Eero – Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi

https://www.eero.com/

by alexis • 11 years ago

148 96 11 years ago

eero.com

IsraCV• 11 years ago

I definitely want it, but they aren't shipping to México yet, that's bad news for me.

jbob2000• 11 years ago

Cool, but I don't have enough of an issue with my wifi to make the switch.

I'm also really skeptical of anything that calls itself "self-fixing". I have yet to see any tech get that right. Usually that just means "we obscured most of the settings you need to fix things away from you, hidden behind a fancy UI".

scribu• 11 years ago

This reminded me of the ever-failing WiFi at conferences.

I wonder if anyone is working on a relatively easy to set up system that could be rented out to small conference organizers.

jsjohnst3• 11 years ago

Pretty sure the problem at conferences isn't something this is designed to fix. In simple terms, the issue at conferences is the lack of spectrum. If a conference wants to have quality wifi, the solution is to use low power radios with highly directional antennas.

kalessin2• 11 years ago

If you need a repeater somewhere well, like your laptop, your repeater isn't going to have a good connection with the base station. Most homes make it really hard to deploy WiFi properly, especially in the 5ghz band, I don't see how they are solving this. The only way is in-wall Ethernet and different access points, hopefully they also support that.

weaves3• 11 years ago

@kalessin Nick the Co-founder and CEO of eero here. You're totally correct about 5 GHz - it doesn't get through walls particularly well. That's where having a distributed mesh versus one router is really helpful. By placing a few of our units through your home we're typically able to have 5GHz links between our devices and 5 GHz links out to clients.

seanp2k2• 11 years ago

Does each unit have 2 radios (e.g. 2x 5ghz radios)? Trunking and communicating with clients with one radio would give you less than half of the normal bandwidth, which is why lots of wireless meshes trunk on a different frequency (though I'd prefer the option of trunking via Ethernet). Unless wifi chipsets have become very clever in the past few years, it seems like this wouldn't allow max throughout.

kenneth_dart• 11 years ago

Any plans to power the device over Ethernet (PoE) for those with existing network infrastructure?

acd• 11 years ago

"eero is the world’s first WiFi system. A set of three eeros covers the typical home. They connect to create an intelligent mesh network that blankets any size or shape home in fast, reliable WiFi"

There is another product Open-mesh which is a system which was before eero so this part of the FAQ needs to be updated.

Smart use of two radios though for the repeating stuff.

mikeash• 11 years ago

I imagine they've settled on a definition of "system" with enough conditions and caveats that their product is the only one that qualifies.

jsjohnst3• 11 years ago

Curious their definition of "wifi system". My Aruba wifi network at home definitely does everything their system does and more (albeit I would definitely not consider it consumer friendly).

mfringel• 11 years ago

...and that's the thing, right there.

Having deployed a large Aruba installation, I really like the Aruba system in general (consumer-unfriendliness aside).

That being said, unless things have changed since a few years ago, you're still looking at >$1000 to do a minimal installation, once licensing and support is set up.

thaumaturgy5• 11 years ago

Ehh... we used open-mesh for a while, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I don't know what their hardware is like now, because we gave up on it years ago, but when they were running on the Engenius hardware the reliability was pretty awful. I think we ended up having to replace every single Engenius unit we deployed.

Then we discovered Ubiquiti and their hardware was amazing, but you couldn't use it for open-mesh after the FCC tapped Ubiquiti on the shoulder for allowing their radios to be reconfigured with a different country code.

Open-mesh seems like they're targeting the hobbyist / light commercial deployment market, Eero looks like they're aiming for the home and end-user market. Maybe their marketing is stretching things a bit, but I don't think it's completely out of line.

monojussi• 11 years ago

I deployed and ran a five-unit open-mesh system about a year ago. After some slight deployment shenanigans, the system was stable and pretty fast.

_JamesA_• 11 years ago

The Eero 3 pack is listed for pre-order at $299 and $125 per individual unit.

I can pick up a Ubiquiti UniFi 3 pack for $189 or individually for $64 at Amazon today.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EORRBW/ref=olp_product_...

benjaminl• 11 years ago

Since the Eero supports 5 Ghz, the equivalent UniFi is the UAP-Pro which costs $199 per access point.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-UAP-PRO-Enterprise-S...

Also setting up a Ubiquiti UniFi is an enterprise level product, with all the complexity that implies.

