---NETGEAR Orbi Ultra-Performance Whole Home Mesh WiFi System - WiFi router and two satellite extender with speeds up to 3Gbps over 6,000 sq. feet, AC3000 (RBK53)

I purchased this system because I have an unusual older (1952) home that's always been problematic for wifi. My fiber connection goes into an entertainment room that used to be the garage, and that's where my modem and router have to be placed. There are two brick/block walls between that room and the rest of the house, which is long and narrow. I could never get good wifi signal to the far end of the house. And my work office is in a converted shed in my back yard. I had tried a power line network to the shed, and that didn't work well since it had to go through two breaker boxes. I thought I'd give the Orbi mesh network a go to see if it could handle the situation. I placed the router in the TV room, a satellite on the first floor in the main part of the house about 30 feet from the router, and the second satellite in a window in my shed, where it has line-of-sight to both the router and the other satellite. Setup was relatively easy. Even though the three points all established communication with each other quickly and the router was wired to the cable modem, it would not establish an internet connection until I logged onto orbilogin.com and completed the configuration. That's a good time to change your network name and secure the admin login credentials. Next, I took my Apple Time Capsule, which had been my internet router before, and used the AirPort Utility to turn it into a bridged connection instead of a router. Wifi coverage is certainly better than what I had before. At the router, I'm getting 386 Mbps download speed (my fiber is supposedly 1 Gbps). Standing next to the satellite on the first floor of the house, I'm getting 130Mbps. At the far end of the house on the second floor, the farthest point in the house from a satellite, I read 15 Mbps. And in my shed across the back yard, where my second satellite is installed, I'm reading 30 Mbps. So not super fast, but still much more consistent throughout the house, and finally I will have a more reliable connection in my office. Will post an update after I've been using the system for a while.

I have a 2300 square foot home on approximately 5 acres with DSL internet service from CenturyLink. I was using the CenturyLink 2082 wireless modem/router and the WiFi signal would not reach into one end of our home. I also needed internet coverage in a metal covered barn located about 150 feet from the house. After researching the different available MESH internet router systems, I choose the Netgear Orbi AC3000 RBK53S with a router and 2 satellites and the Orbi Outdoor Satellite RBS50Y. I had some reservations due to reading some of the reviews detailing installation difficulties and dropped connections between the router and satellites. When I installed the system, I used the Orbi Login online installation method and not the mobile app. I also kept the Orbi router and the 3 satellites close to my computer until everything was set up. I connected the satellite to the CenturyLink 2082 modem with the provided Ethernet cable and turned it on. After startup was complete, I connected my computer to it through WiFi and started the the Orbi LogIn program which detected the Orbi Router. I then powered on 1 of the AC3000 satellites and it synced to the router successfully. I then powered on the 2nd AC 3000 satellite and it did not sync successfully. After 2 more tries by powering it off and then on, it synced successfully. I then checked the firmware versions on the router and the 2 satellites and they were up to date for all units out of the box. I then powered on the Orbi Outdoor satellite. It took 4 tries of powering off and powering on before it booted and I then used the sync function in Orbi Login to sync it to the router. I then checked the firmware version and it needed to be updated. However, the Orbi Login program could not complete the automatic update. I had downloaded the newest firmware to my computer in anticipation of updating the firmware manually and the process was accomplished without incident. I then completed the setup for the Orbi system with the Orbi Login program. At that point, I connected all of our devices to the new Orbi WiFi network and turned off auto-join for the CenturyLink 2082. I then moved the CenturyLink 2082 and the Orbi router to a location as close to the center of our home as possible and powered them on. I then moved the 1st satellite to the far end of the house, powered it on, it synced with the router and displayed a blue light that indicated a strong connection. I then moved the 2nd satellite to the opposite end of the house, which is closest to the barn, powered it on, it synced with the router and displayed a blue light that indicated a strong connection. Lastly, I moved the Orbi Outdoor satellite to the barn knowing that if it was placed outside of the barn it would probably be unable to send a strong signal through the metal the barn is covered with. Instead, I placed it inside the barn next to a door that faces the house and that has a window in it. I powered it on, it synced and displayed a blue light which indicated a strong signal. When I checked the Wifi coverage, I now have a strong signal everywhere in the house and throughout the 48x48 foot barn. To my surprise, I also have a strong signal outside as far away as 250 feet from the house and barn. The WiFi speed has been impressive and much better than the CenturyLink 2082 router. The system was installed a week ago and it has been absolutely reliable with no issues. In short, I am extremely pleased with the Netgear Orbi AC3000 system!

