NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (RBK753) – Router with 2 Satellite Extenders | Coverage up to 7,500 sq. ft. and 40+ Devices | AX4200 (Up to 4.2Gbps)

Product Information

Thanks to the third satellite, I could even get reception in my kitchen, which usually suffers. Here, I got throughputs of 174.25Mbit/s. For the price, the new Orbi RBK853 is a decent performer. Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 Dual-band Mesh System (RBK353) Conclusion So, while the speed is good and the design is nice, and the setup is simple, the cost is high, and the reliability is ZERO ! Tri-band connectivity – utilising a single 2.4GHz and 5GHz band for WiFi devices to connect to the internet, and a dedicated 5GHz WiFi link for faster data connections between Orbi Router and Orbi Satellite. Testing with a 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 card in a Windows computer, the Orbi RBK752 should technically give similar performance to the RBK852, maximising the full bandwidth available on the 5GHz channel.

Typically Orbi only offers 30-day cover out of the box so this is great to see should you be wanting a router, and personal device anti-virus all-in-one protection. It’s hard to articulate just how easy Orbi and by extension, NETGEAR has made setting up the RBK763S for anyone, which for technology, is no mean feat! But the user interface is well laid out, and the steps are simple to follow. The RBK653 comes with two RBS350 Orbi Satellites while the RBK753 comes with two RBS750 Orbi Satellites. The RBK853 includes two RBS850 Orbi Satellites. Where this option differs from the SXK80 hardware is that the Ethernet switch components had link aggregation and 2.5 GbE Ethernet on that design, but those features are both missing from the SXK30.

Dual-band mesh Wi-Fi, with plenty of Ethernet ports

With less than a third of the potential bandwidth to share around, the SXK30 can’t effectively handle the same number of users as the SXK80 or provide the same coverage. Where this hardware has the edge over the larger and more expensive Netgear Orbi Pro WiFi 6 (SXK80) is in its smaller scale. However, we think that Netgear missed an opportunity with this hardware by not including PoE technology with it.

By contrast, the RBS750 satellite has a pair of networking ports. Neither have a USB connection for adding a hard drive as networked storage. The base station included the router, so we tried to connect this directly to the NBN with iiNet, and it worked, sort of. Every day the internet connection would be dropping - the wifi seemed to be working fine, but the router connection to the internet continued to drop out. Very glad to see the internal boxes cardboard with minimal plastic use inside wrapping the router and satellites inside. Keep these in the box to use them again in the future and not fill up the landfill.The Orbi RBK753 is limited in terms of what user-configurable options there are, especially when it comes to Wi-Fi. It’s a real shame that Circle, the parental control system, still hasn’t been enabled on any of the Orbi Wi-Fi 6 products, as it means that Netgear is losing some ground to its rivals. Without this option, you can only toggle the individual device’s internet access. We did hard reset everything, turning on each unit independently, waiting for each to connect in turn, still no difference. Slightly offsetting the pedantic nature of these mechanisms, adding satellites to a router is merely a matter of connecting them within wireless connection range or on the same wired network, and they’ll automatically be found and added. Insight sees the Orbi Pro router and its satellites as a single entity, making that part of controlling them remarkably straightforward.

You will get more coverage with the RBK753 and RBK853 as both of these Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 Systems can reach up to 7,500 sq. ft. Simultaneous Device Connections The RBK653 and RBK753 use the same WAN ports. When compared to the other two routers, the RBK853 has a faster WAN port. All the routers offer the same amount of LAN ports. Although the Satellites look physically identical, they have two Gigabit Ethernet ports on them. That’s one more than on the Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 system. Not only can you connect more devices to the satellites, but there’s one added bonus: if you decide to connect the Orbi satellites together via Ethernet, you still have a spare port. It keeps management simple, as you don’t have to worry about which network to connect to, but those that want more configuration choices are better off with a standalone router. If you do have a problem with Wi-Fi punching through walls or interference, then a mesh system makes sense. The Asus ZenWifi AX is the closest rival. This system has parental controls built-in, making it more flexible for now. However, the Orbi will (eventually) get its own parental controls, and Netgear’s range of satellites and app are better.

A good shot of the router and satellites straight out of the box. It’s hard to tell immediately which one is which, so Orbi have handily labelled the router for you to get you going. The Orbi app is simple to use and I completed the configuration, including manually entering my ISP’s FTTP connection, WiFi configuration, connecting the two satellites, and a firmware update in about 15 minutes flat.

A close-up view of the router unit from the front and side. The units look incredibly good with the white and silver colour scheme. The separation gap lights up below the Orbi logo highlighting booting up and errors and then turns off when it’s in normal operation. Setting up the Orbi RBK763S requires a mobile app, so make sure you also have a NETGEAR account as this is needed. The software features are also simplified in a few places, compared to Netgear’s standalone routers. For some reason, band splitting isn’t allowed on the Orbi platform, so you’ll have to operate both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks under the same name. Parental controls are entirely absent: the manufacturer says it’s working on adding support for the Circle app, but it hasn’t committed to any time frame. And, inevitably with no way to connect external storage, you miss out on file-sharing functions. Still, the web portal itself is neater than the Nighthawk variant and the smartphone app works well as a central point of management for your distributed network. For a typical ten-person or less office, the SXK30 has enough bandwidth to easily handle most needs, especially if you tie the satellites using wired networking and the building infrastructure isn’t especially challenging for WiFi signals. The first impression of the Orbi network was a different league than with Nighthawk. It worked smoothly from the start, and has done since. I have now used it for over four months, and even though I have three floors, there are no problems with the coverage in the house with two boxes. The Internet is of course at its fastest in the immediate vicinity of the node or router (they are equal in terms of speed and coverage), but the speed never drops below 200 Mbps, so in practice it is twice as fast as the cheaper Nighthawk system – and also much more stable. I have not had to reboot the system once.When it came to sending a signal up a floor to a bedroom, the Orbi RBR752 (281.0Mbps) was well behind the RBR852 (670.1Mbps). The Linksys Velop AX4200 and Eero Pro 6 were in a virtual tie at 437.5Mbps and 430.9Mbps of throughput. Price-wise, the Orbi RBK752 is certainly easier to stomach than its big brother. With a single device for testing, performance was quite similar, although the RBK852 still has plenty of bandwidth left. With both systems, you get the same range of features, so there’s no clear winner in either; it is a shame that neither system supports Netgear’s parental controls at the moment. The more Netgear hardware you have, the cheaper per device it is, but unless you intend to extensively use this level of management, it is something that you can do without once you are up and running.