Netgear Orbi AXE11000 Mesh WiFi System
Quad Band for luxury home networking
WHEN THE FIRST NETGEAR Orbi arrived in 2016, mesh Wi-Fi systems were largely the domain of offices managed by IT professionals. But as homes started to absorb more smart devices and faster internet, they began to be released in kits sold by the likes of Amazon. Six years on, gigabit internet-enabled homes and WiFi 6 devices are becoming the norm.
Netgear has responded with the Orbi AXE11000, which is on the cutting-edge of networking standards. Top of the spec sheet is WiFi 6E support for devices with a theoretical maximum 4800Mbps throughput. Wired networking is equally fancy, each node boasting a 2.5G ethernet port, with a 10G internet port on the router.
The catch is the $1,499 price tag. If you have lots of WiFi 6E devices, a computer or server with a 2.5G ethernet port, and spend a lot of time on your home network, maybe you can justify it, but there are WiFi 6 systems, such as Netgear’s AX6000, that will save you at least $500.
For testing, we used the Netgear AXE11000 to replace an aging Linksys Velop WHW0303 5GHz system, dotting the nodes around the home to serve 29 Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Each of the Orbi nodes is much larger than the Velop, but they’re stylish and boast more network ports. Setup is easy, just plug the main node into your existing router, scan the QR code using the app, and the system configures itself, downloads updates, and tells you how and where to add satellites.
You can quit the Orbi app and never use it again after this stage, but it soon starts to become annoying. Go into Security and press the innocuous-looking “Armor” button, and you’ll start a 30-day trial for Netgear’s Security suite, costing $100 per year. Open the app again, and you might be prompted to set up parental controls, which costs another $70 annual fee. Both are useful features, but having spent $1,500 on a top-of-the-line system, being asked to pay even more seems unfair.
Apart from that, the Orbi features are rather basic. There’s a traffic meter to keep track of data usage, a separate IOT network for older smart home devices, and an analytics tool to detect Wi-Fi channels with the least congestion. You can also link it with Google and Amazon smart assistants if you want to open up a guest network, for instance.
But in terms of wireless coverage and speed, the system excels. Just three nodes covered our home. For the speed test, we plugged a Synology DS918+ NAS into the main hub and a desktop PC into a satellite across the house. Using LAN Speed Test to monitor the read speed of a 1GB file, the speed went from 130.57Mbps on the Velop to 225.58Mbps on the Orbi, a 73 percent increase. Whether that is worth the premium is your choice, but it’s a decent boost for anyone shifting a lot of data around their home.
The Netgear Orbi AXE11000 will be too expensive for all but the most ardent of home network users, and even they may wish to choose a cheaper WiFi 6 system. But if all you want is the fastest networking system going, then you’ll get what you came for here.
VERDICT 7
Netgear Orbi AXE11000
WI-FI Super-fast wired and wireless networking; stylish design; simple setup.
LO-FI Security and Parental features cost extra; large physical footprint; no QoS features.
$1,499, netgear.com