NETGEAR - Orbi 970 Series Quad-Band WiFi 7 Mesh Router (RBE971SB)

i use Netgear Orbi 970 i love it.

If you can afford it then go with 970. I tried the both the systems with my 1gb connection and 970 does seem faster with better coverage all around. 4th band for dedicated backhaul does very well. 970 does come with better antennas so that will always matter. Initially I was using wired backhaul but it seems to break my upload speeds with my Moca adaptor. I have switched to wireless backhaul now with not much loss of overall network speed.

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've been trying a week to get this thing and it got delivered to me cause I called yesterday to have it delivered to me and is finally here now I have 2 wifi 7 routers the spectrum wifi 7 in the living room and my quadband mesh system wifi 7 in my room 😀.

I have the BE9500 from previously netgear orbi 971 after it started boot looping, but I’m happier with the TP-Link.

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.

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 one of their WiFi 7 routers and the gig plan. It was absolutely garbage even for a 2 bedroom apartment. I couldn't even get speeds close to 500 and at times it would just restart on its own. No 2.4G band steering as well. I returned it and got my own wifi 7 router from Netgear and damn that did a much more wonderful job than that garbage spectrum. 

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.

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.

I've been using Netgear Orbi for many years with no issues

What mesh system did you try. I’ve had great success with Orbi.

I bought an orbi mesh system, and it's been great

I bought an orbi mesh system, and it's been great

We have a Netgear Orbi mesh system in our house with the router downstairs on one side of the house and the satellite upstairs on the other side. We have a full-strength wi-fi signal throughout the house.

got a free old orbi mesh from a friend that moved away. works great

I would go with netgear's orbi line. 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 from where I get ethernet to a doorbird camera doorbell with a POE inyector

Get a good mesh router system with a few units. Like an orbi system or something similar

Get a good mesh router system with a few units. Like an orbi system or something similar

I do this with Netgear Orbi. I have a router running in bridge mode and 2 satellites with a wired backhaul. Great coverage and works flawlessly. The key with the Orbi is running the backhaul on its own vlan. I use 5 port Netgear or TP-link Mansged switches. I get them on sale for 25.00.

Same here. Moved from Orbi mesh which was unreliable at best. UniFi system easily lets you set up separate SSIDs with whatever channels you want to assign. A lot of the access points can even adjust power and detect the best channel to reduce interference automatically. I haven’t had to think about it since upgrading to this system.

I love the Orbi router by NETGEAR, have had one the last 10 years and that thing rocks.

Would never use an Eero or a Google system. Too many security and privacy issues with those. Orbi's are good and Ubiquiti is top tier.

This is the correct answer. Although I wouldn’t touch Eero. Orbi is as low as I would go if not Unifi. Keep all your iot devices on a separate network and create a guest network for guests.

I've had good experiences with Netgear Orbi and with TP-Link Deco mesh systems. I'm currently on a Deco BE22000 WiFi 7 3-Pack mesh and it works very well, some teething pains when it first came out that were fixed via firmware but that's about it. I get well over 1Gbps via on WiFi 6E and 7 devices. My past Mesh was an Orbi and that worked great for 5 years or so. Primarily consider the speed of your internet connection and try to look for a mesh that can make use of that bandwidth. Generally speaking a WiFi 6E mesh should do the job and considering your layout, a 3-unit mesh would be ideal specially if you can connect them via ethernet cable for backhaul.

I have a netgear orbi system…. Works like a charm

I like my netgear Orbis, but they are a bit expensive for a mesh.

>One thing you want to look out for, though, is that some mesh WiFi systems I've seen and used don't allow you to turn off the wireless backhaul network, even if all access points are connected with a wired backhaul. This can cause your network to be a bit slower than it could otherwise be. I have had 2 different mesh networking in my house (Netgear orbi and now EERO). From a performance perspective I agree on a theoretical level, but on a practical level your clients for the most part won't know the difference. In my case, I chose a mesh system as I have been moving from house to house, so I won't know where the internet will come into the house, or where I'll be placing my computer as well as my nas/server which are all wired. So the main unit of mesh it as the internet hookup, and the satellite unit in my office/room. The previous Netgear Orbi have a theoretical wireless backhaul speed of 1.4 Gbps. I have been able to sustain 850 Mbps and peaked over 900 Mbps over that wireless backhaul. Whereas with the Eero I was only able to ever peak over 700 Mbps and sustain around 550-600 Mbps. These are extreme tests that rarely ever occur, like when I download a 90 GB game through steam. Most of the reason for large data movement over the backhaul is my linux server downloading from usenet, but since almost 100% of that is in the background and done through automation, I don't even realize it's downloading until I get a notification it's done and in my plex library. So does it really matter from a practical point of view?

