eero Amazon eero 6+ Mesh Wi-Fi Router

This is a revelation. Laugh at me, but I had two NETGEAR WNAP310 (sophisticated but dated Wireless N business-class PoE APs) for a two story 2500sf 1920s era home. I ran them off of a GS108TP Gb PoE switch with one in the center of the 2nd story and one in a backyard office building, about 100ft apart. The APs were connected to Cat5e back to the switch. Comcast gives me 100Mbps cable service (fluctuates) and both the modem and the Unifi EdgeRouter were rated for Gigabit. Devices included 2 PCs, 4 Apple phones/tablets, 2 Geeni smart outlets, 2 Nest cameras and 2 smoke alarms, and Amazon Echo family devices.

Performance was fine near the APs, but mobile devices did not transfer across APs well, the performance in the backyard/outbuildings suffered because the devices were constantly confused about which AP to use, and there were dead spots in the corners of the house. In essence, I was overprovisioned from the ISP and gated at the edge due to the Wireless N technolgoy with no smarts about 2.4 or 5Ghz, delivering mostly 10Mbs performance more than 50 ft away from the APs.

After increasingly strident feedback from my internal customers began exploring options. Standardizing on Unifi gear meant more cost and network management (and evenings tinkering) than I want any more. The eero products looked good, brought mesh tech, worked with Alexa and smart home devices.

Immense performance difference with just 2 eeros (one replacing the router and the outbuilding AP and one replacing the upstairs AP). 100Mbps speeds from everywhere. Simple UI in the app; not as customizable (no router CLI) but does enough – like custom DNS – with everything I wanted.

Lessons learned:
1. Using the wired network for backhaul was a good idea. Get the traffic off of the wireless by using the eero routers if you can plug them in.
2. Use the Beacons if you need to reach farther and have a power outlet but DON’T have an RJ45 port.
3. The coverage is a lot better than I expected (YMMV). My house is on a 6500sf lot (65×100) and with two eero routers roughly inline with the long axis, I have coverage for 80%. Another in the last third of the lot would be ideal but I don’t need to cover the street and the sidewalk.
4. I expect eero 6 (500Mbps) would probably produce the same results, but the 6+ (900Mbps) means I’m ready for Gigabit ISP package.

For me, it means a MUCH faster LAN, lots less tinkering, and less hardware required than I planned.

I bought a 3-pack of 6+ routers to use the Cat5e as backhaul. This was a good idea

I bought a set of eeros before, but returned them because I couldn’t set them up without a modem to turn on and off and I bought them so I wouldn’t have to do anything like call the ISP. I did call tech support, who was nice and respectful but super confused that I didn’t have a modem with my fiber internet. I don’t know what weird setup my ISP has, but no modem in my house.

But, my Nighthawk was giving out on me. It did not like all the Echo speakers I’d accumulated. After the second time resetting it in one day, I called my ISP who said yes, the eero would work, they just needed to reset my connection. All right, then. And the eero 6+ just came out, promising gigabit speed.

I ordered them and this time when they arrived I was prepared to call the ISP. Setup was super easy, with a brief pause to call the ISP, who did the equivalent of resetting the modem. I gave the network a name and a password and it just worked.

I likely didn’t need the second access point in my small townhouse, but we have two floors so I set it up anyway. It was super easy to add it.

My speed tests from eero show 955 mbps up and 955 mbps down. That’s essentially a gigabit. I get maybe half that on most of my devices, but that’s expected as the network parcels out all that bandwidth.

Most exciting is I’ve ditched the Ethernet cables behind the TV and everything is working great. I can run 4k video on multiple devices with no pixelation or buffering. All wireless.

Once upon a time I would have missed having all the settings to fiddle with that Netgear provides, but I am old and tired and no longer mess around with things like that in my spare time. The days when I had to spoof a MAC address just to use a router are long gone. I just want stuff to work without needing messed with. This does that.

The one device that worried me was an old (by tech standards) HP wireless printer, but it connected fine, as did my smart TV. The most annoying part was walking around and reconnecting all the Echo speakers that were only giving their weird factory names. I recommend unplugging all your echo speakers and plugging them back in one at a time so you know which one you’re bringing on to the network. Also, my Google speaker hooked up fine on its own, but all the Echoes connected without providing their names. I’m retentive, so I wrote down MAC addresses and matched them up manually so I could name everything on my network. This is absolutely not necessary, btw.

Anyway, they do what they say. Easy to set up, works great, no dead spots, gigabit speed. I recommend these for people who want easy WiFi.

EDIT: Six months later, Eero network still works fine. The fifth gen Echo Dots provide the device name to the network. I am not paying any subscription fees and I’m happy with how they work. Still recommend.