NETGEAR's Orbi 2.0 Software Release has Mesh Daisy Chain Functionality

[bobsilver]

Netgear has released the 1st part of a multi-part staged release of the Orbi firmware. Netgear has provided the long awaited Daisy Chain - which allows Orbi Satellites to talk to each other. This will allow Orbi to be used in large installations where the router cannot be placed in the middle of the satellite placements. This will be staged rollout over the next weeks. But for those looking to download now see the links below.

Of note the ethernet backhaul is not yet released. The Mesh Daisy Chain was the prerequisite. Ethernet backhaul will follow at a later date.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/OrbiOS-2-0-availability/m-p/1368730#M13446

OrbiOS 2.0 availability


Announcing the availability for OrbiOS 2.0.

This release includes 2 community requested features that we're happy to deliver:

1) Daisy Chain - which allows Orbi Satellites to talk to each other. This extends the reach of the Orbi system, especially in long or tall floorplans.

2) Improvements to the Attached Device page, which will now show which Orbi each device is connected to, and over which frequency (2.4 or 5GHz). This page also shows how each Orbi Satellite's upstream Orbi is.

3) Due to field feedback, we've brought back the Radio Transmit Power control

4) Allows you to rename devices & your Orbi Satellites via orbilogin

It also has many bug fixes and incremental improvements



We will be pushing this firmware through auto-firmware upgrade over the next several days, but if you want to manually upgrade, download the firmware and upgrade through orbilogin.com -> Advanced -> Administration -> Firmware Upgrade

Here are the links.

RBR50: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5q79iezv7ntbnv/RBR50-V2.0.0.72.zip?dl=1

RBS50: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rx8pjvtmwa4zcdo/RBS50-V2.0.0.72.zip?dl=1

RBR40: https://www.dropbox.com/s/67p7fj34lykhdkz/RBR40-V2.0.0.54.img?dl=1

RBS40: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcf0ao1zwy5mmkc/RBS40-V2.0.0.54.img?dl=1

RBW30; https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymmcfbywc21s27m/RBW30-V2.0.0.34_1.0.21.chk?dl=1


Bob Silver
Netgear Product Advisor

 

[pete y testing]

getting reports from users suggesting this fixes a lot of other issues as well , the new attached devices list give a far better overview and insight to what is connected to what and what band

3) Due to field feedback, we've brought back the Radio Transmit Power control

and thats a wise move indeed , getting the perfect setup is all about balance and overlap , you want enough backhaul sync but without the fronthaul overlapping and causing roaming issues

as many might know i have been apart of the beta testing ( volunteer ) with this unit for a long time and its been quite some effort to get it to where it is now , big thumbs up to the orbi dev team and the band of beta volunteers who worked tirelessly on flushing out the best in the orbi

pete

 

[njweb]

Hoping this new firmware (V2.0.0.72) works well (mid afternoon wifi connectivity stopped, while I was away, as reported by my Smart thermostats losing connectivity).
When I got home almost worked right from an internet connectivity perspective (pages either taking ages to load or failing with an error message).
Ultimately rebooting my cable modem (and Orbi) resolved the issue (for now); hopefully it was due to 2.0.0.72 being downloaded this afternoon (not sure when it was installed, but that is my suspicion as the cable modem - Motorola MB8600 has also been rock solid since I bought it).

The prior Orbi firmware ( V1.12.0.18) was really solid in terms of performance and wifi stability (owned Orbi 1 month using this same firmware without any issues / disconnects).

Only time will tell.

Also I would like to know

1) Is the 'Daisy-Chain Topology' feature smart enough to only connect one Orbi satellite to another Orbi satellite (i.e. to actually use daisy chaining) when the Orbi router to Orbi satellite connectivity is not optimal in terms of RSSI / SNR etc.)?
Netgear has not confirmed this yet.
If it is not 'smart' enough to pick the optimal connection between router and satellites and automatically connects satellite to satellite when this setting is enabled, then I will leave the setting disabled since the "hub and spoke" topology (or star topology - both satellites connected to the Orbi router, as opposed to the 2 satellites being connected to each other) is better in my case since the Orbi router is on the main level (1st floor) of our house and the satellites are in the basement and 2nd floor.

2) Now that I have 2.0.0.72, I have enabled all of the following features; does anyone know if any of the 3 are better left disabled?

Enable Implicit BEAMFORMING - Boosts WiFi speed, reliability, & range for all mobile devices
Enable MU-MIMO
Enable Fast Roaming

Netgear Support did state on the forum to experiment with Fast Roaming. They said it supposedly could, in some situations, potentially cause (frequent, albeit intentional) disconnects if two Orbi units are providing similar signal to the client (wireless device) and the Fast Roaming could flip back and forth when the RSSI the client is seeing for one Orbi improves versus the other Orbi.
Has anyone played around with Fast Roaming?

 

[pete y testing]

is better in my case since the Orbi router is on the main level (1st floor) of our house and the satellites are in the basement and 2nd floor.

then you are better to leave it in star topology anyway with daisy chain disabled , and now its not intelligent and will get confused unless your setup is

orbi router ---wifi---orbi sat --- wifi --- orbi sat

Enable Implicit BEAMFORMING - Boosts WiFi speed, reliability, & range for all mobile devices
Enable MU-MIMO

leave them on

Enable Fast Roaming

enable this if your clients seem to be hanging onto the other node to long , eg not roaming well

 

[njweb]

Peter Thanks for confirming my line of thinking regarding enabling Fast Roaming if needed. I was wondering if people were getting potential disconnects with it enabled due to the scenario where a client is right between two satellites and the system keeps flipping back and forth.
In my case they seem to be shifting quickly enough even before the feature was implemented in the latest firmware.

