Anyone using EERO network yet?

I have been using unifi aps to do this for over a year. No issues works good. I set same ssid on 3 of them, one per floor. Going to upgrade them to new unifi lites soon. Eero is being marketed to consumers directly and they are asking a premium for it.

@kalex1114 are your unifi devices talking to each other wirelessly or are they connected via cat-6 ? I would like to hear more about your configuration.

Everything find on setting up unify shows them being installed in ceiling and connected to cat cable. I have had a hard time figuring out what devices would be right for my needs, how they are connected (I canā€™t run new wire) and what software is required. I have not put a ton of effort into it. I have enough tech and networking chops to figure it all out my problem is time vs need. I donā€™t need a solution that bad and therefore canā€™t spend too much time figuring it out. However I have to restart routers and power line modules enough that a solution that is easy to install and solves these issues with little to no effort is very desired.

Honestly I think eero deserves a premium for doing this. Bringing this tech to the average consumer will be a challenge to support and by charging $500 for the kit they have a shot of supporting their customers. They can drop the charge later as they get used to the issues and the web gets full of instructions on solving problems. I am happy to pay extra if it all works.

That is good to know. I mis-spoke anyway. I actually have reserved IP, I used to use fixed but have not for a long time. I just use reserved from my router now.

I have all 3 hardwired. They do support wireless bridging as well, we have it configured like that at one of our clients who couldnā€™t run cables. One of mine is mounted on a wall and 2 others are free standing. They come with management software, I have mine running in a virtual machine in our data center. You can run the controller at home, on AWS or right now you can get cloud controller usb stick. Its a new product they have. Once controller software is up, you create a site and group your access points in to it. Then you create wireless networks and settings you want to use and they get provisioned on each access point. So if you have 5 at home they will all be provisioned same way which removes configuration drift. Once configured, APs run autonomously and donā€™t require constant connection to the controller. its needed only to make changes and if you are using guest portal. They also support zero hand off where clients can roam between access points without downtime but I havenā€™t used that feature as it works fine without enabling it.

OK sounds like you really know what your are talking about and maybe even do this for a living (our clients) so perhaps the eero where you just plug them in and it works is still better for me :slight_smile: I am betting this will eventually become the normal setup and everyone will be selling such units and the prices will come down. But for now eero beat the rest to the consumer market and for that they get my premium payment :slight_smile:

1 Like

Yep we deploy these at client sites. We like they because they are easily managed, support multiple clients and pretty much bullet proof. we have about 50 APs deployed and have yet had one fail or crap out.

There is nothing wrong with paying premium and not having to worry about it. Looking at few reviews out there they got the price set at premium but product hasnā€™t reached that status yet. I kind of donā€™t like to pay companies premium rates to participate in beta testing. Which is why i like Unifi. They are very affordable and because of that I overlooked few issues they had when we chose to use them. In 2 years we used them they did come a long way in terms of hardware and software

I agree especially with 5ghz. The bandwidth increase and lack of interference makes 5 gig very compelling. However, it doesnā€™t have nearly the range of 2.4. Thus, everyone will eventually have the need for more access points.

One thing that drew me to ā€œOpen-Meshā€
http://www.open-mesh.com/
was their free cloud interface which in its fourth generation is extremely powerful:
https://help.cloudtrax.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/202997090/Tablet-phone-laptop-right-450px.jpg
https://help.cloudtrax.com/hc/en-us/articles/202465650-Part-1-CloudTrax-Guide-Overview

If anyone is interested in going this route, Iā€™d be glad to share my experiences.

I agree but time is also money and unifi has not made this easy enough for me to save time. I could hire someone like you to install but I suspect that would be more than $500 anyway. So for essentially 8 hours work ($500) I will try eero. If it works great. If it lasts one year and gets me to the point where other companies are making this easy I will buy something new 1 year from now. I do hope it works out.

I guess I should have asked here BEFORE buying :slight_smile:

Oh installation is very easy and straight forward. We offer this for our clients that want wifi in their offices. We donā€™t just deploy these for profit. Its part of our value added services. It should probably take u an hour or 2 to get these connected.

OK thatā€™s good to hear. For future reference what hardware would you recommend to do what eero does ? Basically I want to bridge my router which will handle my DHCP, port forwarding etc to three or more APā€™s wirelessly.

Do I just need three of these ?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXT8R2O?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_2&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thats exactly what i have configured. They are access points not routers. nothing to bridge. I have windows home server as my dns and dhcp server. The link you sent is for the older model. I have a variant of these now. UAP-LR which is long range ones. They are good. But Iā€™m looking to upgrade mine to the new ones that came out

Or they have a 5 pack if you need 5. Be careful with pricing, these are fairly new and go in and out of stock donā€™t over pay to the gougers. Just one thing to note, lite model is not 802.3af compliant so not true POE. Not sure if you need POE or not. Each one comes with power injector. Meaning that you connect injector to power and plug network cable into injector. Then you run one cable from injector to where you mount the access point.

AC lite are both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz and are capable of very good speeds

I am 100% wireless so no POE wouldnā€™t make any sense for me :slightly_smiling:

The fact that I need to power these with an ethernet cable just means I need to have an ethernet cable connected to the power injector as if it was some type of proprietary plug (which essentially it is since it isnā€™t standard POE).

