Amazon for the router + satellite felt fair enough given the specs. Unfortunately, that’s where the issues began. While the speeds are great immediately after a reboot, they never stay consistent. I cannot maintain peak performance for more than about 12–24 hours. There appears to be a serious issue — whether firmware or hardware — where the satellite’s throughput degrades by roughly 50% after being online for half a day. Every single time. Over the past 30 days, I’ve: • Rebooted the system almost daily • Done countless factory resets • Repositioned the satellite endlessly • Re-flashed and updated firmware on both router and satellite multiple times • Spent way too much time tweaking channels, bands, WPA settings, etc. • Rebuilt my entire WiFi setup trying to troubleshoot I even created a WPA3-only main network and a separate IoT network for my ~40 smart devices to offload traffic and avoid compatibility issues. That didn’t help either. On the topic of IoT network, I’ve realized that the satellite does not allow IoT devices on either band to connect to it, only to the main router. Again, I’ve tried factory resets, firmware reinstalls and it always falls back connecting to the router only. Coming from a previous Orbi system that just worked, this has been the worst hardware experience I’ve ever had. On top of the speed-throttling issue, I also ran into multiple problems setting up the IoT network while trying different configurations to stabilize performance, where the IoT network just would not broadcast as a 2.4GHz network unless I first enabled both 5GHz and 2.4GHz, and then turned 2.4GHz off. I reached out to Netgear support with options of factory resets being the only solution, but given this is still within Amazon’s 30-day return window, I ultimately decided I’m not going to continue fighting with it. I’ve now initiated a return and will be sending the system back. It is apparent that the firmware is problematic / immature, and maybe 5 updates and 2 years later this basic functionality might be fixed, but at $699 I don’t want to take that chance. I bought the 870 after seeing positive reviews from DongKnowsTech, RTINGS, and Tom’s Hardware, and I really hoped I’d have the same experience. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. So for now, I’ll be returning the Orbi 870 and looking into alternatives like TP-Link, Eero, or any other mesh system users here recommend. Would love to hear suggestions from anyone who moved away from Orbi and found a stable WiFi 7 mesh system that actually stays consistent.

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)

That’s what I keep reading. I went to buy the orbi 870 and when getting to Best Buy I asked a rep there and just straight up told me “there is a reason why they are discounted $300 right now” and spent the next 15 minutes talking to the rep and reading reviews and I agree with OP. Every router according to reviewers is awesome or sucks. I do have experience with eero and haven’t had any issues which is why I went with the max, however lately I have seen my devices disconnect for a couple of minutes at least once per week, which has never happened before.

The Orbi 770/870 have great range but the buffer bloat is terrible. I returned mine and purchased an eero 7 Pro 3-pack. It’s been easy-sailing since then.

Get an Orbi Wifi 7 router with two satellites. I struggled with WiFi routers for a long time in my house until I discovered Orbi. Expensive, but you won't regret it.

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/)

i've had nothing but problems with my net gear wi-fi 7, after few weeks stuff buffers for split second, social media doesn't load immediately, i also have the net gear wi-fi 6 AX5400 router and works fine. seems walmarts website also has allot of complaints about wi-fi 7, and seeing that you actually have to have devices that use wi-fi 7, which technically none do, im going back to wi-fi 6, ether a new net gear router from amazon or MSI gaming routers or something.

I got a $110 wifi 7 Netgear router from Walmart. It works fine with my Spectrum cable modem.

Take their free modem, put a surge protector on the incoming coax, buy a router of your own. I got a wifi 7 Netgear at Walmart for $110. Get whatever bandwidth you can afford, as it sounds like you'll be using it. When/ if Spectrum brings fiber, it's their equipment they'll replace, not yours.

I had the same problem spectrum came to my crib tried to hook everything up couldnt figure it out so he left the new wifi 7 router in the box and hooked up a wifi6e router..after i hooked it up myself when i got home from work and was very disappointed. I went and bought the new netgear wifi 7 router and with my 1Gig Internet i pulled 1134mbps..