r/orbi

I bought a Netgear Orbi mesh system through an authorised distributor in Singapore and have had repeated problems with the satellites disconnecting and showing a solid magenta light.

In June, I spent several hours on the phone with Netgear support and exchanged numerous emails trying to resolve the same issue. I have power-cycled the system, re-synced the satellites and reconnected the entire setup several times. I eventually managed to get it to work with a system rebook and firmware upgrade, but the problem has now returned.

Getting support has been extremely difficult. I work from 8am to 8pm, which puts me outside the operating hours of the local support line. I have previously taken a full day off work just to troubleshoot the system.
I have repeatedly asked whether someone could visit and inspect it, but the local office now says that they do not have a technician.

I’m therefore stuck with SGD $3k worth of equipment that repeatedly stops working, while the only solution offered is to go through the same remote troubleshooting process again.
Has anyone else experienced this with Orbi systems?

Is the solid magenta light usually a hardware fault or a configuration issue?

Were you able to get Netgear to replace the satellites or entire system?

Does anyone know a reliable way to escalate this in Singapore?

Am I being unreasonable in expecting an on-site inspection for a system at this price?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m particularly keen to hear from other Singapore-based Orbi owners.

Seems the new FW 12.1.11.10 is available on 971/970 orbi for all regions. Went through a manual update as the new FW was not visible through the automatic update. So far so good from my side (971 and 3 970 satellites).

Release Date:
July 28, 2026
Enhancements:
Fixed an IGMP snooping issue that caused satellite connectivity failures, and multi-device connectivity problems.
Fixed unknown reboot issue
Enhance IPv6 connectivity
Known issues:
The Speed Test feature always displays a ping value of 0 ms instead of the actual measured latency. A firmware update to resolve this issue is planned for an upcoming release.

Body: To all fellow users of the Netgear Orbi 970: Spending several thousand US dollars to buy this so-called 'flagship' Mesh Wi-Fi, thinking it would be a once-and-for-all solution, turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare. Netgear's extremely idiotic automated design and locked-down firmware leave us with zero protection in Hong Kong's dense living environment, suffering from continuous environmental interference day after day! To summarize the core problems of this garbage system, it is a complete design flaw and misrepresentation by the manufacturer: 1. Completely lacks manual transmission power control (Tx Power Control): Unable to lower the power ourselves. In Hong Kong's densely packed public housing and private apartments, it constantly clashes with external strong APs and fights for airtime, making it impossible to operate properly. 2. Unable to freely lock bandwidth or channels: 80MHz cannot be precisely controlled manually, and it constantly forces binding to UNII-1 (Channels 36–48). In Hong Kong's urban areas, this frequency band is a complete disaster zone with massive interference! 3. Wired backhaul is ruined just the same: Even after investing heavily in a wired backhaul, the manufacturer still restricts it via firmware, refusing to release limitations to let users freely choose or free up channels (such as UNII-3), forcing all users in Hong Kong to swallow this garbage UNII-1 channel and making it impossible to completely avoid interference. This is definitely not a problem with our local environment; it is that Netgear knows about this flaw yet refuses to improve it, using locked firmware to strip consumers of their right to properly tune their networks! Having already sunk our money into this several-thousand-dollar piece of garbage, are we just going to let them keep ruining our experience? I want to recruit a group of fellow Orbi 970 users who share this experience and are victims: If you are also suffering from this brand's locked power, channel interference, throttling, and refusal to open up features, and want to seriously figure out how to take legal action (such as filing complaints with the Consumer Council, seeking legal consultation, or even exploring collective follow-up), please leave a comment below or contact me. Let's stand up, those of us with knowledge and shared resonance—don't let a multinational corporation treat us like suckers to be exploited! 

So after almost two years of terrible broadband service with intermittent WiFi connections, slow to no internet, pages not loading properly, constant router reboots, I've eventually bought a Netgear Orbi system (over £1,000) which installed without a glitch. All the devices in the house installed first time and easily unlike when we had the EE hardware.

