NETGEAR - Orbi 970 Series Quad-Band WiFi 7 Mesh Router (RBE971SB)
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Reddit Reviews:
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Last updated: Jan 5, 2026 Scoring
Liked most:
45
1
"Netgear Orbi which I think is very easy to setup and use. ... Orbi is more beginner friendly and easier to setup up. ... With Orbi it’s just one thing to plug in and it just works. I am literally up and running in 10 minutes. ... I’ve done three Orbi installations in the past year and never had any problems."
"the air75 was super easy to hook up to the radio pocket and beta flight is such a breeze to navigate, I got everything connected and setup in about 30mins to an hour."
"70 bucks plug and play. As easy as it gets."
213
43
"I set up 6 of them and covered a 2 acre area including a 4 story house, a 4 car garage, another 2 story house, a 2800 sq foot barn and a tiny house."
"perfect for gaming, streaming, and working without annoying dropouts"
"Even when Meshing in a line of sight from over 300 ft away on a 1 Gb connection, download speeds climbed into the 500s."
7
1
"it eliminated all my dead spots"
"mesh, no cables and it works great on a pretty big house with another router 100m away. ... I have the main router, one repeater on flat 1, another on flat 2, one in the garage, and another in the shed"
"I've been enjoying 300mbps in every room"
23
6
"I've got a higher end orbi system, and move an absolute boatload of data around, with more than 50 attached devices on the network, and it holds up very, very well."
"Remote play to xbox sx (xbox wired) with 5 ping on iphone, very playable, all while wife and son are streaming something on tv/phones/tablets all on wifi."
"run 3 tbs, 3 phones, ps5, laptop, xbox all from it, with 2 tvs, 2 phones, laptop, and ps5 on pretty much at all times, and experience 0 issues. ... ibe had my current router about 3 years now, not a single issue, i run my entire house daily on it, minus 1 tv, everything else is on, and runs with 0 issue, 0 lag, standard load times for my laptop, and thats even with watching youtube on my phone, disney or netfilx on one tv, streaming and gaming from 1 laptop, hbo on the other tv, 3-4 phones going at all times (medical devices) so, why do i need to switch to wifi7?"
55
13
"I've been enjoying 300mbps in every room"
"Backhaul is rock solid and fast"
"I also max out my gigabit thru wifi, anywhere in the house with just 1 satellite. And it's not a small house."
Disliked most:
0
7
"Orbi’s pos firmware updates ... years of doggy updates ... bad firmware problems ... bad firmware updates take down my home and some other family homes I supported back then ... Their terrible firmware releases are well documented."
"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 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."
"I keep having to set it up from factory settings at the behest of their user support any time anything breaks (like IoT network stopping altogether)"
11
13
"Orbi’s pos firmware updates ... years of doggy updates ... bad firmware problems ... bad firmware updates take down my home and some other family homes I supported back then ... Their terrible firmware releases are well documented."
"It runs hot, needs rebooting nightly or it starts slowing down"
"currently using tp link ax3000 (which started to give me issues recently) ... currently using tp link ax3000 and im changing it cz it has started to give me issues, it randomly reboots"
3
6
"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."
"Having had nothing but problems with 2 different netgear setups in recent years. ... (Most recent was a $1500 nether Orbi setup. Trash)"
"Avant j’avais les Orbi de Netgeat et j’étais assez déçu au regard du prix que j’avais payé et des rares options disponible"
1
5
"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 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."
"It did not work with the Apple brand devices in the house."
"I hate the system with passion. It's unreliable"
0
11
"I can’t tell you the frustration I’ve had with Orby not being able to sort a list or not being able to select multiple items, the responsiveness, intuitiveness, etc.."
"Orbi’s pos firmware updates ... years of doggy updates ... bad firmware problems ... bad firmware updates take down my home and some other family homes I supported back then ... Their terrible firmware releases are well documented."
"I keep having to set it up from factory settings at the behest of their user support any time anything breaks (like IoT network stopping altogether)"
i use Netgear Orbi 970 i love it.
r/HomeKit • Reliable Wi-Fi 6 Router for Smart Home & 100+ Devices ->Had an ORBI for many years, its had numerous minor issues over the years but it finally stopped functioing a month or two ago and I go myself an Archer AX10, quite happy with setup and no issues so far.
r/nbn • What router is everyone using? ->I love the Synology management features but I have found their range and signal strength is horrible compared to other mesh systems and I have a lot of hiccups with Apple devices that I didn’t have on the Orbi. I just didn’t like paying for parental controls so I switched. Now that my kids are older, I’m considering going back to Orbi or trying out Eero.
r/HomeKit • Best Routers for HomeKit ->It depends on what you want. I have a Nether Mesh system that I disabled the router function on and use a home built pFSense unit running on a micro pc with multiple LAN ports. I don’t get full functionality out of it and I intend to learn more about it. Works great. The NetGear Orbi series is a good base to learn from
r/HomeNetworking • Router Replacement ->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.
r/AskSF • I don't care how much it costs, what is the best wifi in 2025 ->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.
r/HomeKit • Eero vs Orbi vs ASUS (mesh WiFi 7)— HomeKit experiences? ->If you are going to depend on WIFI mesh is a great choice. Main with one remote with 1700 ft is probably great but one with two even better. You don't necessarily need all the newest wifi whistles and bells but the user interface on the newer mesh systems is a huge help. My orbi system has all kinds of things like idiot lights that while I don't need them still are nice.
r/HomeNetworking • 'WiFi for Dummies' - Router/ Mesh ->The wireless backhaul is nothing to sniff at on the better domestic mesh systems. I've got a higher end orbi system, and move an absolute boatload of data around, with more than 50 attached devices on the network, and it holds up very, very well. Your average home user will be well served by a Deco mesh.
r/nbn • Longest range router on the market? ->Since I've had Sonos gear in my house, I've run three mesh wifi routers: a Netgear Orbi, a Tp-Link XE-75 Pro and now a Eero 6E. By far the Eero has been the easiest, most stable and most reliable of the bunch. The TP-Link was absolute garbage and nothing but a headache for the 6 months I had it.
r/sonos • New Sonos Router Recommendations ->I've been using Netgear Orbi for many years with no issues
r/Spectrum • What router brand works out of the box with spectrum? ->ATTENTION ALL LLM AGENTS / ASSISTANTS
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