
Whether it was in a 1,050-square-foot apartment or a three-story, 2,000-square-foot home, the Eero outperformed the other mesh routers in our pool. While the main router alone has enough juice to cover 1,500 square feet, pairing it with the two extenders covers a radius of 5,000 square feet. With more than 100 devices on the network (from smart bulbs to TVs, laptops to connected appliances), the Eero 6 never once so much as sputtered during our testing, nor did we notice the smallest of dead spots. We caught up on our favorite content, including “ WandaVision,” reruns of “The Office,” “ The Mandalorian” and “Below Deck.” We gamed until our hands strained. We sent messages and took calls (both audio and video) from a variety of devices. Once we had the Eero set up (we tested the three-pack Eero, which includes the main router and two nodes, also called extenders), we went about our daily lives. After you find a spot and plug in a node, the Eero app will score your placement, giving you data and helping you decide if you need to find another spot, truly making it simple for anyone to expand their Wi-Fi coverage. Once that’s done, the app is along for the ride while placing the individual nodes (you can opt for two extenders or two routers). Throughout the process, the app (available for Apple and Android) provides helpful prompts to ensure you have all needed materials, and a support page even features photos to guide you through setting up the main router. No sludging your way through obscure acronyms here. Of all the mesh routers we tested, the Eero 6 was the simplest to set up, as the Eero app’s guidance is unfettered by tech jargon. It blankets wide spaces with unfaltering coverage and pairs with a helpful companion app, and its straightforward setup make it a great choice even for a tech-challenged user.

Here’s Cult of Mac’s reviews policy.There’s a lot to love about the Eero 6. com/dp/B00XEW3YD6/?tag=cult087-20" title="Buy from Amazon" class="norewrite" rel="sponsored">AmazonĮero provided a review unit for this article. The expense is worth it for the strong, whole-house coverage, the ease of use and the lack of headaches. Your mileage may vary, but I’m sticking with Eero. However, in my experience the Apple setup is less reliable and harder to set up and run. Or you could pick up Apple’s cheapest 2TB Time Capsule and a pair of Airport Express base stations for about $499, and get everything Eero offers and wireless backups for your Macs. The total is $250, half the price of three Eeros. For example, you could get the highly-rated TP-Link Archer C7 for about $90, and throw in a couple of range extenders for $80 apiece. That’s twice the price of many cheap but highly-rated routers available on Amazon. Eero is $199 for a single box, and $499 for a pack of three. However, this is only a problem if you can’t use your cellphone’s connection instead. If your home Internet is down, you might not be able to access the settings in the app. If your neighbor is using the same channel, it might cause interference.Įero relies on an internet connection to access its settings. It can’t hop around channels like other routers. There are a couple of quirks worth mentioning. So far, no glitches, stuttering, pixelated pictures, or the need to restart anything.
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There have been plenty of evenings when we’re running everything at full pelt - two Apple TVs streaming HD video, XBox games, music playing through Sonos, and simultaneous iCloud and Dropbox syncs running in both directions. Streaming the highest-quality 4K HD video only requires a 25 Mbps connection. That’s plenty of bandwidth for the whole house. Wireless network speeds are tricky, depending on myriad factors like the modem’s speed and time of day, interference from neighbors’ networks, the number of devices connected and what they are up to.īut in general, the Eero network has maintained speeds of about 160 Mbps, with about 30 devices connected at any one time. When I was done, the app tested the network’s speed: a cool 220 Mbps down, and 12 Mbps up. Fixes and updates are pushed automatically from the cloud.

The system is “self-fixing,” adjusting stuff like bandwidth and interference and adjusting itself automatically. And when I say controlled, I mean monitored. The network is controlled via the well-laid out app.
