Words of caution for the RBK50. Three words actually: Love hate relationship.
When it worked, it was brilliant. Range from the main unit is better than my original set up, and with the satellite I now had reception at all corners of not only my fairly large house in FL . . . but at all corners of a half acre property! Speeds doubled my existing set up and matched what my cable company was giving.
When it didn't work . . . it dropped. Often. Drops as in disconnected from the internet drops and lost range. Multiple WiFi devices too, from two iPads (mini 4 and Air2) to two Android phones and a lap top. I'm not a super techy, however; I'm far from tech illiterate. After reading forums, blogs, and general trouble shooting, I made the call to tech support. Mind you, you don't get full on tech support for that long either. Not to disparage, they spoke English for the most part, all 5, yes FIVE of them that I talked to. After over 2 weeks on the phone with support, trying different settings, shutting off this, turning on that, they wanted me to return the satelite unit, a basic RMA . . . on my dime. Yep, a $400 system, which even the tech's admit isn't working right, finally, and I have to pay to return it (Bought it off NewEgg). Was the straw to be honest. I have to give out additional money to get your system working right, I don't think so.
So I did return it.
Read the Forums from Netgear before purchasing. I really, really wanted this to work. I gave it oodles of chances. I am disappointed in Netgear's service, and the lack of help. And I am by no means alone on these issues . . . hundreds of posts on Netgear's site about similar and other issues with this system.
It is perhaps the most powerful Mesh system within a common man's price point. And when it did work it was awesome. But constant drops, no help, and the fact that it will cost you more money than you shell out to get it fixed?
Not ready for prime time.
I feel your pain, but mine was with Google's WiFi. I got a 3 puck system as a gift nearly 18 months back. I didn't setup the system until about 8 months ago when my ASUS router died - I sent it in for repair and got it back about weeks later. So in the time being, I finally setup the Google Wifi system.....
I've only had experience with Google WiFi mesh system and I can say I'm not a fan. I may try another one in the future, but with the constant issues from Google's I'm not in any rush.
* Google setup was easy, but with the mesh running the main puck would have constant disconnects from the modem and I'd have to power cycle it about every other day.
- If I just setup one puck as the WiFi router and didn't use the others to create a mesh network, I didn't experience any disconnects
* The other two AP pucks would fail to receive updates from Google (updates you have no control over, they're pushed through whether you want them or not) - this means that anywhere from 12-36 hours after setting up the network, the AP pucks would no longer have a white/light blue flashing light, they would flash amber.
* Even though they AP pucks flashed amber, they still provided solid wifi connection throughout the house, but after about a month, since the pucks were not updating they'd fail to connect on the mesh network and become just a fancy, amber flashing nightlight.
* There was no way to get the AP pucks back on the mesh network without doing a full network reset - all in all, it takes around 45 minutes because you have to reset each puck through the Google app and each one could take upwards of 10 minutes. Then you have to set them all back up again, which only takes about 10-15 minutes (30 minutes to factory reset all the pucks, 10-15 minutes to configure the mesh network)
* Main WiFi puck only gives you one extra RJ45 port. If you need to connect more than 1 extra device via wire, you need to get a switch.
- Introducing a switch can make the initial setup a bit more of a hassle.
IF you connect the switch after you configure the mesh network, most likely it will cause issues with the entire network and things won't connect or the switch simply won't be recognized. You need to have the switch connected to the main puck after you configure it and get your devices connected up through the switch, but you have to do this before you setup the other mesh point pucks. Setup main puck first, then connect switch and any wired devices to main puck, then configure other pucks to the mesh network.
* Last issue I hit just recently (about 2 weeks ago) with the Google WiFi mesh network was the cause of the inability to get my Plex server to access the internet. Setting up port forwarding didn't fix it and people have posted they can't bridge with Google pucks when in mesh mode. Since I couldn't access my Plex server outside of my house now that I have it all setup, I finally pulled the plug on the Google Wifi and put my ASUS AC68R router back up. As soon as I got it online, my Plex server connected to the internet.
I'll keep the Google Wifi system as a back up and just use one puck for a wifi router if something should happen to my current ASUS router, but I won't try to configure it all up again as a mesh network like it was designed for.
