NetGear Orbi 970 Series Quad-band WiFi 7 Mesh Black Edition Review

Software

If you’ve owned a NetGear network product in the last 20 years, you’ll feel familiar with the software. It really doesn’t look like it’s changed much at all, with a few colours and images dropped in here and there, but otherwise, it’s the same old firmware design. On the basic tab, you can see all the day to day stuff you’ll need. You can see the internet is on, the wireless SSID and password, the number of devices, and security settings.

Here you can configure basic networking options, such as DNS, and WAN configuration, but again, this is simple enough and largely automatically configured.

With the WAN setup you can dive into some more advanced features, although most home users would likely leave these at stock settings.

The wireless tab is likely where you’ll make the most changes. Here you can apply a funny WiFi name, change network channels, and enable a dedicated IoT network for smart home devices.

While you’ll set up the hub first, the satellite units can be added and configured here, such as the two that are included, or any additional ones you may purchase.

Overall though, it’s very straight forward, and while the interface is a bit dated, all the usual advanced security features are here and easy enough to use.

You can easily see devices on your network, rename them, kick them, or fix them an IP address as you need to.

There is a mobile app too, but it’s largely just a simpler and watered down version of the main web browser configuration.

However, for quickly checking network settings, speeds, WiFi, and the like, it’s a quick and easy way to do so from anywhere in your home.

And again, you can easily turn off access to devices here too; kids not done their homework? Guess their internet is turned off… whoops!