This is a fantastic mesh router! If you need more than one router in your house (and let's face it, most people do), this is the set to get. A little background here. I have an old stone house (1859) with a frame addition built in the early 90s. My office is in the basement at one corner of the old house and that's where my router sits (I need to be wired to my router for numerous reasons and have many wired devices). As such, this is a recipe for failed wifi throughout the rest of the house. So, on the first floor, I had a router acting as an extender and on the second floor, yet another. I lived with this for years, having to make sure I was on the correct router when I was using wifi throughout the house. A pain in the butt. Also, honestly, slow speeds plagued me. I live in the country and my DSL maxes out at 8Mbps, so by the time the extenders passed it along, I was doing well with 3Mbps or less in some rooms. I started reading about mesh networks back in the winter. CNET had some great reviews of different mesh routers. I very nearly bought the Google Mesh because it was cheap... but then, fortunately, thought better of it. So I took a look again at the Orbi (2-router version) and though it was more expensive by quite a bit, the performance seemed worthwhile for me. Additionally, because of the difficult nature of the house, I decided to go with the three unit Orbi. (It's designed for 7500 sq ft, or so they say, and I have about 3800.) Wow was I impressed by performance! (Oh, it was also very simple to set up, which you generally need to do with a smart phone.) I had speeds of 7-8Mbps through the house. I even had 2.5Mbps on a hillside 500 yards away. I could be mowing a field not too far from the house and my wife could text me that dinner was ready. (Another issue where I live -- I have to use an AT&T Microcell to get any cell service and we use iMessage to text via wifi.) The speeds we now get with Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Vudu to our TV are excellent. What a world of difference. I'm a professional photographer and my wife is a graphic designer, but we prefer to live in the country, so this is a technology match made in heaven for us. If you want unimpeded wifi performance in your house, BUY THE ROUTER.

Initial review - will update if anything changes. Struggled for 5 years trying to get WiFi in every corner of my house without spending thousands. I live in a large Victorian built in 1885 but this took care of it easily. ~5000sqft home, got the 3 pack. Max bars everywhere except on the farthest edge of the oldest portion of my house where I BARELY lose max reception due to the main router not being in an optimal place, because of Charter's nonsense. But I literally have to be leaning of the wall of that one room on that one side of the room and I go from perfect reception to almost perfect. With the Orbi I have WiFi is all 4 bathrooms and every bedroom for the first time since we moved in. Seamless handoff, fast speeds. Setup was dead easy - cycle modem, hit next in app, plug in modem, hit next in app, plug in sattelites, hit next in app, wait 2 minutes for blinking to stop on sattelites, hit next, sign into network and you are done. I assume anyone who had problems either had a defective unit or aren't....uhh....good at anything.

I have a 3 story, long skinny house built into side of a hill. Had been using routers and access points, but always had to manually switch my devices to diff APs as I roamed. WiFi mesh seemed like a great solution, especially ones that support wired back haul. I bought the Orbi units based on reviews from multiple diff sites that they had the greatest coverage and highest throughput. They also said they do wired backhaul. I also liked the fact that you can set it up without an active Internet connection. Perfect for me, as my appointment with Comcast to get cable is not for another week. Orbis can be configured using either a Netgear mobile app, or direct connection via enet cable to the router unit. The first indication that this was an unstable product was that the mobile app would just hang, once connected to the routers wifi. Tried several times, but no luck. "No problem" I though, I will just direct connection. I did so, and the config process went fine. I soon found that there was nothing in the menus to support wired back haul. I need that, as the far upstairs end of my house is too far away, and has too many wall in the way, for the wireless 5ghz back haul to connect. "Ok, will look into that later, I'll just put the satellite units in temp locations, and get this tested out" So...I got everything connected and synced up. Great coverage everyplace it should be. Did some streaming video testing from my NAS drive, and other file copy tests, and great throughput. Finished up around 11pm and went to bed. Next morning, nothing is working. Resync everything, and it worked for about 2 hrs, then stopped. Ok, this is bad. Went to Netgear's support forum, and find that 1000s of customers are having the same problem. Netgear keeps releasing new firmware versions to try to fix, but each one is very buggy. In fact, they formaly rolled back several versions. I also found out that the back haul function I need is in one of those buggy versions. This has been going on since December 2017 it seems. Netgear management posts to the forum about once a month, to say they will have it fixed "soon" Yikes, nearly $500 for tech that does not work, and no fix in sight after 4 months. I am packing up my Obris and returning. Will look into other brands, but this time I will check the support forums first.

