Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh review: A powerful—and expensive—Wi-Fi mesh system

Best Prices Today: Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh System

The latest entrant within the Orbi line is a mighty machine. This quad-band AXE11000 mesh router has a mixed potential throughput of 10.8Gbps and has 12 beamforming antennas, a 10Gbps WAN port, a 2.5Gbps LAN port, and never solely guarantees, however delivers wi-fi speeds properly in extra of 1Gbps. It’s sooner than any web plan accessible in most markets, when you have the gear to take benefit. And you’d higher have that gear, as a result of at $1,500 for a three-pack, that is the most costly client mesh package deal in the marketplace.  

Wes Davis / IDG

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: The {hardware} 

If you’ve solely ever seen photos of an Orbi router (as I had, previous to this evaluation), you can be astounded once you first open the product field—the factor is large. For higher or for worse, although, most of that bulk is vertical, so its footprint is mercifully small, even when its 11-inch top limits the cabinets you may put it on. And whereas it undoubtedly stands out like a sore thumb, the air freshener–stylish motif makes it fairly inoffensive to have a look at. Beyond the aforementioned ethernet ports, there are not any different ports or actually any buttons to talk of. As I discussed above, the first router has a 10Gbps WAN port, a 2.5Gbps LAN port, and three extra gigabit ports. There are not any USB ports, which appears like an odd omission. The two satellite tv for pc models every have a single 2.5Gbps LAN and three gigabit ethernet ports, and equally don’t have any USB ports. The energy provide is, like with most routers, exterior, and it’s a chunky brick, however most will most likely have the ability to match it onto an influence strip with out kicking the rest off. 

Wes Davis / IDG

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: The setup 

Setting up the Orbi 6E and pairing its satellites is a course of that may both be fast and simple, or fairly concerned, relying on which subscription mannequin you go along with. The no-subscription path takes you thru connecting your satellites and organising your SSID, and gives ideas and methods in the course of the self-configuring components. It’s not as quick as another mesh techniques will be, however I used to be nonetheless in a position to get the entire community up and operating in somewhat greater than 10 minutes with out signing up for subscriptions—you’ll need to put aside nearer to 15 to 20 minutes should you select to make use of these companies.  

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Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: Managing your community 

Once arrange, administration of the system is achieved by both the Orbi app or the net interface. As is typical, the cellphone app is the extra user-friendly expertise, with a easy grid structure for accessing varied settings or viewing info. If you need to view all of the gadgets linked to your account, create profiles to assign them to (extra on this later), replace your SSID, toggle visitor and IoT networks, or view easy community visitors metrics, the app is the place you’ll need to flip, for probably the most half. It’s additionally the place you’ll need to mess with all the safety and parental controls, should you’re paying for Netgear’s subscription companies. Unsurprisingly, you may’t configure separate SSIDs for the two.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands—no less than, not in a manner that’s self-evident, and never particularly within the app. Only within the internet interface are you able to arrange a separate 6GHz band, and should you set the IoT community to 2.4GHz, you’ve basically achieved separating that band. That’s greater than you are able to do with a whole lot of mesh techniques, although it’s annoying that it’s important to deploy some lateral considering to get it accomplished. Router configuration by the app will be achieved each regionally and, when you have the “Anywhere Access” characteristic turned on, remotely. For most individuals, the app would be the solely manner you work together with the mesh system. 

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For extra technical administration of the community, many customers will need to flip to the net interface, which will be accessed by typing its native IP deal with within the browser. Here, you’re introduced with a pair of tabs labeled “Basic” and “Advanced.” For the previous, your choices are usually the identical as these you’ll discover within the app (minus Netgear Armor and parental controls), whereas the latter is the place you’ll deal with issues like organising static identifiers on your gadgets—say you need a explicit one to maintain the identical IP deal with on a regular basis—configuring VLAN tagging, pointing your community to a customized Domain Name Server, or DNS, and extra. There’s additionally a community visitors meter, nevertheless it’s no extra detailed than that discovered within the smartphone app, exhibiting general information consumption in your whole community, with no perception into which gadgets are chargeable for the majority of consumption.  

