Amazon eero system - thoughts from a new user...

[aj7642]

Afternoon all,

I couldn't find many articles on the Amazon eero mesh wi-fi system on this forum, so I thought I would take a moment to share my experiences. 

Having added a Virgin 200Mb Fibre connection to our house several weeks ago, I hadn't been able to make use of it until I stopped depending upon the Hub 3.0 (which, I'm sorry to say, is an insult to customers because it is the worst router I have ever used). I tried the boosters (well, one, and when I called to order a second, it never arrived so gave up).

I spent a week looking through various whole-home wi-fi systems, having decided to make a one-off investment in a decent system - Netgear Orbi, Linksys Velop, Nest Wi-Fi and Ubquiti AmpliFi. In the end, I took a punt and went with Amazon's Eero system.

The difference is night and day - I receive 150-200 mbit in every corner of our 7-bedroom, 3-floor house, without fail. The connection seems stable with the Hub 3.0 in Modem Mode for now but I am monitoring it as I've heard it can be a little temperamental at times. I will add that all three Eeros are connected together via Gigabit ethernet, but I was receiving similar speeds even when using just Wifi. 

The Eero is missing some key features (such as the ability to turn off the 2.4Ghz network, logging is a little lax) but the best part of the system is that the firmware is constantly updated which adds new features and fixes. The 'Labs' feature allows you to switch on features such as Local DNS Caching, Band Steering (pushes 5ghz capable devices onto that band where possible), etc. 

I'd highly recommend Eero to anyone that is grappling with the Hub 3.0 - I know it is a fair amount to spend (£99/unit for a single, £250 for a triple pack of the standard dual band version) but honestly the piece of mind and time saved messing around with Powerline routers and the Hub are well worth it. If you have been put off using App-based routers due to the VM Connect software, don't be - the Eero app actually works. 

I'm happy to answer any eero questions you may have (and no, despite the glowing review I am not an employee!)... and by the way, it's 20% off on Amazon until tomorrow morning if you're feeling impulsive! 

P.S. My apologies for the essay here. I feel like it may be therapy after the multiple hours listening to VM's too-cool-for-school hold music!

Cheers,
AJ

[aj7642]

Hey Marc -- really sorry, I missed this as I'm not a frequent visitor here. I am sure you've probably found the answer, but for future readers:

The two ports on the Eero can indeed be used interchangeably to connect to your WAN (internet) or LAN (local network). The Eero will detect which is which (lord knows how but no issues for me so far). For us, we've used TP-link and Netgear unmanaged switches (cheap as chips these days) to expand the number or ports where required. It's not ideal - but on the flip side, this at least allows us to keep the Eero positioned optimally (instead of hidden away behind the TVs in a cable jungle!).

Hope this helps,
AJ

P.S. As it has been a while, curious to know if you went ahead with the Eero in the end, Marc? If so, hope it has worked out for you! 🙂

[aj7642]

That definitely seems out of the ordinary, Mike.. at 20m I would have expected better coverage from an Eero unit. Have you tried checking if there are any pending software updates perhaps, via the app? Just in case...

I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes in all honesty, but if I were you I'd suggest trying modem mode out and see if that helps -- even if they are on different channels.

Signal strength aside, are you able to reach your maximum connection speed on a speed test? Just curious is all.

Cheers,
AJ

[Andrew-G]

@aj7642 That definitely seems out of the ordinary, Mike.. at 20m I would have expected better coverage from an Eero unit.

Fair point.  I wonder what band the signal strength is monitoring?  5 GHz drops off quite fast and a "chained" Eero in the conservatory is already one hop down, then there's the question of whether the conservatory has "Low E" glass.  Some glass coatings to reduce thermal losses can reportedly reduce radio frequency transmissions. 

I would add my voice to other poster's concerns about the fact that the Eero exists only to share your data with Amazon, on the other hand the OP has already made that choice.  So accepting that, I'm thinking what can we do to get the best out of the system?

[mike5100]

Thanks to the last 2 posters.

It's doubtful that the conservatory windows are anything special (30 years old and cheap).  The garage is prefabricated concrete panels (maybe 50mm thick in most places).  It has a couple of steel doors and a corrugated roof.  I'm going to do speed tests at the extremities on both the mesh network and the still-running Virgin hub wifi later this morning so will report back.

I should have done my research about privacy and the eeros before grabbing the Amazon Prime day deal.  Will do that research now and if it is alarming, the eeros will be ditched.  One thought/advantage occurs to me about continuing to leave the Virgin hub broadcasting alongside the eeros - if I need to do something on-line that I don't want amazon knowing about, I could switch to the Virgin wifi.  Does that make sense?

Thanks

Mike

[Adduxi]

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@Andrew-G wrote:

<snip> I would add my voice to other poster's concerns about the fact that the Eero exists only to share your data with Amazon, on the other hand the OP has already made that choice.  So accepting that, I'm thinking what can we do to get the best out of the system?

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I personally don't worry about that. I already have Alexa's ....  Besides, what about Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc. etc. ad nauseum   If people want privacy, just go off grid  😉

[Adduxi]

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@mike5100 wrote:

<snip> If I need to do something on-line that I don't want amazon knowing about, I could switch to the Virgin wifi.  Does that make sense?

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Use a VPN if you are concerned about this and just trust that the VPN provider does not keep logs 😉

[ClockSlave]

For privacy, I do not know if true but on the community eero says the data does not go to Amazon. Even if right, that might change in the future.

I am not going to worry, with using android Google knows everything I do anyway.

[jpeg1]

Google knows a great deal about you. Ditto Facebook. 

But passing all your internet and internal network traffic through a system controlled by Amazon is a whole new vulnerability.  You will not only be trusting Amazon not to misuse it, but that they keep it safe from hackers targeting it.

At the very least you should be using a VPN, with the limitations that brings. 

[mattyc19731]

Hi AJ 

Great post - I have a question you might have an answer to

I’ve got the 3 eero setup with the hub 3 in modem mode and can get the 350+ when I use the eero speedtest for the eero to fibre but can only get 170 ish when using speedtest.net via my iPhone X and even less if near the eeros upstairs ( I have one in two bedrooms upstairs) 

Thoughts?

[ClockSlave]

Hi Matt, I have bought the 3 pack and it is working well for me but I am only on 100mbps. Just to check, if you turn the SH WiFi back on, can you get 350mbps close to the router? You could have a limit on the phone. 

It could be eero is not good enough for faster speeds.