Orbi def best in market, next best is the google mesh, then Mby Eero mesh system… saw a lot of decco recommendations… they work alright but def lower in the ranks and way cheaper

I’m a bit of a nerd and been using Netgear Orbi. Great product. Never had any issues. A bit pricey, but worth it.

You just get a good mesh system like the orbi that has a dedicated backhaul channel. I also max out my gigabit thru wifi, anywhere in the house with just 1 satellite. And it's not a small house.

Orbi mesh off my house. But ours is close. I was able to disable the 5ghz. Lord did that take some digging.

I picked up the BE1100 last time it was on sale at Costco. My old Netgear Orbi main router crapped out after 5 years. The main reason is the 2.5gbe ports. I run them with a wired backhaul. I live in a pretty congested wifi area about 5 strong signals not including mine. After optimizing the channels (unfortunately you can't manually pick) the speed with wired backhaul has been amazing. I have 2 wifi 7 devices that can max out my 1gb isp, though they aren't battery optimized so they drain the mobile battery like crazy. The signals are strong on all my 40 devices. Pro tip: any devices that's stationary and don't move, I would select them and turn off the mesh connection. This way it locks them to a single node. This prevents hunting wifi signals between nodes if they overlap too much (that single dropping and connecting) After doing that the network has been solid since I bought it.

I know this question has been asked before, however I don't see any super recent posts and wanted to get some fresh recommendations on WiFi gear from somone who may have a similar setup. The home is around 2500 sq. ft. First off, I believe some of the periodic issues I run into are primarily a density problem as I have quite a few devices on my network. There's probably 30 smart switches plugs, etc. (mostly Kasa) plus numerous other gadgets including cameras, phones, tablets, watches, computers and etc. that everyone in the house has personally. So let's say there's in the neighborhood of 100 devices on my WiFi at times. Everything that's really possible to hard wire is hard wired. There's a number of various devices managed in HA that are Zwave and Zigbe. The current problem that I have, is when the WiFi starts to get 'tired' I'll see the WiFi switches, plugs, cameras lose connectivity then come back online, and it seems to cycle through various devices then repeat. Another tell-tale sign that the WiFi needs a reboot is the management interface for the primary AP gets quite a blit slower, although it's pretty slow and ineffective to manage to start with. I'm currently using a mesh WiFi system (Netgear Orbi) with a deidcated hardwired backhaul for the access points running in AP mode only, the router is a separate device. Its supposed to handle a large number of devices but after a few weeks of running it has the appearance there's some drops in connectivity and a reboot of all the mesh is needed to clear up the network issues. I don't think I have a signal problem, when I've checked I get decent connectivity all across the property and there doesn't appear to be any channel overlap. I'm pretty sure the issue is the density and that Netgear didn't design their mesh system to host the 50+ devices they advertise. I'm not really looking to replace the WiFi switches and plugs, if you do the math replacing them with something like Zwave isn't cheap. I hear a lot about Ubiquiti and I'm a fan for sure, however Ubiquiti comes with a premium price tag. I don't necessarily want to go cheap but I'd rather not spend a fortune either. I hear a good alternative is TP-Link Omada, I haven't seen it in action so I have zero experience with it. What I have strongly considered is using something that's more business grade but not necessarily brand new that I could maybe pick up used off e-Bay or from another reseller. Potential Considerations: * Ubiquiti - bite the bullet and buy it, however I don't want to necessarily be bleeding edge so which AP's (think WiFi 6). * TP-Link Omada * Mikrotik - I've heard good things but haven't really heard any bad and it's reasonable priced * Maybe something like Ruckus running Unleashed without the dedicated controller? I have some personal experience where I have seen a little as 2 access points host a large number of devices for a couple of days with zero connectivity issues and decent speed as well as read someone else's recommendation that this was good choice. I'm definitely not interested in any cheaper consumer grade hardware from Best Buy, etc., that's going to introduce a new version with the same issues that's going to possibly perform even worse. So no Netgear, Linksys, etc.

I bought 6 of TP-Link’s newest Deco WiFi 7 mesh access points, as well as 4 of their Deco outdoor units. I just tested them last night at my other house from my neighbor’s house to mine (their house is 200’ away and brick). I plugged one indoor Deco into their modem, then put one of the outdoor units 60’ away from their house, then another one 60’ further, then one on my back porch, and then one more indoor Deco in my house which is also brick. All of the APs had full signal strength and I got 657mbps speeds at these huge distances. Just the one Deco WiFi 7 I put inside my house was providing full signal strength throughout my entire house and even in my garage. I currently have a Netgear Orbi system that can’t even do that with 3 APs. I’m hoping when I go back to my other house tomorrow and install all of these new Deco units they will be strong enough to fully bathe the indoor and outdoor with WiFi signal. Supposedly 3 of them can do up to 10,000 square feet and I bought 6 of them, plus the four outdoor units. Everything seamlessly connected together and it scanned for interference on each channel and set them to the best for each band. If this works I’ll be happy. If not I will just ship them back to Amazon. They are expensive (~$350/unit) but if they work they’ll be worth it.

