Pretty much every major company that makes consumer routers has gotten into the mesh WiFi business over the past few years. But a startup called eero one of the first companies to posit the idea that you’d get better WiFi coverage in your house if you used a system of up to three routers instead of one.
Now Amazon has announced it’s acquiring eero.
It’s a move that makes sense when you consider that Amazon is already heavily invested in smart home products thanks to its Echo and Alexa ecosystem and Fire TV line of media streaming products — all of which work best when you have a solid internet connection.
It’s unclear at this point what the future holds for eero’s product lineup. For now it seems likely that Amazon will continue selling eero’s existing devices including the eero router and eero’s “beacon” access points which you can place around your home to improve network coverage.
In the future it’s possible we could see Amazon-branded devices using eero technology: maybe there’ll be an Amazon WiFi mesh router system to compete with Google WiFi?
But it’s also possible we could see mesh networking built into other Amazon devices. What if every Echo smart speaker was also an access point?
Does everyone need a mesh WiFi system? Probably not. There’s a single 802.11ac WiFi router on the third floor of our house, and while the signal isn’t as strong on the first floor as it is on the third, I can still stream 4K video anywhere in the house. So I’m not in a hurry to buy more gadgets that need to be plugged in 24/7.
But if you have a larger (or more awkwardly laid out) home, it’s nice to have the option of picking up a WiFi range extender or a mesh system to help cover hard-to-reach areas.
In my experience mesh works much better than range extenders.
I use two routers configured as access points with the same SSID. They are both connected to my modem/router with gigabit ethernet. TP-Link AC1200 ($40 each). I have had no coverage issues, and have 4 active channels to support all devices in the house.
Wouldn’t that be closer to a mesh system than a range extender?
Not really, drive me crazy how mis used the term mesh is, if its just 2 aps, both hardwired to a switch or router, its in no way whatsoever mesh, you just have 2 aps. In an actual mesh you’d need the aps to communicate with each other and typically use wifi (all routing down to 1 units connection….which is horrible) as the backbone (which IMO has been and will always been meshs largest detraction)
I’ve got that same router at home, and I have to say, given its price, I’m pleasantly impressed with its performance and reliability.
I wish I could afford a house that actually needed a mesh network…
Don’t forget it also depends on the type of construction. In Mexico most places are concrete which makes the signal only tolerable if it has to cross two walls. A third and it often won’t work. So mesh in these situations could be an easier solution.
So we can expect to see an Echeero……or maybe an Eerocho? Interesting, if I didn’t already have a much better experience in a full Unifi setup.
I live in a house that is stacked like a cake. And I tried multiple options(better router, powerline, wifi extender) before I just got a Asus Deco M5 during Thanksgiving. Stupid easy to setup, gave me a nice app to monitor and control. And best of all, not dropping connections. OK, it drops connections maybe once or twice a month. But I’d blame that on the ISP as well.
I’m really really sold on the Mesh network thing. I dont need to have a diploma in Network Engineering to get it right. And people at home depend on me to have a robust solution to be online so they can work reliably when at home. But Amazon dipping their toes into this would mean they would have access to not just what we ask Alexa, but pretty much everything we browse.
I had a similar situation. My wifi signal would not remain strong on different floors. Powerline worked to provide a connection, but I lost a tremendous amount of speed doing that. I was shocked the powerline even worked at all in my situation, so that was an unexpected win for a while. But when I needed more bandwidth, mesh was the simplest way to go. I assume you mean the TP Link Deco M5. I believe Asus does have their own mesh solution. The Deco M5 is the one I got as well. It has worked extremely well. I even was able to get great coverage without using the third unit, so it is now a spare.
That’s not true. Like most modern routers, Eero allows you to set up a guest network which would completely insulate them from anything on the main network.