Update: See http://wiki.ubnt.com/UniFi_FAQ#Wireless_Uplink as an example of what is required to setup Ubiquiti's answer to mesh networking. Note that this requires the user to setup server software to do the provisioning.

kxo• 11 years ago

with all the complexity that implies

Running the installer and paging through the wizard.

miles• 11 years ago

setting up a Ubiquiti UniFi is an enterprise level product, with all the complexity that implies.

The many positive Amazon reviews seem to suggest otherwise.

Here's a sampling:

"This was very easy to install and configure and has great coverage in our 3,500 sq ft home."

"As a tech savvy, but non-technically trained individual - this WAP was extremely easy to configure and provides exceptional wireless range and speed."

"I can't say enough how simple the installation process on these has been..."

Note, however, that the Java Runtime Environment is required to configure the software. I guess the dream of the 90s is alive at Ubiquiti.

simpsond• 11 years ago

UniFi is likely a better solution if you are technically inclined. For most people, getting the controller up and running is too complicated. UBNT targets enterprise after all.

drzaiusapelord• 11 years ago

No ethernet wiring or IT degree required.

So... you buy 3 WAPs, one acts as a router, and I guess they all talk to each other via wifi bridging. At the right pricepoint this must be attractive for those who just want something "that works" but if its too expensive, just using plain old wifi bridging will beat them out. Not sure how business will react to this as they typically have ethernet all over the place and don't need, or want, wireless bridging of access points.

I do wonder why no one has made a wifi device that does bridging over 5ghz but does 2.4ghz for clients. No client-side interference issues to worry about as the three WAPs communicate with each other, but at the cost of 5ghz for clients (which most clients dont support).

I think the larger issue here is why wifi gets so little spectrum from the FCC. It would be nice if we moved towards opening up some more spectrum for home wifi. Perhaps start working on making channel 2.4ghz 14 work, like they have in Japan. Shame the sweet 700mhz band was sold to the telecoms instead of given to the people for open access. So here we are with the status quo of "just add more access points" and hope to god all your neighbors don't do the same. As someone who has neighbors who already do this, it pisses me off there aren't any clear channels for me to use, so I'm always dealing with interference.

I think eero could really cause some problems as one apartment dweller could take up all three overlapping channels very quickly and now everyone else around her is suddenly getting half or less the speed they are used to. In the age of 50-100mbps internet to the home, suddenly being unable to get all of that via wireless-N sucks. I have 50mbps internet, and can barely crack 30mbps over wifi no matter what channel I use. Over wired ethernet, I get all 50mbps. Netstumbler shows me, amongst other WAPs, my neighbor has 3 AP's with the same SSID using all three non-overlapping channels, which is pretty much what eero is. So what now? Nothing, I just have to suck it up or hope that wifi AC fixes everything. I suspect AC won't make much of a difference if it doesn't have the available spectrum.

Also, anyone else impressed with the PR this thing is getting? Its on all my feeds/sites/etc. Someone is paying for quite a marketing campaign.

mplummeridge• 11 years ago

Sensationalist much? Powerline and/or ethernet backbone is the only way to keep the limited medium free for reliable WiFi.

bornabox• 11 years ago

Seems like a lot of marketing talk. It's a mesh-network (so you need multiple units to make it work). Mesh is better then 'range-extenders' but slows down, as you add more nodes. Don't know if they're doing the mesh on one frequency (5.8 GHz) and the connection on the other (2.4 GHz) or vice versa, but it would make sense. The devices all talk both frequencies as per specs.

Still, well done video, using your phone to connect for the first time (via Bluetooth) is clever etc.

Don't know if I believe all the 'never reboot a router again'-spiel, even more expensive gear needs to be power-cycled once in a while. Unless they do that auto-magically at night when you don't use it (that might or might not be clever - depends on you use-case).

quinndupont• 11 years ago

Yeah, I'm pretty curious to see what secret sauce they would have had to have invented to make these claims. If true, this would all be great, but seems damn unlikely.

oaf357• 11 years ago

This is intriguing but at that price point I'm not sure it's worth it without some additional detailed tech specs.

smcquaid• 11 years ago

Congrats Amos! These look amazing! (A far sexier model from that black box prototype you showed me!)

azurelogic• 11 years ago

I'm skeptical of the app based setup. This thing is dripping with a nice glossy coat of "made for non-technical users". I sure hope they have provided means for reserved IPs and custom port forwarding for when people need it. Bonus if it can update dynamic DNS for me.

andyana3• 11 years ago

Why would APs need to do any of that stuff?

wmf5• 11 years ago

People are going to expect this system to also do routing/firewalling/etc.

