Hello Steemians! I travelled to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) for the past few days and only returned yesterday night. To my dismay, the WiFi was not working in my room and it got me really frustrated. As my home router is in the living room, which is separated by several concrete walls from my room, the WiFi signal was really weak. To circumvent that, I had been using powerline adapters to route traffic and create an WiFi access point in my room. This network setup had been working for me for about 5 years. Though I did need to replace the adapters from time to time, it was rather stable for the most part of it.
Lately, the powerline network was getting quite unstable despite the fact that I have only recently replaced the adapters. Usually, when I get an unstable connection, I just needed to restart the adapters. But last night, the connection went completely dead. Instead of trying so hard to get the powerline network to work, I thought it might be a good time to buy a mesh WiFi system. I have been researching on the mesh WiFi technology for a while and also read some reviews of different brands. Overall, it seems to me that the Netgear Orbi Home WiFi System is the best value system that I can find out there. Here are some of the reviews that I have read,
- https://www.lifewire.com/best-mesh-wi-fi-network-systems-4139748
- https://www.techradar.com/sg/news/best-wireless-mesh-routers
Buying Netgear Orbi RBK40 on Amazon Prime Now!
As my WiFi was already down last night, I needed a quick solution. I can either buy it from a brick and mortar store like Challenger or get it from one of my favorite delivery service, Amazon Prime Now. To my surprise, the Netgear RBK40 system is on a discount. It was previously S$599 and on other online shopping sites like Lazada or Shopee, it costs at least S$420. On Amazon Prime Now, it now costs S$368.13! And there is free "next 2-hour delivery"! The set also comes with 3 years warranty, I hope I do not have to be bothered by poor and unstable connections for at least the next 3 years.
I bought it together with some groceries and the product was promptly delivered at about 11am SGT today! Below are some of the unboxing images:
The RBK40 system is the mid-ranged system from the Netgear Orbi suite. For a usual HDB flat, this is more than sufficient. I wanted to buy the RBK30 system but it is not on sale and it now cost the same as the RBK40. There is a RBK20 system which is smaller in size but has similar specifications as the RBK40. It is also not on sale and cost the same as the RBK40. Hence, the obvious choice for me was to get the RBK40 set.
Setting up the System
Setting up the Netgear Orbi was pretty straightforward. I first had to remove my existing TP-Link router and instead plug in the Netgear Orbi router. Upon powering up the Orbi router, the default WiFi network was created. At this stage, the internet access was not ready. I then have to power up the satellite device and make sure that it had successfully connected to the router.
After the satellite is setup, I connect to orbilogin.com and it redirected me to the router configuration steps. I was then prompted with the setup wizard and by running through the steps, the internet connection was established. I renamed the default WiFi SSID to my original SSID and voila, everything is done! Netgear published a video tutorial for the setup, if you ever need to setup the Orbi system, this serves as an excellent guide.
So Far So Good!
The performance of the system is good so far! I did a speedtest and get the following results:
I have never came close to 100 Mbps with my powerline network setup and the current speed probably does more justice for the fibre broadband that my family signed up for. I will continue monitoring the speed and stability of this system and hopefully it can last.
Are you also using the mesh WiFi system? If so, which brand are you using and please share your experience. If you like what you read, do give me an upvote and a follow. Thanks for reading and today is Diwali, the Hindu "festival of light". Hereby, wishing all Hindu a happy Diwali!
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