NETGEAR Orbi Voice Whole Home Mesh WiFi System (RBK50V) - Discontinued by Manufacturer

I had a nice but older Linksys EA6900 wifi router, and it worked pretty well on my main floor (about 1600 sq. ft. on the first floor.). But I could never throw a 5G signal up to the far reaches of the second floor, and even the 2G signal was weak. I did a good bit of research and was considering this or the new Google units that look a bit like the Google Assistants. But I opted for this bigger Orbi system and have not been disappointed. I have just the two units -- the main Orbi router is on the first floor, and the satellite is upstairs and about 30 feet more towards the hard to hit areas using my old Linksys unit. Now I get above 200 Mbps WiFi speeds on 5G just about everywhere in my house. I have Charter Spectrum's basic service, which gives me a bit more speed than they advertise. I usually get about 210 to 220 Mbps download speeds, and 11 Mbps upload speed (that's to my router). With this Orbi setup, I can get that same speed just about anywhere in my house if I am connected to the 5G signal and I am using a phone or PC made in the last few years that can run at these speeds. In the farthest corners of my roughly 3200 square foot home, I might slow down to 180 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I really like the Amazon Alexa sound quality on the satellite. I did have the issue some people mention where the audio volume seemed stuck not long after installation, but I think the unit must have updated its firmware automatically, because it is has never happened again. I am so pleased with the system that I just bought another satellite at about $100 because of how good it sounds. I really don't need any more satellites for WiFi in my house, but at $100, I figured it never hurts to have a backup in case my first satellite ever glitches, and I needed a better speaker than my Echo dot in the kitchen / breakfast area, and that second Orbi satellite sure sounds nice in there. If I have noticed any problem at all, it will be if I am working in the yard and my phone connects to the 2G signal, it does not instantly jump over to to 5G when I go back in the house. But the 2G signal is typically 40 to 80 Mbps, so I would would never know unless I intentionally looked in the Orbi app to see what devices are connected to 2G vs. 5G. If I cycle off the Wifi on my phone for a sec, it then reconnects to 5G. There is probably a setting to make this happen more quickly automatically, but as I said, the 2G is so fast that I don't even pay attention to it any longer. Note that as some people point out, you cannot create a separate Wifi SSID name for 2G and 5G. They have to share the say name. So things should auto switch as you move outside and back indoors. But I am pretty you can setup a guest network with a different SSID name. However, I don't use that feature currently.

I'm so impressed with how much coverage I get with these routers. I have a 2,000 sqft. brick ranch that has way more than enough coverage. I mainly got these so I could extend the signal to all the areas of my 2 acre property. I don't get a cell phone signal at my house so I have to use the internet for my cell phone and in my yard it would drop off. I'm not much of a tech guy and I discovered that you don't need to be to install these. They were super simple to install. Once installed, to my amazement, I had a signal and cell phone service on all my property. I walked the entire property line just to see if it would work and I had a decent signal. I could charge my neighbors for internet if I wanted to now. The options on this are nice but I don't use them. I could see how turning off the internet or setting a time limit on certain connected items could come in handy with children. This is an expensive purchase but you get what you pay for!

I have been using the RBR50 for three months now. This review takes in my use of the product for that time frame. ........Net Gear support is ok, but not the best I have used from other manufacturers. This is my first experience with a mesh network. I installed the RBR50 with two RBS40V (Alexa), and one RBS50Y(three satellites units is the max supported). The network covers my 1800 sq ft house, the shop that is 100 ft from the house and a guest house that is another 250 ft past the shop. I all fairness I do have a repeater (older linksys, but still AC network at the guest house). The outside AP RBS50Y is on the side of the shop building and the older RVS40V-200 is in the shop office area. the only issue I have with the 35 devices (includes 6 Win10 pc's) on the network which are always powered up is the absence of data flow monitor/control for the network devices. I live in a rural East Texas and only have Verizon wireless as my internet service provider. (The satellite services are way too costly.) My upload and download are always at a restricted speed. SO, if I have a device that starts a download in the evening, I need to stop all devices doing updates in order to stream Netflix, Disney, etc. I no longer have that control with the new Net Gear RBR50 router firmware. I had to front end the mesh network with my old NetGear X6 router that did have the ability to monitor/control data flow from all devices. I turned off the X6 wifi and just use it for DHCP and my Verizon internet connection via a Cradlepoint CBA850 air card router to the network.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>In summary, unless you have network requirements that you need to do more than plug and play, this router should be great for you! Quick easy install, with powerful wifi tri-band router. AND, I do use Alexa so the addition of the satellite RBS40V is a plus.

Reichweite des WLAN ist top, Installation und Einrichtung war auch einfach. Was noch gut gefällt ist der Ferzugriff von unterwegs.

I can’t believe I waited so long before buying this. Yes, it is expensive, but given the amount of time, effort (and money) I have spent on other solutions (power lines etc), this is well worth it. Almost full speed WiFi (~200mb) throughout my large 4 bed house. Highly recommend, plus we now have a decent speaker for the bedroom!

Ho acquistato il kit RBK50V composto da router e satellite orbi voice. Ho avuto qualche piccolo problema di configurazione (l'orbi Voice inizialmente non mi consentiva di impostare la lingua italiana e Alexa era offline) ma il tutto è stato risolto grazie all'ottimo supporto Netgear (era necessario un aggiornamento firmware). Sono molto contento del mio acquisto e mi sento di consigliare il prodotto.

Terrible product.I have a main router 5 ft outside my bedroom but my orbi is connecting my device to the satellite which is 20feet away. So where I get 200 mbps at the router, I get 10mbps due to the way the system connects devices.What is that? How inefficient is the design?I had read some reviews of the device before buying it and I must say, I wish I did not buy this product.

Right then, I've used Orbing for 5 years. I LOVE their mesh wi-fi system.It is the most stable one I've come across, the reason for that I think is great software and hardware, I found it much more reliable than the Linksys Velop system.This set comes with I think the most powerful RBR50 router and the harman kardon enabled speaker satellite.Setup through the app is super easy, and once you've paired them colours will show you the connection stability.This should cover off a decent sized semi detached house or large flat, the routers are strong. We use this in conjunction with 4 other Orbi routers to cover an entire 4 bed detached home and 5 bed semi detached home... these things are powerful.The smart speaker is good, it uses amazon Alexa, so no Apple Music but it works well enough, I don't use the speaker much but setup through the orbi app was fairly simple.Overall a great kit, easy to use and stable, just what I'd want from Wi-Fi