Add-on Orbi Wall Plug Satellite (RBW30)

This little booster works great as part of the Orbi system. Orbi it's self is a great mesh router. I stacked Orbi up against Google's Mesh router and found the Orbi worked better for me. Google kept locking up and crashing. Those were early days and things may have changed. For sure Orbi has been busy. Orbi has recently upgraded their firmware which improves things quite a bit. Previously the main Orbi had to be in a central spot and all satellite boosters within range of the main router. Now each satellite can chain to the nearest satellite rather than the hub. This can extend coverage quite some distance although I don't think it's designed to run WiFi all across the neighborhood. I don't know exactly what would keep 3 satellites from sending your data in a great big circle rather than out onto the internet but I assume somebody thought of that and in any case, it appears to work very well. But back to the item in question - this booster. It's small and nice looking. There's not much to be done other than run an app on your cell phone to add the satellite. After a bit of blinking a blue ring appears. Then it goes out and you forget all about Orbi forever. Done. Simple as that. If your Orbi ever has a problem the ring will light back up and turn orange or purple but that's never happened for me. Otherwise you just have a white brick stuck in the wall and better WiFi - which is exactly what I wanted. There are only two negatives with this booster. First, it doesn't have an Ethernet jack. For that you need the larger models. Second, it is supposed to give you less coverage over the larger Orbi satellites. I can't confirm that - to me they seem about the same. But I'll take Orbi at their word. I guess that's why this smaller unit is a bit cheaper. In my case, I bought this item to replace one of the larger Orbi satellites because I needed to move the larger satellite to another location. As long as you keep the two limitations in mind I don't think there's any real downside to this device. It seems rock solid. Internet in the back bedroom is just fine for what we need. Fast enough to stream Netflix on a laptop or tablet. Perfect coverage for browsing or email. So long as you don't need an Ethernet jack and you don't live in a gigantic mansion, this booster is a nice add-on to the Orbi line.

Using the Orbi App, this thing was too easy to set up. Plug in, follow prompts, press buttons, done. That easy. Got two of them and they both connected that easy.

I have had several wireless systems in my home, and Orbi is by far the best. Yes, it is probably the most expensive of what is available. However it is extremely easy to set up and monitor, it looks great, and provides extremely good coverage throughout our home. Furthermore, it provides far greater speeds than the built in wireless in our cable modem. Basically it sends out the native speed of the cable modem. This beats hands down every other system I have ever owned. Expensive? Well, you get what you pay for and this is something that is used multiple times every day for many years.

This replaced a Nighthawk router that I had that was, I believe, an AC1900. I had no issues at all with that router and the range was great. The only issue was that it wouldn't quite reach to my detached shop. No real surprise there. I tried buying an extender (also Netgear) but the speed via the extender out in my shop was horrible. Plus it wrecked havoc on my wireless network in the house with drops. I ended up disconnecting the extender permanently and just did without wireless in the shop for a bit. Fast forward a while and I read about the Orbi units. I picked up the Orbi RBR50 router and the RBS50 satellite that it came with. I bought the Orbi because of the dedicated 5Ghz backhaul and still having the other two bands free for device traffic and you can daisy chain the satellites and they will use one another to communicate back to the main router. Pretty cool. There's actually several companies doing this technology right now, but I think Netgear is doing it better (in theory) with the dedicated backhaul. You can also do ethernet backhaul with these. None of the other devices on the market right now has a true dedicated backhaul like the Orbi. Anyway, I still wasn't quite getting a strong enough signal in the shop when I got everything set up. I put the RBS50 satellite in a closet that is closest to the shop. The signal was there from my phone and laptop, but not quite strong enough to be reliable. So I figured I'd pick up this RBW30 unit because the radio is probably quite a bit stronger than my devices as would probably have a good connection. Amazon lightning shipped this thing out to me during the holiday season. I got it on a Friday when I didn't expect it until mid-week the following week. Kudos to Amazon. When I get this thing, I plug it in and get it synced in my house. I then take it out to the shop and plug it in there. It goes through the boot sequence and gets connected. I start to do some tests and I'm pulling 400MB from my phone. Awesome. Then I test internet speeds and I'm getting over 50mbps (I have a 50mbps plan). So far so good. Then problems start happening. My Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is getting dropped from wifi randomly. Also, my devices are staying "stuck" to the RBS50 and not connecting to the RBW30. I go online and do some research and there are lots of complaints about firmware issues and satellites dropping signals and Android phones having connectivity problems. Fast forward through some testing and now my devices are connecting to the RBW30 again, but it's hit and miss some days. I could have upgraded the firmware, but there were people saying that it was worse than the older one so I was real hesitant to do that. Fast forward a week or two and I notice that a newer firmware was available. I figure why not and start the upgrade process on the main router (should have upgraded satellites first, so remember that). After I upgraded the main router, I couldn't get the RBS50 satellite to update. I had to power cycle it so it re-synced in order for the firmware update to take. After that it was fine. I then brought the RBW30 back into the house from the shop and upgraded it. I wanted to make sure the connection was super reliable while I was upgrading firmware. Turns out I was a few versions behind on the RBW30, but I got it upgraded. Knock on wood...my Android phone connectivity issues have disappeared and all seems well. My devices are connecting to the RBW30 out in the shop just fine and I'm getting great speed from everywhere (including the shop). I'm wondering if the router needs some "therapeutic" reboots every once in a while. I could schedule those on my Nighthawk but, for whatever reason, the Orbi firmware doesn't have that. Maybe in a future firmware update. For now, the latest firmware (2.1.2.18 as of this writing) is working great. In short, I'd recommend the Orbi stuff IF you need the extended range. It's a bit pricey, but if you have a large house or a couple of buildings on your property like I do, it may be worth it. So far it has been worth it for me. Minus one star for the issues encountered.

Last year I purchased a new Orbi router and satellite extender. The satellite extender stopped working but the router worked fine. Not wanting to replace both I saw this satellite extender for a reasonable price. I reached out to seller who promptly answered my questions and confirmed the satellite extender was compatible with my router. Love that I received my order sooner than expected. Tried adding the satellite extender using the Orbi app multiple times and each time it said satellite not found. I had begun to think the extender was defective until I read the instructions. Seller indicated there is a glitch in the app and they were right. As soon as reattempted to add the satellite, saw the color change to solid dark blue, I logged out of my account, logged back in and saw the satellite was added. I could not be happier with my purchase or seller's responsiveness to my questions.

works perfectly with my existing rbk 40 setup . 💯% satisfied.

Totally unusable the extender was a USA version which is incompatible with the UK systems - do not use this reseller.

Honestly, when it works it’s great. It rarely works. iPhones, Sony TV, iPad, all drop regularily. I setup a wireless bridge with a new asus router and it just won’t connect to AC only 2.4. Log is full of password rejections but the password is correct. It’s too bad, I really wanted this to work.

Buen producto lamentablemente el q me Llego solo funciono 1 mes despues empezo a fallar y no cumplia su funcion se solucionó devolviendolo y adquiriendo otro nuevo !!!

Feliz con Orbi, es muy dificil que tenga problemas con mi WIFI en casa