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 Mar 17, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
12
6
"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."
"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."
4
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"
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."
3
0
"It's set and forget and just works, quite awesomely."
"Netgear Orbi seems to be easier to manage all around."
"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."
11
1
"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."
"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
7
"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)"
"it’s been 6 months since Netgear has released a firmware update for it. ... It seems Netgear either does not know how to fix the issue or doesn’t care."
"I used to have Orbi and the web interface is a joke."
1
6
"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 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)"
"Having had nothing but problems with 2 different netgear setups in recent years. ... (Most recent was a $1500 nether Orbi setup. Trash)"
0
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."
"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 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)"
3
4
"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"
"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."
0
4
"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 hate the system with passion. It's unreliable"
"Moved from Orbi mesh which was unreliable at best."
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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