How do I improve my Wi-Fi? That is the question we get asked quite often and our answer is always the same – with a mesh system and Netgear’s new Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is the best you can buy right now.
Having solid wi-fi at home is so important whether it’s to work or learn from home or to enjoy your favourite streaming services and play competitively online anywhere in your home.
The real issue most Australians face is their NBN-issued modem/router is not always near their most important connected devices.
The modem part is fine, but the reach of the router part is useless unless you’re standing next to it.
A mesh wi-fi system like the new Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is the solution to this common problem.
Whether you live in a long narrow house or multi-storey home, you want your wi-fi to be consistent no matter where you happen to be.
The Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E provides four bands of coverage in your home including a 6Ghz, two 5Ghz and a 2.4Ghz channel.
The Netgear Orbi also creates a dedicated 2.4Ghz band making it even easier to connect your smart devices which operate on this 2.4Ghz band.
Then there are two 5GHz bands, one for the main traffic of the house and the other acting as a dedicated backhaul.
This dedicated 5Ghz channel allows data to flow from the satellites back to the modem so it’s not going to impose on the other channels and cost you any bandwidth or speed.
And the all-new 6Ghz band is reserved for the fastest devices in your home, those that are compatible with the Wi-Fi 6E standard including some of the latest smartphones and laptops.
On this band users will find noticeably faster speeds between the modem and the device to ensure smooth streaming and fast gaming on your network.
In fact, the 6Ghz band has more than twice the bandwidth of 5Ghz and eliminates any interference and congestion so you’re getting impressive speeds for your connected Wi-Fi 6E devices.
Setting up the device is quite simple.
Using the Netgear Orbi app, you connect the main router to your existing modem and the two other Orbi satellites are then positioned around your home.
The units themselves have a slick design but nothing too flashy that won’t fit your home’s decor.
Netgear says you should unplug your modem from the power point before connecting the Orbi main router and plugging in the satellites.
Once everything is connected and powered up, the name of the network and its password, displayed on a sticker on the main router will be seen on your list of networks on your mobile device.
Once connected, the app does the rest including locating your satellites and allowing you to rename the network and set a different password.
Our install took about 20 minutes and that included walking around the house plugging in the new Orbi products and downloading a firmware update for the system.
The router and the satellites also have multi gigabit Ethernet ports for wired connections to nearby devices like smart TVs and gaming consoles.
The Orbi Wi-Fi 6E system can support 16 simultaneous Wi-Fi streams – that’s good to know especially when you have people in your household streaming on their own devices and different smart TVs.
The Orbi main router has support for up to 10Gbps internet speeds so it can future proof your home network.
At the time of writing our review, we were hoping that our NBN fibre upgrade would be complete and offer up to 1Gbps speeds through our Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) connection.
And that’s the speed you would get throughout your entire home thanks to the mesh network created by the Orbi system.
Currently our NBN plan is 100Mbps down and 40Mbps up and our speed tests showed we were getting every bit of that speed we were already paying for.
Actually, we were getting more than 100Mbps speeds when we did three separate tests literally in the three furthest corners of our home.
The other great benefit of a system like the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is the capacity to connect more than 70 devices – many of us are already there with the popularity of smart home and security products.
The movement of data within your home – separate to the sheer speed of the internet coming into your home – is what makes the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E a great choice to be able to view simultaneous 4K and eventually 8K streams in our homes smoothly and without buffering.
The system can provide wall-to-wall coverage for homes up to 840 square metres in size and you can increase that coverage with the addition of more satellites.
The Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is not cheap at $2,799 but customers need to remember there are three Wi-Fi 6E routers in the pack.
The cost of a single Wi-Fi 6E router is about $1,100 so there is actually some value with three at less than $3,000.
VERDICT
The Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is the best mesh system you can buy right now. If who want a better and more reliable wi-fi experience to enjoy your entertainment, remain connected and to be able work and learn effectively – the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E should be considered as an investment to ensure that quality today and into the future.