Feature-wise, in each the smartphone app and the net UI, the Netgear Orbi is somewhat sparse once you don’t account for the subscription-only choices. There are some customary configuration choices, however usually, the expertise finally ends up feeling extra about pushing you towards Netgear’s subscriptions than offering a top quality consumer expertise. 

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: IoT community 

There is nothing new a couple of separate visitor community, however what about an Internet of Things (IoT) community? Netgear affords this with the Orbi 6E, nevertheless it’s not essentially what you’d anticipate. The IoT community shouldn’t be a completely separate community—gadgets on it will probably see others in your main community and vice versa—and has no particular security measures. Instead, it exists as a method to simplify setup of sensible gadgets like gentle bulbs, movement sensors, and extra, by giving them an SSID that’s all the time on the two.4GHz band (which many sensible house gadgets completely use) and makes use of solely WPA2 authentication, somewhat than WPA3, which might trigger compatibility points with some sensible house gadgets. You can configure this community to make use of WPA3 and 5GHz Wi-Fi as properly, if you wish to. 

This makes for better comfort, however I don’t know that it’s made clear that this community isn’t essentially a safer possibility, which ought to be high of thoughts for most individuals utilizing a whole lot of sensible house gadgets. Regardless, it’s a cool thought, and though it’s usually safer to decide on a non-IP-based sensible house gadget (suppose Z-Wave, Zigbee, or Thread), many people, myself included, nonetheless have some Wi-Fi sensible house gadgets hanging out on our networks. 

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: Subscriptions 

Netgear desires you to purchase extra than simply its router—it desires you to get in on its companies. And boy, have they got companies! You can simply drop an extra $340 in year-long subscriptions and one-time purchases. Thanks to a free 30-day trial that comes with the system, I attempted out the 2 most outstanding choices: Netgear Armor and Smart Parental Controls.  

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Netgear Armor has so much in widespread with the likes of Eero’s Secure+. It comes with malware safety, community scanning for dangers, and it reveals customers a breakdown on blocked threats. Where it differs from the Amazon model’s router is in offering a extra lively function for the consumer, with extra technical suggestions on potential points. After scanning your community, Armor will establish safety dangers and assign a 1 to 100 rating to your community, the place 100 is safer. Factors impacting your rating will be vulnerabilities—the three Wemo plugs I’ve had ceaselessly, for instance, had been recognized as doable vectors for a denial-of-service assault—or simply what number of gadgets haven’t but put in the Bitdefender safety app. It principally judged this proper, though it stored asking me so as to add the app to my HomePods, and there was no strategy to inform it they aren’t what it thinks they’re. 

Netgear Armor additionally provides you free entry to a restricted model of Bitdefender’s VPN service for as much as 10 gadgets, with 200MB of each day information encrypted and routed by Bitdefender’s servers—throughout my time with this, I seen a few of that attribute VPN slowdown, notably after I requested my HomePods to do something that required authentication by my cellphone. I additionally seen my iPhone having a whole lot of hassle connecting and staying linked to the community when the VPN was turned on. I’ve had comparable points up to now with different VPNs and my iPhone, so it’s onerous to say whether or not that is Bitdefender’s fault, the router’s, or the cellphone (or simply a mixture of all of them, which is as possible as something). It’s simple to bump up towards that 200MB information restrict although, so should you’d wish to improve to an infinite plan, that’s one other $50 per 12 months, which is definitely fairly reasonably priced as VPNs go, notably with so many gadgets lined. 

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Smart Parental Controls is the opposite large subscription. Similar to Apple’s built-in Screen Time software program, this $70-per-year characteristic permits you to set cut-off dates and content material filters (labeled “child,” “teen,” “adult,” or “none”) on a per-profile foundation. This permits dad and mom to each monitor and prohibit the apps and web sites their youngsters use and see, in addition to view makes an attempt to connect with blocked websites or reward their children with additional time as they see match. 