I setup my first mesh system back in 2017, with the Orbi RBK50. At that time it was expensive, it has been running 24/7 since then delivering speedy wireless networking to all areas of my home. I have a plethora of wire and wireless devices running out if and it has proven to be reliable. It was very easy to install, even though I did not use the Orbi app. I do use the Orbi app to manage certain aspects of the system. I have recommended different Orbi models dozens of times and I have installed several Orbi systems in family and friends houses. Every time I get call for help with the Orbi setup is related to the Orbi app. This time I decided to setup the thee units Orbi RBK53 Mesh, like most users do, following the included Quick Start Guide literature. steps using the Orbi app. I power down the modem, connect the Orbi RBK53 router to the modem, power on both devices and voila WiFi is on and working. I powered one satellite and it went thru the boot process , so I fire up the Orbi app and it connected to the main router but it did not find the satellite located 10 feet away. I plugged the other satellite and nothing. I could see that both Orbi satellites went thru the white light then pulse for a bit then the lights on both went solid blue then off...everything as expected. The app still can find the satellites, so I decided to access the configuration via the web interface and there they are both satellites connected and running. At that stage most users will start resetting the units, since the app does not show the satellites. That creates the issues many people I know have encountered setting the Orbi systems. As far as I know, the Orbi systems are reliable, they do perform very well and if you encounter any issues during setup, using the web interface for a manual setup will save you time and troubles.

My Xfinity router is on the second floor and in the past, I have purchased several Wi-Fi extenders in hopes to get better Wi-Fi on the first floor and any Wi-Fi at all in the basement. Although the other extenders worked to cover a slight increase in area for 2.4G they always resulted in some speed lost and unreliable 5G and never had the ability to cover the basement. The unit weren’t cheap either running around $150. I had just about given up but because I recently purchased two Robotic Wi-Fi vacuums I decided to give it one more go. I did a lot of research and narrowed it down to two units, finally deciding to purchase the more costly Orbi . Yes, the Orbi with 2 satellites is pricey and if you’ve made any adjustment to your Xfinity router beforehand then setup may not be a breeze either. I had split my Wi-Fi into two services 2.4 and 5G and discovered that doing so was problematic to setting up the Orbi. After removing the 2.4G split on the Xfinity router I was able to get thing working. After achieving setup the results have been fantastic. At the source of my Xfinity router the Orbi router more than doubled my Wi-Fi speed and by using the two satellites that speed is the same throughout the house including the basement. In fact, 50 ft outside of the house the Wi-Fi is nearly as strong and fast. The App that you download has many useful features and very easy to use and even though the Orbi is not split into two services of 2.4G and 5G all my devices that run on only 2.4G have had no problems connecting. I’ve only had the unit a little over a week and thus far no issues, so hopefully it will continue that way. As of today, I can totally recommend this Orbi unit.

Installed this on an Xfinity modem, which I had placed in bridge mode to turn off that wifi signal (very easy, one button on the Xfinity gateway web page). I followed the Orbi directions and immediately had a new wifi signal up and running from the router so the Orbi app which I had previously downloaded to my phone could work (I don't get any cell signal at my house). It SHOULD have been super easy to install the satellites, but nothing I did got them running. I used the app to create a service "case", then called Netgear using the case number. To my absolute astonishment, I got through to a tech almost immediately. He asked me what I had already done (instead of making me repeat all of it), and then worked with me to get both satellites up and running. It took a while (the units take 3-5 minutes to reboot every time you try something new) but he hung in with me till everything was online. GREAT service, and my wifi coverage is now great throughout my house, even with the Orbi router having to be in a less than ideal location. I then used the app to change my network name to the one I had been using with the Xfinity router (easy to do), and all my devices show up on the Orbi network/app. In summary, this is a great system that is probably easy to install, but if it isn't easy for you, help is both available and really helpful!