NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Mesh WiFi 6 Satellite (RBS850) - Adds up to 2,500 sq. ft. Coverage, AX6000 (Up to 6Gbps)

Just got upgraded from my old Orbi to the Orbi 970 WiFi 7 system, and it’s been a solid improvement. I’m on a 2-gig internet connection, so having hardware that can actually keep up makes a noticeable difference. Setup was easy using the Orbi app and everything came online without issues. WiFi performance has been very strong. Even with a wireless backhaul, I’m seeing close to 1 Gbps download speeds, and uploads hit the 300 Mbps limit of my ISP plan, so the router clearly isn’t holding anything back. Latency has been low and stable, which matters a lot for work calls and streaming. We have a lot of family devices connected, including smart home gear, TVs, and phones, and coverage has been consistent across rooms and floors with smooth handoff. Overall, it feels like a reliable, future-proof upgrade that works well for everyday family use.

My wife and I both work from home and spend most of our days on video calls. We have four kids, which means lots of connected devices and gaming systems. And we have a lot of connected home tech including high end whole house audio systems, smart lights, etc. Our legacy Eero system was struggling to keep up and certainly not getting close to our 1 gigabit Fios speed. Enter the Netgear Orbi 970 with 4 satelites. This system is amazing. While we have limited WiFi 7 enabled tech at the moment, the wireless internet speed and coverage is a huge improvement. Speed tests around the house consistently show maximum WiFi speeds and everything is noticeably more responsive. No more poor video calls, no more laggy gaming, no more dropped audio streaming. The system is an investment, but one that I’m very happy I made. Set up was super easy and the satellites quickly filled our entire indoor (3 levels / very wide) and outdoor space with blazing fast internet. Highly recommended!

Update 2: Replaced with the router in my first update and everything now works flawlessly. I can’t believe the difference. My system is completely stable now. The instability that I was getting with the Orbi 970 was extremely painful. When you buy a router system, what you should expect is that it just works. Even the app was bad. It frequently had errors causing me to not be able to see any devices. When I searched online, sure enough a lot of other people were also having these issues. Please, don’t put yourself through the trouble of this router. Update: This is the most frustrating router that I have ever used. I stopped buying from Netgear along time ago and for some reason forgot why. The router randomly restarts every couple of weeks (common issues with others that have this router as well). The real problem is, when it restarts my Hue and Nest cameras get very messed up. Lights won’t respond. Cameras going offline. It takes several restarts of the satellites and router, plus several hours to get everything running again. This mesh system is just pure garbage. I’ll be selling this trash and moving to an Eero Max 7. Had several frustrations so far. It was going very well for the first three weeks. I had no issues at all. Then, it randomly rebooted by itself. That random reboot led to some serious issues with my Philips Hue system. I had lights not responding and dimmer switches having connection issues. I started troubleshooting my Hue system because it seemed that was the likely issue. Then, I upgraded my Orbi firmware and magically everything was fine again. During the upgrade the Orbi satellites also upgraded and all of them rebooted. Several days later I needed to unplug a satellite. When I tried to replug it back in, it struggled to reconnect. I restarted the router thinking that might fix the issue. The satellite did eventually reconnect, but ALL of the Hue problems came back. It took me literally hours of troubleshooting Hue, restarting the router and satellites to get it working again. Finally, I restarted the router and all satellites (which I had already tried several times), and everything worked again. What a hassle this system is for $2,000. I contemplated between the 970 and the Eero 7 before settling on the 970. The only reason I chose the 970 was the dedicated 2.4 Iot channel. I regret not going with the Eero 7. What it does well is speed, range and keeps all of Nest cameras from disconnecting. My old Asus AXE16000 had issues with cameras going offline, the 970 fixed that completely. However, I’m sure the Eero 7 would have done that as well.

I’ve been using the Netgear Orbi 970 for a few weeks now, and overall, it’s a solid mesh WiFi system, but it’s not perfect. The setup was pretty easy, even for someone who isn’t super tech-savvy. The app walks you through everything, and I had the whole thing up and running in about 20 minutes. The coverage is impressive. I have a three-story house with a lot of dead zones, and the Orbi 970 pretty much wiped those out. Speeds are fast and consistent, even when multiple people are streaming or gaming at the same time. I also like that it supports WiFi 7, so it feels future-proof. That said, the price is steep. It’s definitely on the higher end, and I’m not sure everyone needs this much power unless you have a big house or a lot of devices. Also, the units themselves are kind of bulky, so they’re not the easiest to hide. One thing that bugged me is that some advanced features are locked behind a subscription. For the price, I expected more included out of the box. The parental controls and security features are good, but having to pay extra for them feels a bit much. In short, the Orbi 970 is a great choice if you want top-tier performance and don’t mind spending extra. If you’re on a budget or have a smaller space, you might want to look at other options. But if you want fast, reliable WiFi everywhere in your home, it delivers.

I upgraded from an older Orbi WiFi 6, and the Orbi 970 blows it away. I pay for 1 GB from my ISP but constantly receive 1.5Gb. I couldn’t be happier! Performance was considerably noticeable immediately! Set up was easy. Simply rename your Orbi to the previous name and password used on your router your replacing and everything will connect without re signing in. All my devices run constantly faster. Keep in mind that speeds will vary depending on age and WiFi acceptance on your current devices, i.e. if you have a tv or smart phone that is only capable of let’s say WiFi 4, then that’s all you’ll get, But I will say even my older devices run better. I could go on and on about this router. And best of all it future proofs you for later as your ISP increases speed and you replace devices with newer ones. The app makes setup a breeze. This router will allow for more complicated setups via the Orbi web site where after creating an account you can change just about everything you need if your a power user.

Ok, this thing is fast...like really fast. It's legit the same speed as my hardline, which is like, kinda crazy. I replaced a Google Nest 6e with 4 pods because Im paying comcast for 1.5-2gbps and the Nest was only giving me about 500. Not to mention it was dropping signal ALL.THE.TIME. Coverage for the new Orbi is fantastic, literally every inch of the house is flawless and it even extends pretty far into my yard. So far, the performance has been eye watering. So why the 4 stars? The set up process was awful. I ended up needing to alternate between the app and connecting to the IP website terminal to wiggle my way through the set up process. It was painful But I got through it, and now I have so much speed

I've been struggling with spotty Wi-Fi in my large home for years, but the new Orbi Mesh system has completely transformed our connectivity! Setup was a breeze - literally took under 15 minutes - and now every corner, from the basement office to the backyard patio, has lightning-fast, reliable signal. Streaming 4K videos, online gaming, and video calls are all buttery smooth with no lags or dropouts. The app is intuitive for managing devices and parental controls too. If you're tired of dead zones, this is the upgrade you need - worth every penny for that peace of mind! Highly recommend for families or remote workers.

I left a very bad review at first because this was not a new system and was registered with someone else. I could not get it to work. After speaking to a nerd friend, I did a factory reset and it worked and I could not be happier with it.