Going additional, selecting your content material filter stage is as concerned or as hands-off as you need it to be. Each profile has pre-configured settings for youngster, teen, and grownup filters, with lists that can help you toggle sure apps or web sites that you simply suppose your child can deal with. There are additionally toggles for protected search and YouTube Restricted Mode, which is a model of YouTube that ostensibly blocks delicate content material. Finally, you may set bedtime and time for supper web restrictions per profile, to the consternation of many children, I’m positive. 

The final thing you should purchase is an prolonged guarantee—this boosts the {hardware} guarantee from one 12 months to 2 for $50, whereas paying $120 will prolong Netgear’s tech help from the preliminary complementary 90-day interval to a full two years. The prolonged guarantee possibility is a shrewd one, nonetheless, and I’m all the time somewhat miffed about corporations solely providing tech help for such quick durations of time.  

Overall, the subscription suite is a blended bag. Netgear Armor is roughly according to what different corporations are providing, each because it pertains to pricing and options; nonetheless, Smart Parental Controls are, frankly, largely options that ought to both be rolled in with Armor or provided at no cost. It’s a pleasant characteristic set, however once you’re spending the sort of cash that might purchase you a full-fledged desktop laptop—and a fairly good one, at that—it appears like a slap within the face to have a characteristic like this be hidden behind a paywall.   

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: Performance 

Now we come to the meat and potatoes of the evaluation: efficiency. Just how did this mesh system do? Comparing this technique to a daily mesh system, whereas helpful for contextualizing what this technology of routers can do, feels nearly unfair, so most of this part will concentrate on the efficiency of one other dear three-pack of Wi-Fi 6E mesh system: the Linksys Atlas Max 6E.  

I used three gadgets in my testing: an M1 MacBook Air with a Plugable 2.5GbE USB-C community adapter, a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (which was lent to us by Netgear for the aim of testing the 6GHz band), and a 2019 Lenovo Yoga with an Intel AX201 wi-fi networking card. Throughput checks had been carried out utilizing the community testing software program iPerf 3 on each the Lenovo and Apple laptops, in addition to an app referred to as Magic Perf on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. I ran a number of consecutive TCP switch checks at every testing location, switching over to the Yoga for 5GHz and a pair of.4GHz testing, then averaged them collectively to get the pace, introduced right here in Mbps. The MacBook Air served because the server gadget, whereas the Samsung cellphone and Lenovo laptop computer had been my consumer gadgets. 

One of the issues that instantly sparked my curiosity about this mesh system was the very fact it’s a quad-band system—one of many large drawbacks of a Wi-Fi 6E system is that, typically, in gaining a 6GHz band, tri-band routers lose their second, higher-throughput 5GHz band. From the consumer standpoint, that is nonetheless true of the Orbi 6E Mesh system, because it makes use of its second 5GHz band not as an extra entry level for the consumer, however as a devoted backhaul, that means it’s an information connection solely shared between the mesh factors—some mesh techniques, reminiscent of Eero’s, choose a dynamic backhaul, the place the band getting used adjustments based mostly on native situations. Which is finest shouldn’t be for me to say, and my solely direct comparability is with the 2nd-generation Eero Pro and Eero routers I exploit at house. The Orbi fully crushes Eero’s system, because it ought to, given the five-year gulf between them. 

Brad Chacos/IDG

Out of the gate, the Wi-Fi 6E contest wasn’t even shut. Netgear’s Orbi, with the appropriate {hardware} speaking to it, is extremely quick for this point in time. Transfer checks between the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra—which was lent to me by Netgear for testing, because it’s one in every of few smartphones in the marketplace with a 6GHz radio—to the hardwired MacBook Air averaged over a gigabit per second in my eating room (reaching 1,610Mbps on one check), the place the router was positioned, in addition to my entrance room, about 15 toes away with no bodily impediments. Only two areas dropped under 900Mbps, and each had been in my basement, the place I nonetheless managed to get nearly 600Mbps switch speeds in a single location, and 86Mbps within the different, far more difficult location (this spot has the worst sign in the home because of being close to a number of water pipes and AC ducts). The Linksys Atlas Max 6E by no means broke 900Mbps in any examined location on the 6Ghz band, with its highest pace being 892Mbps when the consumer gadget was inside 5 toes of it. The Orbi, at worst, was 6.5 p.c sooner than the Linksys, whereas each different check had it acting from 30 p.c higher as much as 70 p.c higher. 

