Customer Ratings & Reviews

So far so good. I swapped from an older Orbi and was pretty straight forward.

When you buy a product at this price you expect some features better than other products less than half its price. This product has nothing special to justify its price , especially the app is exactly the same whay you use for other Orbi products and it sucks.

I’ve been using mesh systems for years, I much prefer them to a single router or router + range extenders for many reasons. Mesh systems meet a sweet spot for our home and connected devices, giving us reliable Wi-Fi coverage with a single SSID and also allowing for wired backhaul and wired connections to dedicated devices. I have used Orbi’s since they were first introduced, so I was looking forward to using the new Wi-Fi 7 970 series. The Orbi 970 3-unit system arrives in a pretty massive box. That is because the router and satellites have been redesigned and each unit is larger than before. I was happy to see that Netgear moved away from the legacy Orbi styling for the 970 and now the router and satellites have a nice modern cylinder look. They are hefty, and the build quality can be felt right away. I have the white color system, with nice accents of pewter shaded plastic. With 12 amplified antennas, the new design gives a much better 360-degree coverage direction. The one thing they did not redesign was the power cable. The wall plug is still a weird, horizontal shaped brick that needlessly puts weight on the wall outlet since it sits off and out from the outlet. So it naturally wants to droop downward. Seems like a simple fix or update to make, but not a deal breaker at all. The units are nice and heavy but sturdy, so placement on shelves, desks, extra won’t be an issue. I’m actually waiting on the new updated wall mounts to ship, as I like to place my units on walls so they can always have the best line of sight possible across the home. The new wall mounts look super nice and sturdy with great cable management design. Mesh system always work best when the router/satellites are out in the open! Setup is very simple and straightforward, just install the Orbi app to your phone and follow the prompts. Even though this is a top end system with plenty of bells and whistles and high-end tech, getting from unboxing to up and running is amazingly simple. Even if you do have some hiccups along the way. For example, one issue I ran into was the setup did not seem to want to configure my second satellite, at least according to the app, even though the lights on the unit were flashing the expected colors, and then I was shown a splash page in the app that an error occurred and to pay for the Netgear customer services tiers. Not asking me to retry steps or start over, but immediately asking me to pay for customer service. Nice try Netgear, but nope. In fact the satellite had connected just fine, was optimizing and when I rebooted the app, everything was up and running. Another quirk I found was that in the app, you cannot create an SSID with a space in the name. My existing SSID has a space in the name. So the frustration of having to create a new SSID and reconnect all my devices in the home was pretty real. Then I come to find out later, that through the web interface, you CAN create SSIDs with a space in the name? I will discuss the app in more detail later, because the app is why I am taking a start off the review score! The specs of the system speak for themselves. You are probably not looking to get a 970 series system unless you are pretty tech and/or mesh system savvy, have at least gigabit or multigigabit home internet, and have more than the average number of connected devices. But the highlights are: • 27Gbps of total bandwidth (theoretical, you’ll never ever hit this, but good to have) • 10Gbps internet and LAN ports and four 2.5Gbps LAN ports for multigigabit homes on the router • Satellites have dual 2.5Gbps and one 10Gbps LAN ports – if you do want to use wired backhaul, you will lose the 10Gbps port for any wired device you might want to connect, so if you do have multi gigabit above 2.5Gbps, you’ll lose it if connected via ethernet • Wi-Fi 7 capability • Dedicated wireless and wired backhaul, wireless uses 5ghz+6ghz bands and wired can use the 10Gbps LAN port • Dedicated IoT network that you can enable/disable that you can configure for 2.4 or 5 ghz bands • 10K sq feet of coverage and can connect up to 200 devices concurrently The system will eliminate dead zones, completely. When all things are equal and working as expected, the 970 series will allow your devices to connect to your home network as fast as they are physically possible. Whether you have legacy devices using older 2.4 ghz or newer 6E devices or even Wi-Fi 7 capable devices (which at this point are mostly network connection cards/adapters) all your devices are given the max throughput they can handle. I have mostly 2.4 and 5 ghz devices, with a smattering of newer 6E devices as well, and both physical link rate speed is always great, usually the maximum capable of the device, or pretty close to it at all times. I’m running firmware version 9.10.0.2 and I have no drops, no reboots, no issues at all with the system. As a mesh system should, it runs quietly in the background, unnoticed and keeps my home network humming perfectly. That is until you experience some of the quirks. While they can be minor, the value of a mesh system is that you never have to think about it, everything just always connects and runs smooth and you trust the system to route traffic, make connection decisions and manage and secure your network. So even small quirks can impact the overall experience as they add up. For example, I find that sometimes having 3 access points can cause mishandled traffic or connections across my home devices. My home is only 5K sq feet, so I’m well below the coverage expectation of using all three units, but as more and more devices begin using Wi-Fi 6/6E and eventually 7, the range of connection will continue to decrease since the speed of those frequencies is speed but strength is weak. So 10K sq feet might be fine for 2.4Ghz devices band, but not for 6E or 7. And I find that sometimes the system will connect or route traffic to a more inefficient access point, rather than the nearest one or the one with most line of sight. With 12 internal amplified antennas on each access point, the home is saturated with network, which is great. But I think right now the Orbi could be directing traffic and connections better. I’ve tried removing an access point and found slightly better success that way, but having all three online gives all my devices the best possible link rate/speed if they can be assigned to the nearest/best access point. I’ve also found that sometimes the Orbi will not connect the satellites at full Wi-Fi 7. They will drop down to 5Ghz or even 2.4Ghz, even though the range is not an issue. You are not able to tell the system to only connect at certain bandwidth, so it’s frustrating when they won’t connect at full speed. I’ve found that by rebooting everything, they eventually will backhaul at full Wi-Fi 7 but just an unnecessary step to have to take. I also had issues with the IoT network. Devices would seemingly skip the nearest access point and only try to connect to the router, regardless how far away it was. This caused major issues with streaming devices and cameras throughout the home, not having near the best possible signal. I’ve had much more success disabling the IoT network and just running everything on my main SSID. This is something that could easily get better with firmware. One thing I would love for Netgear to allow is the ability to bind a device to a certain access point. Let me the user determine what access point I want stationary connected devices to look to. If I know my office work computer is in line of sight of my upstairs satellite, let me tell the system to always use that satellite, instead of letting the Orbi try and route the traffic and ultimately connect to a different access point with less link rate or throughput due to range. The system comes with one year of Netgear Armor included, which is awesome. However, I’ve run into hiccups with that too. It started out ok but suddenly it started spamming me saying device after device was attempting a DDoS attack and it would take the device offline and reconnect it. Of course no DDoS attack was happening, and I’ve read on the Netgear forums that others have had this same thing happen to them, so it must be a known issue for Netgear, but I’ve had to disable Armor on my system for now, because it just wouldn’t stop. And that brings me to the Orbi app. The app is supremely outdated and lacks any and all features that make the 970 series worth having. Anything and everything that you would want to change/edit/update you have to do via the web interface. The highlights of the app are bare bones. You can see your system status at a glance. You can see your network map and connected devices list. You can run a speed test at your router, you can enable/disable Armor and parental controls. You can change your SSID and enable/disable the guest or IoT networks and view a simple traffic meter. That’s it. Any real configuration change to any settings whatsoever need to be done via the web interface. It’s painful that a system this advanced and configurable cannot be fully realized through the app. This is the same Orbi app that has been used for years. I would have liked to have seen Netgear really step up and either dedicate a new app specifically for the 970 series or at least let users with different systems access the full potential of them within the existing app by building it out to meet the needs of the users. If you are using a system like this, you are more than likely a super user and more than tech savvy. To make us use an outdated and underwhelming app interface to run a system like this just does not make sense in 2023, especially for a Wi-Fi 7 system. With all that said, all the quirks can be dealt with by Netgear if they choose to, by either firmware or app updates. The system, hands down, is the best home Wi-Fi experience I have ever had. It is beyond capable and will future proof your connected home for years to come.