As I mentioned I already purchased eero so this is just a backup if they fail and I decided to return them. Since the difference is only $200 anyway (3 at $98.49 for Ubiquiti model you recommend) we are down to only 3 hrs of work making them the same cost :slight_smile: I am sure these will take me more than 3hrs to configure compared to the eero which I just plug in and press a few buttons on my phone. I suspect your 2hr estimate will be very conservative for me. I would need to find a home for the configuration server, learn the correct configuration etc.

It is a good example of how I will need to learn more to use these is that you needed to explain that these are only AP and do not require ā€œbridgingā€ I guess what I really meant was configuring them to talk to my router via wireless. Bridging was the wrong term so I might have spent hours searching the internet for instructions on how to ā€œbridgeā€ the ubiquity device :blush:

I have learned a lot already, thanks for your info. I think I could use these if the eero doesnā€™t work out.

they use dhcp so when you connect it, it appears on your network with an ip address. The way i do them when i deploy them to our client sites is i configure them ahead of time and client just plugs them in and they automagically appear in my cloud controller, i click adapt and in 30 seconds its ready to go. i deploy these in 15 minutes and 10 of those is spent drilling :slightly_smiling: Let me know how eeros work out when you get them. Iā€™m going to order new models of unifis to try out.

power injector is not really proprietary. its standard in POE world. They donā€™t use POE standard thats why they need it. Not a big deal for me.

LOL, OK but if I order from Amazon they will not come configured by you, right :slightly_smiling:

I will report my eero status and if not good I may order the Ubiquitiā€™s and have them shipped to you for configuration, LOL

I was excited when EERO first announced a couple years back. But as the specs and and pricing came out I came to the opinion that while this may be the ideal direction in the future, weā€™re probably a couple years out from good quality at a reasonable cost. I havenā€™t seen enough real world data to be certain but I question the abilities of the current EERO and Luma devices under high demand. For range and what they do Iā€™d put a $79 price on each device. For now the older routers converted to wireless bridges handle my high bandwidth media needs in two rooms, and the strategically placed range extender covers the distant outdoor IP cameras well enough. Iā€™ve already solved the problem EERO claims to solve, and at much lower costā€¦

UPDATE: I have installed my eeroā€™s and so far LOVE them.

I have 50+Mbps everywhere in my house now (that is the speed I have paid for with my provider) and no longer have issues with devices freezing. Setup was a breeze. I had an issue with port forwarding because I was testing from within my network and there is a open ticket on a bug that eero prevents devices within the network from reaching the external IP of the main router. But support identified my issue right away, gave me some workarounds and said they are working on a fix. They have been rolling out updates with major fixes and get this NOT breaking other stuff, unlike ST :slight_smile:

I am impressed and although I could have build a similar setup for less money they have made it so easy that I feel my money was very well spent!

2 Likes

I configured with iPhone. Worked great.

Decided to add a 4th Eero this weekend. Some spotty performance until it updated to the latest software overnight. But now, bam, great performance all across the house. Getting 160MB+ in my office, and 200MB+ in the room with the main Eero. Good stuff.

1 Like

Only because itā€™s been mentioned a few times, Iā€™m a BIG fan of Ubiquiti products. Iā€™ve been running their APs and Router for about 2 years now without issue. I just purchased their UAP-AC-PRO and got it setup this weekend. Smooth as butter. For the price ($149), I couldnā€™t recommend anything other than the UAP-AC-PRO. 802.11ac @ HT80 is pretty impressive!

Looking to upgrade my home network. Trying to decide between Eero, Luma, and Ubiquiti- Could someone link which ones would be equal? Also do the ubiquiti mesh like eero and luma?

The nice part about the luma is I would probably get 6 for the price of three eero, although I donā€™t know if I would need all 6 or not. Right now I have 3 access points and am looking for more seamless transitioning throughout my 2400sf home. Thoughts Anyone?

Luma is an unknown since itā€™s still in development. It has very different intended features. It plans to have parental settings, monitor you usage, allow you to block sites etc. If you like these features then you have two options. Buy it now and get it cheaper but take the risk that it isnā€™t a good product (you could always return it to Amazon)

Eero is a known product now. I have 3 eeroā€™s and love the system. I have had no issues but others have reported some issues. If you do a lot of online gaming there seem to be some issues with UPnP but I think they are working bugs out well. The mesh network is ROCK SOLID. Apparently each device knows which devices are itā€™s neighbors and decides which to use for routing. Itā€™s transparent and works great from what I have seem so far. I get my full bandwidth that I paid for throughout my home now.

I will let someone else speak about ubiquiti, I will just say that although I have network experience I found the ubiquiti products are not geared to the consumer so I found them confusing to purchase the correct devices and to know how to set them up and what to expect. I donā€™t know if they truly mesh on an ongoing basis or how they work.

Just got emailā€¦

This year, get Mom the gift that keeps on giving: fast, reliable WiFi in every room. Whether sheā€™s live tweeting your family dinner or catching up on email, eero lets her do what she wants, where she wants.
Hereā€™s $75 off a new eero 3-pack in time for Motherā€™s Day*.
Check it out
Enter promo code MOM-t88fd7ed at checkout.

https://store.eero.com/?utm_source=mothers_day&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mothers_day_coupon_v1

1 Like