https://preview.redd.it/wmdnb4yrmqje1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d552c2926e936aada1a964c6c6d0b990ecf3317 I swear by netgear orbi. Nothing but good experience with them. Backhaul is rocks olid and fast, 2.5gbps lan ports and wireless backhaul can saturate them :)

Reçu hier en remplacement de mon UDR, et très content pour le moment 😃 ! L’upgrade c’est bien passé via la restauration d’une sauvegarde de l’UDR vers l’UDR 7 ! J’attends maintenant l’upgrade de ma fibre demain qui passera de 1gb/s à 8gb/s 🤩 J’avoue ne pas trop comprendre tout ces commentaires négatif à son propos ! Si on veut du POE+ ou du matériel avec plus d’options il y a d’autres gamme prévu à cet effet … Mais le rapport qualité/prix matériel et logiciel que propose Ubiquiti est top pour le particulier (et même pour les pro je pense). 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, c’est le jour et la nuit avec UniFi je trouve …

Get a Netgear Orbi and be done with it.

Eh, I’ve had a low-end Deco but it bricked itself during a firmware upgrade, otherwise it was OK. My dad had an Orbi system, which was actually rather good, but they tend to have rather short end-of-life periods which means they no longer get security updates and also stuff like parental controls are subscription based. I like ASUS a lot, but I’ve never tried their mesh. My current WiFi system is TP-Link Omada, which is very nice, but it is wired (though meshing is possible).

I had the same issue when I moved into my current home. I bought the Netgear Orbi mesh system with three satellites and it’s worked brilliantly for me

Not sure if it’s me, but I’m always hesitant now to buy any of these major brands because the software is usually really bad. I can’t stand it when I read a review and includes nothing about how easy this software is to use. 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.. I’m wondering if there’s any namebrand routers that you can say the software is awesome I’m thinking about going to maybe something higher that it has more detailed controls. I’m not sure. I’d be interested to hear anybody’s opinion on the software that controls the routers.

I have an Orbi mesh system connected to SL. I have 12 cameras. 7000 sf on one level. Covers fine

I'd try to get a wifi 6 mesh system, 2 piece (1 to main router + satelitte). I had similar wifi issues in my townhouse and once I got the mesh I've been enjoying 300mbps in every room and it eliminated all my dead spots. Sooooo worth it. I use an Orbi but would have maybe preferred the Eero (Amazon) for it's smaller physical footprint.

Most mesh systems take a few days to adjust and will move channels until it finds the best scenario. Netgear orbi’s do this as well as the eero systems. But once there fully optimized they should be set it and forget it and just work. Speed fluctuations are normal but I did find the eero did have less speed than my netgear with identical locations and settings. So I reset the eero from scratch and then the speed was where it needed to be. I believe it has something to do with firmware as I get the feeling the updates don’t always go well with some older firmware lingering after the upgrade. Reset seems to clear it out

I use Ubiquity Unifi gear since I’ve used it for almost 10 years. Netgear Orbi is a high quality product, Eero is probably ok too. More a question of how big your space is, is there a way to hardwire access points etc. The standard Verizon router may be totally fine for a small space.

Huge vote for eero. I have them in two homes and love them. Moved from Orbi a couple years back and will. Ever look back. Setup is dead simple and config is sufficient for my needs. Recently upgraded ISP to 3 Gig so bought a Pro 7 as gateway but still have 6E’s for all access points, with wired backhaul.

Not sure about the others but the Orbi firmware does not let you create separate 2.4 and 5.0 GHz wireless networks.

I use 6E and get gigabit speeds. I do use satellites also. I have a satellite I use as a switch for a server with wired back haul. I use an inexpensive Orbi system and ran wire through my basement to various places using satellites as switches.

hi i am sock of my 7 yo orbis…are Eeros still considered the best in here? online i am reading tp is better… my living space is 2700 ft2 ty in advance.

I recommend Orbi. I recently transitioned to the TP-Link Deco BE33000 (WiFi 7 - quad band) because I got a really good deal on it. But the customization and management seems to be better with Orbi. I don’t go with Eero because they don’t have an extra band for back haul between the mesh network. If you’re going to do a hardwired back haul (with the 10g ports), you would be good. I’m not familiar with the Eero management and how it compares. I’ve done several Orbi systems and love the management.

TP-Link Deco BE33000 user here - I can’t compare this to other WiFi 7 devices, but I will compare it to my previous mesh networks. I have found that Netgear Orbi seems to be easier to manage all around. If i didn’t get a steal for my Deco BE33000, I would get rid of it and buy the Orbi (still might do that). Hope that helps.

