NETGEAR - Orbi 970 Series Quad-band WiFi 7 Mesh 3-Pack, Black Edition (RBE973SB)

i use Netgear Orbi 970 i love it.

Was mentioned over on the community forums that enabling WPA3 only on the 970 seemed to solve the newer iPhone generation issue of connections. [https://community.netgear.com/discussions/en-home-orbi-be/i-finally-found-a-solution-to-fixing-the-orbi970-iphone-wifi-disconnecting-issue/2458460](https://community.netgear.com/discussions/en-home-orbi-be/i-finally-found-a-solution-to-fixing-the-orbi970-iphone-wifi-disconnecting-issue/2458460) Something you could try and see if this helps what you're seeing.

When I bought my own house, I ran into the problem, that the main stream fancy brands had nothing in their product portfolio, that would meet my requirements (2.5 GBit fiber connection and I wanted a 2.5 Gbit network in my house). Ended up with Netgear Orbi 970 with 3 Satellites (192 m² house, one satellite is in my garage). Yes, it is expensive as hell, but it outperforms everything I've used by miles. When I build my new computer and hadn't connected the network cable and was running on WLAN only, I still had 2.2 GBit/s download speed, which was insane. Gaming with that setup is a dream.

I recently went through an upgrade and went with the orbi 970 system and didn’t like it. I returned it and went with a full UniFi setup and couldn’t be happier I did. I went with cloud gateway fiber and a pro-max 16 PoE switch and then U7-PRO XGS access points. I’ll add another switch later when I install all of the cameras.

I switched from flagship Orbi to mid to high range TP and never looked back. TP just works.

You need a switch. The only consumer level router I've personally been able to find is the Netgear 970. It has one 10g Ethernet (including the 10g,WAN), and four 2.5g ports. The 10g Ethernet is supposed to be used for backhaul but can be used as a dedicated port. Realistically you could put an unmanaged switch on that and expand the ports to whatever. The only problem is it's a $2000 setup.

What's your setup because I'm tired of paying a premium for a consumer device. Netgear is the only reliable device I've used that doesn't have the limitations as the others however the admin functions are garbage/limited. I REALLY liked the admin ability of TP-Link but their hardware is complete unreliable garbage. A friend of mine used professional/business equipment.

The problem that I had with this router is how it handles IOT devices. It had constant connection issues with any cameras, doorbells, home hubs, ect. I tried all of the recommended setting changes and none of them worked. I ended up upgrading to a Netgear Orbi 970 and haven’t had a single issue since. My internet speeds are significantly better now too.

I’m about to ditch my Orbi 970 since iOS devices will not stay connected, and it’s been 6 months since Netgear has released a firmware update for it. I have a relative that has the same issue with an Orbi 970 in a different part of the country with a different ISP, so it’s not just my particular 970 unit that has the issue. It seems Netgear either does not know how to fix the issue or doesn’t care. I’m outside the tiny amount of time Netgear allows for buyers of their $2k product to create a support ticket, and their support forums are useless, as no Netgear employees monitor them, and the weirdos given control of their support forums lock and/or delete any posts pointing out issues after responding with useless information. I would not buy a TP-Link product though, due to the company’s ties to the Chinese government. The best alternatives to Netgear for WiFi 7 currently seem to be Asus’ ZenWiFi 7 BQ16 mesh WiFi, Amazon’s Eero Pro 7 or Eero Max 7 mesh WiFi 7, or if you have networking knowledge, Ubiquiti’s WiFi 7 access points along with 1 of its cloud routers. Ubiquiti has not yet released a mesh WiFi 7 product. For a typical consumer that wants ease of use, the Eero products seems the best and is what I’ll likely switch to soon. I’ll likely buy the Eero Max 7 and then sell the Orbi 970 I currently own. I too have corporate IT networking experience, but I’d rather my job not follow me home. I just want a mesh WiFi 7 product that consistently works, and the Orbi WiFi 7 products are not it.

It works unless you have an iPhone that is WiFi 7 capable, which is a disaster. It used to be flaky, dropping connection to my iPhone 16 Pro every few days. Starting a few weeks ago, I’m lucky if my iPhone stays connected for an hour, and I had to disable WiFi calling on the iPhone, otherwise calls dropped constantly. It’s the same for other people and the person I know that also has an Orbi 970 and 2 WiFi 7 iPhones in their house. We both have 10G Ethernet networks with the satellites connected to a Netgear unmanaged 10G switch, so all Orbi devices have a 10G wired backhaul connection. I’ve tried all the suggested nonsense to fix the issue. None of the suggested settings changes have any effect. I’m about to order an Eero Max 7 router and with 2 satellites. I’ve owned and used Orbi products since the original Orbi model was released and never had issues like this. The Orbi WiFi 7 products have been terrible for me.

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.

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/)