Orbi 970 Series Quad-Band WiFi 7 Mesh Network System (RBE973S), Router + 2 Satellite Extenders, Security Features, Up to 27Gbps, Covers Up to 10,000 sq. ft., 200 Devices, 10 Gig Internet Port

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.

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 was introduced to NETGEAR equipment 40 yeas ago offshore as an automation tech and have used it personally for many years. I replaced a cheaper mesh system with this unit for various reasons but mostly due to frequent reboots to restore service, equipment disconnects and difficulty connecting the satellite unit. The Orbi connected without issues, online access is very functional, my signal strength improved in my shed and nothing has dropped out for the last couple of weeks. NETGEAR equipment is more expensive but solid. I should have stuck with my experience instead of cheeping out!

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.

Although the speed of this WiFi mesh network is great, the reliability and glitches are big detractors. I purchased two of the Orbi 970s for coverage of my 3500sqft home with AT&T Fiber 2gb/s. For context, I was upgrading from the standard issue AT&T hub and WiFi extender. The set up process for the Orbi was fine, but not without hiccups, including an initial botched setup secondary to the Orbi app timing out, I was impressed by the speed of my new WiFi network - clocking in at close to 2gb/s was mind blowing. However, my joy was short lived. The first issue I began discovering was that the range did not reach as far as advertised - it would not reach several of my outdoor Ring cameras that the standard issue AT&T router could. So I played around with moving the satellite Orbi and even physically moved my Ring cameras closer to my house on my backyard fence. Eventually I got it all working, only to have it start dropping cameras on the front of my house. Ugh. Frustrated I decided to purchase a Ring Chime Pro to serve as a connection strength booster for my cameras. Good - it was finally all up and running Or so I thought. The Orbi now keeps dropping my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. And the devices will not reconnect unless I turn off WiFi and then turn it back on. And this consistently happens several times a day. And it occurs when I’m not walking around, so it’s not like the Orbi is trying to transfer from one satellite to another. I’ve tried everything - turning off private WiFi address, reconfiguring IP addresses, resetting network settings, rebooting the network (yes it’s the most up to date Orbi firmware). Imagine the frustration when you are downloading a Mac system update and the internet drops for no reason and creates a whole mess of frozen MacBook bliss. Been there. Imagine trying to browse the internet and webpages randomly stop loading. Yup, been there too. It’s very frustrating and happens without warning - my stress level is as high as this Orbi’s price tag. Ok I’m being dramatic, but you get the point - this is all very frustrating for such an expensive system. And it’s made worse because I just recently set up an Eero mesh network for my mom and hers has been working flawlessly. Not only was it easier to set up, but the performance and reliability has been superior. Netgear is an old company and I think we are seeing an example that older is not always better. Needless to say, I’ve decided to order myself an Eero. Unfortunately I am out of the return window for the Orbi as I kept trying to fiddle with it, changing settings on my devices, etc. So I’ll be eating the cost of the Orbi. Please learn from my mistakes.

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.

I bought used like new one satellite did not work, but they gave me a credit for it. And it turned out I didn't need it anyhow, because just 2, had 3 times the range of my old router and satellites very speedy but get the used like new saves you like 500.00

Lightning fast with rock solid connections and huge coverage. Only four stars because the system needs to be rebooted on a fairly regular basis when speeds drop off. This has improved recently, so maybe a firmware update addressed this, but speeds still drop off on occasion.