The result: true, reliable 1.6Gb speed on my hardwired PC, 1.6Gb speed on our iPhones etc, seamless coverage throughout the house and garden. 3ms pings. 300Mb connections where there was nothing. The difference is night and day.

So this tells me that the actual service that Openreach is providing has no issues and all the problems are EE's cheap hardware which obviously isn't fit for purpose with their super fast service.

My advice would be if anyone is considering EEs super fast service because they actually need it, just bear in mind that there's a good possibility that it won't give you what you are paying for unless you use someone else's hardware.

If I’m using my Orbi 970s (including router) as simple APs for my ubiquiti setup, do I need to upgrade the FW? Current NG status shows no fw update for satellites, only 971

Hi,

Living in an environment where wifi7 has very poor signal penetration through multiple walls / closets and etc., is there a way to disable wifi7? Thanks.

Edit: As other mentioned, I believe my issue was not really due to wifi 7 but other factors. I just got the router (working as AP) behind Fios' router, which both wifi are running. Also my router's firmware was fairly old. It's also possible I didn't reboot the router after setting it to AP mode. I logged in web admin page, UI was hanging but wifi signal was high / Fios router reocgnizes the device.

1. I disabled radio signals on Fios router.
2. Updated Orbi 970 firmware to latest.
3. Rebooted both Fios and Orbi 970 router + sattelite.
4. Confirmed through Orbi web admin everything was working normally.
5. Signal seems to be well now
6. Now onto the stability test for next few weeks (fingers crossed)

It worked flawlessly when I bought it years ago and now my internet would just drop at least once a week and requires a reboot via unplugging for a min then replugging. Everything is updated to the latest firmware. Is this a sign of the hardware dying?

I have the Orbi RBRE950 with 2 satellites. Everything was working fine but now all of a sudden my app will not connect to my system. I’ve tried unplugging and plugging the router back in, trying different options in the app, nothing works.

Is my only option to do a hard reset? Is this a common issue or is this something bigger?

My system itself is working fine, no internet problems.

I wanted to share this in case someone else runs into the same problem, because I spent way too much time trying to understand what was happening and was getting pretty close to returning my Portal.

I am not a networking expert, so take my explanation of the “why” with a grain of salt. But the before/after difference was dramatic.

My setup:
*Gigabit internet
*Netgear Orbi RBR850 WiFi 6 mesh with two satellites
*PS5 connected via Cat6 Ethernet directly to one of the Orbi satellites
*PS Portal usually used upstairs, connected to another satellite
*Portal connected over 5 GHz

I was trying to play Marathon through Remote Play and the experience was terrible. At the normal 1080p setting, it was playable-ish, but the image looked heavily compressed and full of artifacts.
I then changed the Portal to the newer 1080p High Quality setting. The picture initially looked much better for about 15 seconds, but performance became awful. Constant stuttering, basically unusable, and eventually the Portal would completely lose its connection to my PS5.

What made absolutely no sense to me was that cloud streaming Marathon on the exact same Portal, from the exact same location, looked fantastic. Sharp, high resolution and smooth.
So I started troubleshooting.

First I waited until nobody else in the house was using the network. No difference.

Then I tried Remote Play from my iPhone while lying in the exact same spot in bed. It was perfect. Smooth and high quality.

That really confused me. My PS5 could Remote Play perfectly to my phone through the Orbi network. My Portal could cloud stream perfectly through the Orbi network. But PS5 → Portal Remote Play was garbage.

From there I:

1. Forgot and reconnected the Portal to WiFi
2. Completely restarted the Portal
3. Tried standard vs. 1080p High Quality
   4 Tried the Portal through my phone’s hotspot
4. Created Orbi’s separate IoT network and made it 5 GHz only
5. Connected the Portal to that network right next to the main Orbi router
6. Rebooted my modem and entire Orbi system

Nothing fixed it.

