Anyone using EERO network yet?

OK just pulled the trigger on EERO Home WIFI system.

I figure the zwave mesh works so well why not WIFI mesh :slightly_smiling:

Anyone else jumping in ? The waters fine ! (small o-brother were art thou reference there)

Eero brings 802.11r to the home (although at a high dollar cost). It’s been used in offices for a while. But it’s not technically “mesh” (that would be 802.11s). It’s fast roaming. The handoff from one Wi-Fi router to the next is handled very efficiently. But individual devices don’t pass messages back-and-forth the way they do in a mesh topology. Consequently you don’t get any of the energy saving advantages that you would from a true mesh. Instead all the devices are awake all the time, they just change which AP they are attached to.

Still good for eliminating WiFi dead spots, of course. :sunglasses:

Technical protocol notes

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/5700/software/release/ios_xe_33/11rkw_DeploymentGuide/b_802point11rkw_deployment_guide_cisco_ios_xe_release33/b_802point11rkw_deployment_guide_cisco_ios_xe_release33_chapter_01.html

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http://www.hotspot-locations.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23

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Here is Eero’s official response on their FB page last year when asked if they were implementing 802.11s:

my question is why not setup another AP in your house? I can get those a lot cheaper than 199 each?

There are several reasons. I have always done this but never found it worked very well. The AP typically uses a different SSID so you have to manually switch to be sure you are on the closer signal. These devices use the same SSID and handoff is supposed to be more seamless. I understand they connect to each other more efficiently as well. Using two antenna’s.

Check out this review

Not really a response. They say in their posts they are not disclosing details.

Well anyway I have purchased so I will report back how it works out :slight_smile:

ahhhh. I use the same SID and a different channel. that covers my 2600SqFt 2 story very well. One on each end of the house. One up one down at opposite ends.

Many find Ubiquiti works for them:

Open-Mesh has been working well for me the past couple of years:

Their market is motel/hospitality but works just as well in a house. I like their cloud interface.

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I was looking at these but not sure how difficult to set up. My networking chops are not bad but I don’t really want to spend a lot of time working on my setup. I need my time to keep Smart Things working :blush: But seriously I have fought with my network using powerline network, extenders, multiple routers etc. I just want the darn thing to work without much effort.

How do you get your LAN connection on your second (other end of house) AP ? I don’t have any network wiring so my problem with a second AP at other end of house is it gets such a weak signal from first AP that it is slow, drops off, etc Putting one closer works but we keep having issues were our devices (especially our IPad) just freezes up and we have to shut the WIFI on and back on to get it working again. It drives my Wife crazy when she is streaming movies and has to keep stoping and starting her WIFI to keep it working. Anyway from what I have been reading people with issues almost exactly like mine have been raving about how well these devices work. If they work for me with no effort as many are saying they do then it will be well work $500. If not they go back !

have you quit your job and found the fountain of youth or something???

in that case you need repeaters put in the middle of the house. no Ethernet needed

I have proposed the quitting of job to maintain ST but Wife says no :frowning:

Yea, that is what the eero essentially does. So assuming I am paying more for easy setup maybe it will work out.

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The Cnet review was less favorable, but mainly for reasons that may not be important to the average consumer:

  1. Setup is all routed through Eero’s cloud server, so like ST, if internet is down you can’t change anything and privacy concerns… (Wifi has very limited use without internet anyway!)
  2. The very limited feature set for parental controls and such. They actually recommend connecting Eero in bridge and let another router handle that part so you can customize.
  3. Outer units too slow for local NAS type functions

At $500, it’s probably too much; but it does sound promisingly simple. I’ll be interested to hear how it goes. I was always planning to go Ubiquiti because they supposedly have great setup software and top notch hardware; but in the next house when I can hopefully run the LAN cabling to have them all hardwired and for 802.11ac to come down in price.

Yes, this worries me for same reason as ST. I hate this new trend of everything works over the cloud. ST seems to get worse with every release and I could easily see this happing to these devices. I hate that you are forced to update because of this. So it may be working perfect for you and they release some new “feature” which you don’t need but it destroys your setup. I am worried about this aspect.

I don’t care about parental controls. No children in my household.

I didn’t understand their NAS speed issues. My wireless is crazy slow already why is this any different. I think they stretched to make this con which made me think they were biased for some reason.

I have read reviews saying PS4, netflix app etc don’t work with these devices which I don’t really understand. But I plan to install the eero system into my existing Linksys wrt1200ac as a bridge system and just add the devices I have issues with. Anything that is working with the wrt like my ps4 will remain on that router. I have read that this solves the issue so it might workout. Fingers crossed.

By default, it is extremely easy to set up and the management software superb. The “complexity” comes in if you have unique networking needs such as static IP and port forwarding. These are best handled by bridging a wired router.

Got it earlier this week. Setup was a breeze, maybe 15 minutes. The hardest part was making calculated decisions about where to include the two extension access points.

So far, love it. We get better and more uniform coverage all over the house, and speeds are noticeably faster. Even in the same room as where we used to get the best coverage, which is where I would do most of my work from home duty via a Citrix connection, I notice Citrix runs noticeably smoother. We have a couple of Echos in the house, one at a fairly remote point, so this will get us smoother streaming to that device.

I’m on a Fios 75/75 connection now, and this thing is maxing out on Wifi at 83/78 according to my speedtests. Prompted me to call Verizon and upgrade to the 300/300 connection we now have available, I’m betting I get nearly all of that bandwidth over the wifi, we’ll see.

But so far, so good. Really well executed product. It’s not job, but after all the money I’ve thrown out the window over the years with repeats and second access points, this is a no-brainer. The fact of having a single SSID alone is worth the freight.

Good stuff. Happy customer.

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Also, they did the first software update overnight after the first night. E-mailed me about it. I didn’t see any issue. The execution is pretty flawless so far.
Bravo.

Interesting same goes for eero from what I understand so bridging to my router was my plan for the eero since I have fixed ip and port forwarding configured already on the router. Guess ubiquiti would have been a cheaper solution but I didn’t understand how they worked so didn’t try them. If eero works I will not mind but if not I will have to consider the ubiquiti.

@otis Thanks happy to hear this ! I read an amazon review that overnight updates were killing the guys setup but I had two issues with this claim. 1) he didn’t provide detail 2) how many updates could he possibly have received this was just released. I am happy the update didn’t mess you up !

I suspect the issue is “Broadcast Storms”. Mesh networks are vulnerable to this when streaming high bandwidth audio/video. It took Ubiquiti and Open-Mesh at least five generations before “solving” the issue. Rumor has it Sonos may still suffer from this. I suspect some of the solutions are proprietary and EERO will have to figure it out on their own.

Reserved IP through bridged router works with Open-Mesh, but NOT static IP. I suspect this is the case with any mesh network. If one has the choice, reserved is better than static anyway. However, sometimes you have a legacy device or creative kludge where static IP comes in handy.

EERO seems to be going straight to the mainstream consumer market whereas Ubiquiti has flirted with it and Open-Mesh hasn’t even attempted it. EERO probably charges more because their support costs are higher per installation. However, it may be worth the cost to have a support mechanism that can talk in a layman’s vocabulary.

Keep us informed on how it works out.

Will do.

@Otis Did you configure using a iPhone or Android ?

I have android and it seems some features like port forwarding are not available on Android version yet. (Man that sounds a little too much like Smart Things for my taste)