To be safe I will leave it with daisy chaining disabled,unless I add another (3rd) satellite in the future, although or now it is not necessary. Ven then,
Not sure how throughput

then you are better to leave it in star topology anyway with daisy chain disabled , and now its not intelligent and will get confused unless your setup is

orbi router ---wifi---orbi sat --- wifi --- orbi sat




leave them on



enable this if your clients seem to be hanging onto the other node to long , eg not roaming well

Thanks for confirming my line of thinking regarding enabling Fast Roaming if needed. I was wondering if people were getting potential disconnects with it enabled due to the scenario where a client is right between two satellites and the system keeps flipping back and forth.
In my case they seem to be shifting quickly enough even before the feature was implemented in the latest firmware.

To be safe I will leave it with daisy chaining disabled,unless I add another (3rd) satellite in the future, although or now it is not necessary. Even then, I am not sure how throughput would be impacted.

 

[Hydro]

Enable Implicit BEAMFORMING - Boosts WiFi speed, reliability, & range for all mobile devices

I have this unchecked (as I have for a long time before too)... My understanding is that "implicit" beamforming is for older (non-ac) devices, and I don't have any of those that move around the house.

I haven't ever had any connection issues on my non-ac devices, so I figure there's no point in enabling it.

Enable MU-MIMO

I had this enabled in past f/w's (and had no known issues), but I now have it unchecked, since I do not have multiple MU-MIMO devices. Plus, I think MU-MIMO is a bunch of useless mumbo-jumbo at this stage anyway, so why bother turning it on.

Enable Fast Roaming

I had this enabled initially, but was getting a lot of drops on my wifi-calling (I have an iPhone SE), so I now have it disabled. I haven't had a chance to test much wifi-calling since I disabled it, but I don't usually wander around my house very much on calls, so I'm OK with my phone being "sticky" once it's connected.

My house is not huge (most of it's space has at some overlap between my Router and Sat), so I think I'm actually better off without a feature like FR for my phone (thus preventing constant jumping back-n-forth between my R and S).

Not sure if this is related, but I lurk on the Eero forum on Reddit, and Eero has been having issues (still not solved) with their "fast roaming" feature and iPhones in particular. So my guess is that any issues with FR is as much on Apple right now as Netgear or Eero etc, but who knows.

 

[drsox]

Has anyone any experience with Spanning Tree problems with a mixed Wired and Orbi connected networks ?

I have 5 clusters of stuff all linked with 5 Powerline adaptors. Two of them also have Apple Airport Extremes running in Bridge Mode i.e. as WiFi access points. One then feeds into a BT Smarthub.

I've just ordered an Orbi system from Amazon with two AC3000 units to replace the AEs. Now there's going to be two paths available between the two mixed Powerline/WiFi clusters. This can lead to problems unless the bits understand STP or RSTP. (IME). I could replace all 5 Powerlines with Orbis, but I think 5x AC3000's are going to be overkill (would they actually coexist in a sub 2000 sqft house ?).

The bits arrive tomorrow so testing will proceed.

Thx

PS I also have a 5 node wireless Sonos system.

 

[thiggins]

Don't assume either powerline or Orbi supports STP. This is consumer grade gear.

I suggest you arrange your network to use single paths between nodes.

More is not necessarily better in WiFi. Too many APs in too small a space will compete for bandwidth and interfere with each other. Remember, all Orbis share a common 5 GHz backhaul. They will also use 2.4 GHz if they can't reach each other on 5. But bandwidth will be reduced since 2.4 GHz is only two stream vs. four stream on normal 5 GHz high band backhaul.

 

[drsox]

Cheers. Some other questions if you don't mind.

1. Did you find much real world differences between the RBK50 and the RBK40. The AC3000 vs AC2200 sounds a lot, but in practice ?

2. Does the range extender (RBW30) run at full rate when linking two units or is it a bottleneck when connecting 2x RBK50's ?

Not much I can do about simplifying the physical layout of the network - the devices are where they are for a reason. Two are wired clusters around the 2x TVs. One is the location of the BT Line-in point (wrong side of the house). One is the Study (might be able to get away with just a RBW30 here). And the other is where the NASs are clustered (so as to not hear them).

WAF says no loose LAN cables and I can't run CAT6 like I did in the previous house. So it's either Powerline + WiFi (as now) or hopefully Mesh WiFi + just the one Powerline hop.

I can probably solve STP by putting Netgear GS108tV2 switches in front of the Orbi units (I have several).

So I might be able to make do with 3x Orbi RBK40 units and 2x Range extenders plus one Powerline hop to/from the BT socket (where the BT hub is). Max data rate from Powerline is more than I get from BT anyway (~40Mbps).

 

[pete y testing]

1. Did you find much real world differences between the RBK50 and the RBK40. The AC3000 vs AC2200 sounds a lot, but in practice ?

certainly much faster speed over the ethernet backhaul for ethernet connected clients as the rbk50 is 1733M and the rbk40 is 867M

So I might be able to make do with 3x Orbi RBK40 units and 2x Range extenders

tbh i would start with just 2 x orbi and see how the wifi performs and then look at what else is needed