MichaelApproved3• 11 years ago

You are probably not the intended market for this device. Not every piece of hardware has to accommodate the needs of every demographic within the market.

It looks like they're targeting the group of people who want their home network to just work.

lunixbochs9• 11 years ago

You could also treat it as an abstract "access point" blanket, throw a dedicated router in front of it (like a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite), and get some separation of concerns bonus points.

aidenn03• 11 years ago

That only works if it supports bridging rather than forcing you to use NAT.

untog2• 11 years ago

eero is the world’s first WiFi system

Huh?

Finally, WiFi that works.

My WiFi works just fine, always has. And if I ever upgrade to an A/C network it'll be fast, too.

thaumaturgy5• 11 years ago

Oh, good point. Clearly if it works just fine for you, it works just fine for everyone else too. :-)

untog2• 11 years ago

What I was saying is that the copy doesn't really do a good job explaining what it solves. And "first wi-fi system" really does mean nothing.

essayist• 11 years ago

Moderately off topic question for everyone who could whip up a superior solution over lunch with two Arduinos and a Raspberry Pi ;-)

Where does one go (as a somewhat technical non-Wifi expert) to get guidance on positioning, configuring, naming just two wifi routers for a 700 square foot apartment? (E.g. should I have both on the same channel? Should I have the same or different SSIDs?)

gambiting• 11 years ago

Same SSIDs, same passwords, different channels. All your devices will then connect to the device with the strongest signal. I usually pick the channels for my routers manually, leaving them all in auto-mode results in a huge deathmatch and all 5 routers in my house changing channels every 10 minutes because somehow their randomized algorithms always pick the same ones.

You can only pick the same channels if you are absolutely, 100% certain that there is no signal overlap.

lunixbochs9• 11 years ago

Channel overlap isn't really an issue in 5GHz mode with DFS [1]. This also isn't completely accurate for 2.4GHz mode unless you will have high-bandwidth clients connected to multiple routers simultaneously. WiFi is cooperative by design, so it's possible to have 20-30 routers broadcasting networks in the same room on the same channel and a single client connecting to any single one of them at mostly full bandwidth. You can run into the Hidden Node Problem [2] if you have high bandwidth wireless users spread out and connected to multiple routers.

With just two routers and a single laptop moving around an apartment, your biggest problem for signal (on a 2.4GHz network) will be the neighboring apartments and not the unused router, as it is just broadcasting beacon frames about every hundred milliseconds and not doing much else.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_allocation_schemes#DCA_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem

lunixbochs9• 11 years ago

You shouldn't need two routers in normal apartment conditions. Unless your walls are filled with water or contain a tuned copper mesh, you should probably just spend more on your main router, make sure to use 5GHz, and run wires if that doesn't work. Unlike 2.4GHz with 1-3 non-overlapping channels available (depending on your chosen bandwidth), the 5GHz band has 21 non-overlapping channels.

You're pretty much guaranteed to be fighting with several neighboring wifi networks in an apartment (and you're more likely to get the hidden node problem), so that's pretty much worst case for 2.4GHz.

If you have a legacy requirement for 2.4GHz, try a single ASUS RT-N66U before installing two routers. I've seen it effortlessly cover several-thousand-square-foot areas from the back room or basement. I was able to get reasonable signal from one in a lobby through four vertical floors (and through many other active wireless networks).

If you want AC / have AC-capable devices: get an AirPort Extreme if you use Apple hardware, or any of the ASUS AC (like the AC66U) routers otherwise. Be forewarned: many AC routers on the market combine their maximum 5GHz N speed and 5GHz AC speed for their "total capable speed", for example "N600 + AC1800 = AC2400!" [1] (it is a very nice router, but you're just about as well off in an apartment with an AC66U). Also, if you get an ASUS router, make sure to replace the default firmware with Tomato Shibby or asuswrt-rmerlin as the stock software has a bad habit of sprouting moderate to critical security vulns (ASUS isn't special here. Many of the consumer router vendors have this problem.).

[1] http://www.asus.com/us/News/hE5SJg3y7bbIBIGO

web007• 11 years ago

You just enumerated their main selling points: "run wires if that doesn't work" and "make sure to replace the default firmware".

I don't think this product is the right one for you, but it is for someone my parents' age or for my non-technical peers. If my parents / in-laws have WiFi trouble I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that they get a couple of these.

FireBeyond• 11 years ago

Have them on the same SSID.