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

As testing moved to the 5GHz band, the story shifted, with the 2 performing fairly equally in 5GHz Wi-Fi 6 checks, and the Linksys mesh taking the lead in old style Wi-Fi 5 checks on the identical band.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

Wi-Fi 6 testing on the two.4GHz band continued this pattern, with Linksys’ mesh system besting the Orbi in most areas. It was even worse for the Orbi when utilizing the traditional—however nonetheless in use by most sensible house IoT gadgets immediately—802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) protocol, the place the Linksys beat the Orbi in all examined areas. 

How sensible are these variations, although? The Orbi system is clearly superior in 6GHz efficiency, however issues had been a lot nearer on the 5GHz and a pair of.4GHz bands, and the winner right here might simply flip on a unique day. Benchmarks are an necessary piece of the puzzle however, in fact, they solely inform a part of the story.  

In the day-to-day, the Orbi was unnoticeable, in a great way. No matter the place I used to be in my house, I by no means felt like there was a selected lifeless zone or troublesome spot, other than in my alley, the place I often should disconnect from my community to toggle my Wi-Fi storage door opener. Outside of that, media streamed with out buffering, sensible house gadgets had been responsive, and I merely didn’t discover the router in each day use. I might say the identical for Linksys’ community, however the one essential distinction is within the habits of my sensible house gadgets when the community goes down—with the Linksys, sure repeat offenders had hassle reconnecting, however I by no means had this problem with Netgear’s system. 

Wireless gaming was usually clean—throughout concentrated testing in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which I exploit for testing due to the developer console instruments that allow you to view stats like body fee and ping in actual time, I noticed ping usually within the 20ms to 50ms vary, and occasional spikes to round 100ms, however hardly ever did I discover this disruptive. When wired to the router, ping by no means usually bought above 30ms. Orbi presently has no particular gaming options, however that’s because of change in coming months, when Netgear releases its gamer-centric DumaOS features for Orbi routers, including one other subscription service to the record. 

Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh: Final ideas 

The Netgear Orbi 6E mesh system is among the many finest of the present crop of extraordinarily high-end client mesh routers. It’s extremely quick, simple to arrange, and it performed good with all the 40-plus gadgets I had linked to it. Management is simple and pretty simple, whether or not you’re utilizing an iOS app or the net interface. The subscription options present in Netgear Armor and Smart Parental Controls are sturdy and add a substantial amount of worth to the system. 

However, at $1,500 for a 3-pack, this router is unquestionably priced like a luxurious merchandise, but I can’t assist however really feel prefer it’s not fairly appointed like one. It has a whole lot of the configuration choices you’d anticipate from a Netgear router, however the subscriptions really feel extreme. The safety subscription I perceive—had been you to purchase the Bitdefender Box, you’d get lots of the similar options for a similar yearly price, and anyway, the security measures they provide want fixed updates—however the parental controls really feel like one thing that ought to simply be part of the router. Then you throw in paying fairly a bit additional to get greater than 90 days of tech help and prolong the guarantee to 2 years, and you actually surprise why not simply construct this into the value?  

At the top of the day, whereas the Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh is a very killer mesh system, notably when you have a whole lot of sensible house gadgets, its hefty worth and reliance on subscriptions takes off a few of shine. In uncooked throughput, it swapped hits with the Linksys Atlas Max 6E it was measured towards, and I’d name it a draw if not for Orbi’s usually more-agreeable relations with the 40-plus gadgets on my community. But I might actually solely advocate this product for many who actually need the quickest Wi-Fi 6E mesh system round, and don’t thoughts a subscription or two additional thrown on the pile. For most individuals, there are simply too many choices that price half or perhaps a third the value of this technique whereas providing completely acceptable efficiency.