It’s long been known that the broadband speed many companies advertise isn’t likely to be the speed you get from your home network. And one of the big contributing factors to a loss of speed is bad Wi-Fi.
Well, Netgear is aiming to fix at least that part of the broadband puzzle with its new Wi-Fi product, Orbi, which the company claims will deliver high-speed Wi-Fi throughout your house.
Orbi is made up of a router and a ‘satellite’ and is said to eliminate so-called Wi-Fi dead zones by blanketing your property in Wi-Fi.
It’s simply a case of connecting the Orbi router to your broadband line as normal, and placing the satellite in the centre of your house to create a high-performance Wi-Fi network.
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These devices use Tri-band Wi-Fi which works by emitting two 5GHz signals as well as the standard 2.4GHz signal, and has featured on previous Netgear routers.
But this time, the second 5GHz band is closed off to create a Wi-Fi connection only Orbi and the satellites can use, allowing the other two Wi-Fi bands to be fully dedicated signals for all connected devices across an entire home.
Netgear says
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And because the dedicated connection deals solely with communication between the Orbi devices, it means the router’s Wi-Fi bandwidth for other connected devices isn’t affected by providing the extended signal to the satellite.
That means you’ll get 802.11ac Wi-Fi at up to 3Gbps on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrums dedicated to whatever devices you want to connect to your home network.
Orbi comes with a load of advanced router features too, such as IPv6, Dynamic DNS, port forwarding, parental controls, and access point mode.
It’s also been design to be easily set up, with a simple browser-based installation that can be accessed through your phone or computer.
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Placing the satellite has also been made easy, with a glowing halo on the top of the device that glows magenta, amber, or blue to indicate whether you’re in a good spot for the satellite to work properly or not.
Orbi will be available this October for £349.99 in the UK, which seems very expensive.
But if it can deliver on Netgear’s promises, it might just be a worthwhile investment – especially if you’re trying to cover a large area with your Wi-Fi network.
We’ll have a final verdict on Orbi once we’re able to get our hands on the system for review, so stay tuned.
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Are you looking forward to Orbi? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