As described, easy to setup and works wonderfully! Would recommend!

I have 5200 sq ft that Im covering and there are so many deadspots its not even funny. I had to buy an additional satelite and it really didnt help much. For the price this is a complete ripoff to me. Calling Netgear to get my money back. Incidentally I have the 6e netgear at my office and it is way better. This may just be too new and glitchy.

The best Orbi Mesh Router. The coverage very good.

Wonderful! I would recommend these items to anyone.

Customer service is really starting to slack with NETGEAR you just swear by their product. Never had problems like I did with. This might be an isolated incident, but nevertheless, we can't figure out the problem. I've had so many monkeys in the mix. Replace the item still drobin, no. No better than. A mess router, 1/3 of the cost.Didn't mind if it worked better for me.Can't save for anybody else.Had everything you can imagine checked and replace.Since november is almost seven months set up is very easy. Settings are pretty direct. If it worked like it should, it could be me like I said, but I have enough no help with networks and internet and when my little device is keep dropping in and out. Is something with channel switch?Not smooth or something in the integrity at my please. So I will say set up kindnot yet even though easy.It's easy if it work, but not and still messing with it.No good

Blazing fast when it works, but cuts out/reboots too often. Random reboots everyday for 3 weeks, had to return.

Thank god!!!! All of our WiFi connection issues are gone. My phone hooked up to our home before passing my neighbors house on the way home!

NETGEAR Orbi 970 works great. Only router that has Wi-Fi 7 to work with our new iPhone 16 Pro which also has Wi-Fi 7 Be on top of the latest technology.

Good performance but far from good enough for the cost. Constant nags for add-on premium subscription. Very buggy, lots of random disconnections, especially on Android phone.

This is critical to get the multi bandwidth wifi and the new devices which are capable of wifi 6E and 7 will utilize the high bandwidth wifi 7 offers , quality of the product is outstanding and i have been orbi fan for years, well done ! Best buy always have our back.

Incredible powerful and stable system, I have a lot of devices on my system and theyre all running great, probably won’t have to worry abt upgrading for a long time

I’m returning this as its horrible. I read all the reviews and most of them sounded promising so i decided to try them out. What a mistake! I was replacing my decade old Apple Airport Extreme routers but these orbi units are pure junk. Wifi calling doesn’t hold a connection and calls keep dropping, failed connections that keep coming or going. I played around with different channels and no improvement at all. I plugged in old Apple routers and everything works as it should until I find a better solution. Don’t waste your money.

Amazing router. It’s been very stable and I haven’t had any issues with coverage and the speed with knock your socks off

Works great so far in large 3 story house on t-mobile home internet and over 200 devices.

If you're looking for the best keep looking! Connection issues all the time. System needs rebooted to fix these issues.

I purchased this product after having an older Orbi version. The struggles I am having is as follows: 1. With my prior Orbi my phones and other technology items never lost connection. With the Orbi 970, the phones and computers always lose connections. The wifi is no longer stable. 2. The instructions that came with the product are basically useless. 3. The Orbi 970 provides 2.4 GHZ, 5 GHZ, and 6 GHZ but there is no way to control which of your technology devices use one of these three options. I feel this product is not the upgrade they claim. If I had to do it over again, I would not buy this Wifi 7 product. Very disappointed.

Great Service and Great Products the WiFi is really great. Very Happy with purchase