Have the 5GHz channel on a separate SSID. Some devices (Apple seems to be bad at this) will end up having an "affinity" to the lower speed 2.4GHz because of signal strength (often only trivially different, and usually with more interference).

I have "My Home SSID" and "My Home SSID 5GHz", and set the 5GHz with a higher connection priority and it works well - only if the 5GHz noticeably deteriorates does it switch down (and devices that are not 5GHz get more access to the 2.4GHz network).

wmf5• 11 years ago

The FAQ says each unit has two radios, so it's not the same as most of the mesh stuff that people are talking about in this thread.

discardorama• 11 years ago

Interesting product; but at $125, a bit rich for me.

I was just thinking of putting together a router using a RasPi. What's the best way to get 802.11 a/b/c/g/n/* capability? Should I use 2 USB dongles, one for "g" and the other for the rest?

wmf5• 11 years ago

Personally I would never do something that kludgey. I bought whatever CeroWRT recommended for $50 refurb.

blacksmith_tb• 11 years ago

The RPi is running eth0 and usb over the same bus, which makes it a bad choice for rolling your own router. Other than the fun of understanding how the parts fit together, I would be surprised if you could find a dev board that would outperform a dedicated router in terms of features and power consumption for a low price. Some of the RPi alternatives might be close, Banana Pi, Odroid, etc.

th0br0• 11 years ago

So... a cheap / enduser version of Cisco Meraki?

lisper3• 11 years ago

If you're willing to do a little bit of configuration work you can accomplish the same thing with TPLink WR702N micro routers for $20 each.

mlrtime• 11 years ago

Any details there? wrt or does it work out of the box?

weaves3• 11 years ago

You can quickly flash the device with an OpenWRT build. Pushing an update to our site shortly that has some of the details. Look for the Developers tab soon.

cdawzrd• 11 years ago

Well, not quite the same thing... the TP-Link product is 2.4GHz only, which is kind of a big deal these days. Support in DD-WRT and Tomato for 5GHz and 802.11ac protocols is somewhat shaky today (on some devices at least), but hopefully will improve.

lisper3• 11 years ago

Why is 5GHz a "big deal" rather than a "nice to have" (but no big deal if you don't)?

rndmize• 11 years ago

I'm hopeful this is as solid as the video makes it look. All the points it covers - forgotten passwords, bad coverage, troublesome initial configuration, no easy way to extend a network - are things I've seen people choke on.

I don't really agree with the negativity here; sure it probably doesn't do as much as ubiquiti gear or dd-wrt or whatever, and it may cost more, but I think for the average person these are far outweighed by the "throw another box at it" simplicity.

MichaelApproved3• 11 years ago

Plus, the "cost" of a device is more than what you pay at the store. For many people non-technical people, it includes hiring an IT guy to help them get it setup, spending hours on the phone with support or hours Googling for help.

Even if you're a technical person, your time might be more valuable than futzing around with a router.

A lot of people are willing to pay a premium for something that just works.

fpgaminer• 11 years ago

The tech community is plagued by a fear of the new and unknown. I've seen it time and time again, and it really baffles me.

Anyway, yeah these sound neat. I hope more than anything, though, that they have secure firmware. One of the biggest problems faced by the average home is vulnerable router firmware, leaving millions of routers open to exploit for various nefarious purposes.

hristov• 11 years ago

No need to be baffled. The start-up graveyards are full of companies that have promised a mesh wireless system and have failed miserably. It is not fear of the unknown, it is a very healthy skepticism towards unsubstantiated marketing claims. Or, in other words -- it is fear of the vaporware.

If it all works as advertised, this would be great. But there is no reason to believe these ambitious marketing claims before there is actual product on the shelves.

lunixbochs9• 11 years ago

I really like this. Executed properly, it will solve WiFi issues for medium to large in-home deployments. I think the killer angle is the ease of setup and configurability. The most important tech here to me is the fact it promises to self-update and try its hardest to never stop working. If their marketing is accurate, I'd recommend this in any simple deployment requiring more than one router. (Say, throw it in your parent's large house and trust it will just keep working over time)

That said, a current-gen AirPort Express or Extreme covers many of the points here.

- You can set it up in seconds from your phone, if you have an iPhone. (Otherwise, you're stuck with OS X, Windows, or the Windows utility on WINE, though there are some okay open-source config utils).

- It's going to be pretty much rock solid. They're very good about reacquiring network access, and the firmware is about the cleanest I've ever seen on a router from a technical perspective (the iCloud services are a bit weird, but those are optional).

