STACK #191 Sep 2020

LIFE TECH FEATURE

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NETGEAR Orbi RBK852 REVIEW

Full-speed ahead for full-coverage, future-proofed home networking. Words Adam Colby

T he whole point of the ever-evolving leaps of technological advances is that they’re designed to make life easier. That’s why when you invest in something like a mesh network for your home, you want to set it up once, then never have to think about it again because you’re too busy enjoying uninterrupted high-speed networking all over your home. This is exactly where the Netgear Orbi RBK852 zips in. Sure, this no-compromises mesh system comes with a hefty premium price tag. But that’s because you’re paying for top-of-the-line in-home connectivity, which bundles identical networking gizmos: either one is your router, and the other works as a satellite. You’re looking at 1,500+ square-metre coverage for zero- questions Wi-Fi around the home, which should annihilate those typical dead zones. That far-reaching wireless signal is complemented with the latest Wi-Fi Standard, Wi-Fi 6, which pumps out the fastest wireless signal to date, and is built to keep more devices seamlessly and simultaneously connected. How many devices? We’re talking scores of devices connected at once, so you can keep everything you own today (and tomorrow) online with the RBK852. With the coverage and latest Wi-Fi standard combined, expect the kind of local network speeds usually reserved for the kind you get from trip-hazard Ethernet cables running around the home. If your internet connection allows it, you can use the RBK852 to juggle 4K streams to multiple devices around the home. It’s even future-proofed to the point that it can

The RBK852 also boasts dedicated quad- streamWi-Fi 6 backhaul, which is a fancy way of saying you should expect to walk and Skype-talk or roam and Netflix-stream around the home without any interruptions or buffering hiccups. Mercifully, the RBK852 is also built to be a breeze to set up once and then never have to think about it again as it works its networking magic in the background. Use the Orbi smartphone app for guided configuration, then keep the app installed to manage your RBK852

network. It lets you see which devices are connected, set up and manage a guest network for visitors, as well as dig into the numbers of speed tests. If you’re into using your voice instead of thumbing a smartphone, the RBK852 also has baked-in support for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. And for greater peace of mind, the RBK852 is also packing

the inbuilt tri-band Wi-Fi preserves the maximum potential download and upload speeds of your home internet no matter where you are in the home

Bitdefender-powered Netgear Armor, which protects the data on all of your connected devices from viruses and other malware. Get past the premium price and you’re looking at a home networking solution that’s the answer to reliable wireless networking today and well into tomorrow.

handle multiple 8K streams for whenever that becomes the new norm. Speaking of internet speeds, the inbuilt tri- band Wi-Fi preserves the maximum potential download and upload speeds of your home internet no matter where you are in the home.

FASTER ’NET Gigabit home internet connections (that’s up to a blistering 1000Mbps) are already here for Fibre-to-the-Premises and select Hybrid Fibre Coaxial NBN customers. If you’re one of those homes, the RBK852 is built with those sorts of speeds in mind. In fact, it’s built to go even faster: with a dedicated 2.5Gbps Ethernet support or the option to combine two Gigabit Ethernet ports for multi-gigabit download speeds. There are four Gigabit Ethernet ports per Orbi device, too, for more wired connections in separate parts of the home (to avoid running underfoot cables).

58 SEPTEMBER 2020

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