Then I noticed something.

My Orbi app said my firmware was up to date, but my RBR850 and satellites were actually running 7.2.8.2. Netgear had a newer 7.2.8.5 firmware available for the RBR850/RBS850, but for whatever reason the automatic firmware checker wasn’t offering it to me.

So I manually downloaded the firmware from Netgear and updated both satellites first, then the RBR850 router.

After everything came back online, I completely powered down the PS5 and Portal. I started the PS5, started the Portal, connected through Remote Play and…

Holy shit. It worked.
1080p High Quality. Sharp. Smooth. No compression mess. No constant stuttering. No disconnect.

I initially tested beside the basement satellite and it was perfect. Then I walked upstairs to my bedroom while playing. There was one tiny hiccup that I assume was the Portal roaming between Orbi satellites, and then it immediately settled down.
I’ve now played multiple rounds of Marathon from bed and it has remained high resolution and super smooth. Basically the same excellent Remote Play experience I was getting from my phone.

So, if you have an Orbi RBR850/RBS850 system and PS Portal Remote Play sucks even though your network should easily be able to handle it, check the actual firmware version on your router AND satellites. Don’t necessarily trust the Orbi app when it says there are no updates available.
In my case:
7.2.8.2 = Portal Remote Play was borderline unusable
7.2.8.5 = Portal Remote Play works beautifully at 1080p High Quality

I can’t tell you exactly what changed under the hood. My best guess is that something in the older Orbi firmware was causing packet loss, jitter, retransmissions, mesh/backhaul weirdness, or some combination that the Portal’s Remote Play implementation really didn’t like.

Interestingly, my iPhone apparently tolerated whatever was happening just fine, which is one of the reasons this was so confusing.

I’m also not claiming 7.2.8.5 is some universal PS Portal fix. I have a sample size of exactly one house and one increasingly frustrated guy.
But the difference here was night and day, and because the Orbi app itself told me I was already up to date, I figured this was worth posting.

Hopefully this saves somebody else a few hours of wondering why a purpose-built Remote Play device is somehow worse at Remote Play than their phone.

Hey everyone,

My Orbi RBE871 router keeps restarting. I have a few theories being either my Xfinity modem is causing some sort of instability, or the power adaptor could be bad. It randomly happens maybe 2-3 times a day, where the router restarts and boots back up perfectly fine. Parental controls are off. Sorry if I’m not giving enough info, I don’t know much about this stuff.

I’m not a network expert. I have an Orbi RBR750 system running in AP mode with three wired satellites. I have not enabled IPv6 on my Ubiquiti edge router but it’s “available from my ISP”. My network and all devices seem to connect fine and stay connected. What are the advantages of enabling IPv6, or am I just asking for trouble?

Hi all,
I have a couple rental cabins with MR70 and MR 90. Both rock solid. At home, I just replaced my nighthawk with an Orbi 870 with two satellites. It’s connected to a Verizon fixed 5g modem that’s in AP mode. I wanted to use the Orbi for dhcp etc.

Every morning the thing seems messed up. If I try to open 8 web lagers at once, pings timeout and then I’ll see a bunch of 4-5 second responses. The UI is unresponsive. Only a hard reboot works (pulling the plug).

I see a lot of duplicate devices in the device list. 16 Apple TVs, multiple instances of the same laptops, watches etc. there are 30 online devices but almost 150 devices in the list after a clean reboot.

The satellites are in the basement and upstairs. The orbi itself is on the main floor. They are wired together.

I’m up to date on firmware. Looking for some suggestions.

If I ping my RBRE960 from my laptop the speed is very fast. Around 4-6ms but then it can spike as high as 400ms and slowly ratchets down. I've tried it with only one wireless client attached and it does the same thing. My neighbors are far away so wifi interference is not the issue. I turned off all electronics in the room and it still persists. Tried multiple clients across multiple OS's and it persists. I'm stumped. Is this a common Orbi problem?