I have an orbi with one satellite (that is then hard wired to my docking station) in a 2400 sq ft house with basement. It's honestly been one of the most reliable pieces of tech I've ever owned, especially in the world of networking. Hooked it up two years ago and basically never thought about it again. Everything in the house/yard/basement had perfect internet all the time.

I have an orbi with one satellite (that is then hard wired to my docking station) in a 2400 sq ft house with basement. It's honestly been one of the most reliable pieces of tech I've ever owned, especially in the world of networking. Hooked it up two years ago and basically never thought about it again. Everything in the house/yard/basement had perfect internet all the time.

I’ve been using an Eero system for 6 years and it has been outstanding. Mine is old and it still works great. My friends and family that got them on my recommendation are also very happy. I tried an Orbi system first and it was horrible! It did not work with the Apple brand devices in the house. Eero is easy to setup and use even if not technically inclined. I have a unRAID server at home with Plex for streaming when on the road and it all works well….

TP Link Deco definitely requires an app and an account and although there is a web interface, it can't do much. Nice gear, but not acceptable under your policy. Netgear Orbi may have required me to install an app and get an account to get it setup (I didn't try to get around it.) But the web interface is full fat and I've never opened the app since installing.

I have a Be550, it's pretty decent, but I would definitely opt for a name brand over tp link. Mainly because of their security controversy and their lack support over time. I only have one device that can actively use 6ghz/6e and nothing that uses wifi 7,but 6e/6ghz is super fast. Depends if you care about that, if not anything else can do the same with with better long term support... I don't use the be550 for my main wifi tho, I have an orbi mesh system in AP mode for my main wifi setup...

Unifi stuff is not very difficult to set up. It’s pretty plug and play. If you WANT to get into the weeds , sure you can do that too. And it’s much easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. I used to have Orbi and the web interface is a joke.

Any router will work. That's one aspect of Specturm's setup that I really like. Depending on your space, you can either get a single router or a mesh system. I have two houses, have Orbi at one and Tp-link at the other. I had Asus for a while. I personally found the TP Link DECO setup easiest and the performance has been fantastic. Can get it cheap at Costco too.

Any router will work. That's one aspect of Specturm's setup that I really like. Depending on your space, you can either get a single router or a mesh system. I have two houses, have Orbi at one and Tp-link at the other. I had Asus for a while. I personally found the TP Link DECO setup easiest and the performance has been fantastic. Can get it cheap at Costco too.

I did not like my orbi setup. Buggy POS for me riddled with terrible firmware releases they kept having to apologize for. I moved on to unifi and while it’s not a panacea… it’s a damn sight better than orbi.

“Best” can be vague. How much of a hobby is home networking for you? Do you have work requirements that also justify it? Do you have or have the ability to run quality cat5e/6/6A between your basement where the poe switch is/will be and the other floors where you want the access points? Or must it be wireless mesh. I migrated from orbi to unifi. I have hard wired access points. ***I wish I had just started with unifi.*** My wants and needs might not match yours. If the unifi price tag is giving you pause, “better” solutions are provably not worth looking at.

Orbi is trash compared to unifi. -sincerely, and ex Orbi user. Edit: if they don’t want to spend unifi money (which Orbi is too) there are plenty of other options that aren’t with Orbi’s pos firmware updates and years of doggy updates.

I’ll use an isp provided wifi setup before I ever use orbi again. I’m sorry unifi is giving you trouble. I’ve deployed a number of sites using their gear and don’t recall too many issues with the unifi stuff. Protect has been… less smooth. What are you deploying and what’s the issue with the firmware update (loop? Failure to apply? Dead after update?) Honestly unifi usually gets high marks from even non networking enthusiasts for being a pretty polished interface and easy to setup for beginners.

Extending using mesh is a lot easier than moving the router and does more to solve your problem. Good luck. Unifi is good. Another option is Netgear Orbi which I think is very easy to setup and use.

I have a Unifi system with APs, Cloud Key and cloud gateway. I left them for a couple years because it was a rental and now we’ve moved back and each device needs firmware upgrades. But until you upgrade the firmware the connectivity is locked out. I’ve had to factory reset each device a number of times but because it’s a whole set of products that need to work together it’s very complicated. Especially because they don’t work exactly the way the docs say they do. I’ve had to go into command line mode too many times to fix these issues. 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.

Yes I am and it’s not even close. Unifi is for techies. I am actually a techie and don’t think it’s a bad product overall but I wouldn’t put it somewhere that has no tech person to troubleshoot problems. I have never had one problem with Orbi, ever. If you look around on the Internet you will find that it’s very popular with lots of positive reviews. Maybe you had such a bad experience that you found a specific audience of people who share the same bad experiences you had. People can easily find whatever they are looking for.

Yep. Everyone I know with an Orbi has no problems. A coworker recommended it to me for HomeKit and it was a good call.