NETGEAR - Orbi 970 Series Quad-Band WiFi 7 Mesh Router (RBE971SB)
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Reddit Reviews:
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Based on 1 year's data from Feb 24, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
17
7
"Backhaul is rock solid and fast"
"works flawlessly ... I have a router running in bridge mode and 2 satellites with a wired backhaul."
"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."
5
1
"I also max out my gigabit thru wifi, anywhere in the house with just 1 satellite. And it's not a small house."
"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"
"Great coverage"
5
0
"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."
"It's set and forget and just works, quite awesomely."
"Netgear Orbi seems to be easier to manage all around."
13
1
"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."
"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."
2
1
"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."
"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."
"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."
Disliked most:
0
9
"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)"
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."
"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."
1
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."
"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."
"the experience was awful for years for me. The orbi devices I had were not stable. You had to power cycle them often. ... years of just general instability, answering the phone to say “what’s the light color? Yeah just unplug it and plug it back in and wait ten minutes”"
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"
3
5
"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"
"It costs as much as unifi and other prosumer stuff but does have prosumer / home networking enthusiasts features. ... Want to Vlan tag some wifi clients? Not on orbi. ... Want real switching equipment in the mix with your wifi? Not with orbi. ... Want an ecosystem of access points that can properly cover a large home _and_ outdoor living spaces with recent WiFi standards that will work with the latest indoor units? Not with orbi. ... Want to have grouped firewall rules? IPS/Ids? Not on orbi. ... Want full features even if it’s not the top most router in your topology? Not with orbi. Shit gets real dumb when it’s not in ap mesh only mode."
Mornstar787 1.0I have the BE9500 from previously netgear orbi 971 after it started boot looping, but I’m happier with the TP-Link.
Abbagayle_Yorkie 0.5i use Netgear Orbi 970 i love it.
DJZoey 0.5Was 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.
DrTuSo 0.5When 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.
evanbagnell 0.5I 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.
muj68567 0.5I switched from flagship Orbi to mid to high range TP and never looked back. TP just works.
OsamaBinChillin 0.5I have an Orbi 970. Thought it was garbage and bought ubiquiti. Turns out it was my modem that was having issues. Been wanting to sell it for a while now.
Pleggster 0.5We run the Orbi 970 in our home and it is fantastic. We are high usage people. We have a large house, and it covers completely along with our outside pool area. My sister has the 770 and it does just as well for her situation, which sounds about, like the OP situation.
STOPchris1 0.5The 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.
XCGod 0.5I have orbi 970s that work fantastic. They pulled multi-gig throughput over wireless backhaul and now I have them wired with 10g backhaul.
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