- You really only need one of them to serve single-level homes /apartments where they'll be punching through less than 5-6 walls.

- It won't auto-update, but some might consider this a feature.

- If you plug a second AirPort in, it asks if you want to extend the first network.

That aside, the bandwidth reduction from a multihop mesh would likely make the Eero unsuitable for my needs (I tend to saturate AC, so I just throw more wired access points at the coverage problem to keep my bandwidth up).

aidenn03• 11 years ago

I lived in a 2 BR condo and couldn't get any AP that would cover all of it. The cable came in on one side of the condo, and I lost about 20dB to each wall; someone suggested from the age of construction that I might have wire-mesh in the plaster.

umsm• 11 years ago

I completely agree regarding the ease of setting up apple's routers.

I tried setting up a linksys router as a bridge, but it was a little bit tricky and required me to reset it once or twice before I got it setup.

A few days later I purchased an airport express for the airplay feature to connect it to my radio. I installed it at one location in my home and it was drop-dead simple to set it up as a bridge to the existing network.

txu• 11 years ago

It's good to see disruption in home networking with better UX. It's not hard to agree the "Admin Consoles" running at 192.168.0.1 look a bit outdated now, both in terms of ease of use and elegance of design. Also the reliability of WiFi will be more critical as more devices are connected in our home, especially to non-technical users.

But the price is a bummer. Routers are dirt cheap nowadays ( during Christmas/Thanksgiving a dual-band was only $18). I've got one WiFi router for each room, backed by Powerline, and the total was probably only ~$200.

Well I guess $100 isn't too much for peace of mind, if it really works as advertised...

thaumaturgy5• 11 years ago

If your routers don't do zero handoff (Ubiquiti's term for seamlessly switching control from router to router as you move through a coverage area), then Eero might have some benefit.

walshemj• 11 years ago

Mobile ip is the technical term Cisco Airnet stuff has had this for ages.

kreeger• 11 years ago

For a moment there, I thought this was related to the Eero language project (http://eerolanguage.org).

xpose2000• 11 years ago

If this came out 5 years ago, I would say it may be worth a look. Coverage was spotty and slow at times. However, routers have come a long way since our favorite Blue Linksys WRT54 router.

They are faster than ever, and have a bigger range than ever before. I suggest skipping the Eero and opting for something like this: http://www.cnet.com/products/asus-ac2400-rt-ac87u-dual-band-...

thaumaturgy5• 11 years ago

Even powerful routers / access points like that one have difficulty with certain types of home construction or layouts. Older buildings with narrow hallways, heavy wood beam construction, lath and plaster, multiple levels, or brick construction all pose some challenges for wifi devices. Homes with detached units, like a small shop, don't usually get both covered very well without extra devices.

You're right that the average Bay Area cardboard box doesn't need these, but the world's a lot bigger than the Bay Area.

dserodio• 11 years ago

I have an Asus RTN66U "Dark Knight" and it works wonderfully in about half of my ~1500 sq. ft. apartment, but shitty in the other half. I'm convinced a single router won't be enough.

DanBC• 11 years ago

See the identical submission made an hour earlier, but with extra new-account voting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8990369

uean• 11 years ago

Fancy website. Here's another product creeping into the same space - http://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

Finally bumping out Aerohive, Meraki and others determined to destroy my wallet.

pbreit• 11 years ago

Why does wifi still cost so much? Routers should be $25-50 and repeaters $15-25.

wmf5• 11 years ago

You can get Asian-brand older-generation equipment for those prices. For the newer standards somebody has to pay for the R&D.

matdrewin• 11 years ago

Not sure this business case is as obvious as the Nest Thermostat or Smoke Detector. I found my Time Capsule pretty easy to setup. Router is located in the basement and range is good all around my two story 1500 sq ft house. Performance is pretty awesome as well. Only addition here is Bluetooth which removes need for direct ethernet and passwords for remote administration.

lazylizard2• 11 years ago

what is different between this and openmesh?

bgix• 11 years ago

I have been peppering eero's "Questions" link for the past few days, and have gotten a lot of information, and have been suitably impressed enough to pre-order.

1. In the Mesh, all units using the same MAC address and Channel. This means no actual "hand-off" needs to be made from the perspective of the client device, even as you move about the covered area. It sounds like Antenna Diversity on Steroids.... There will need to be multi-path-rx consolidation done within the mesh, and some decision making which eero (and which antenna on the specific eero) to send device bound packets to.

2. According to another response I got, however the mesh is currently formed, it's day-to-day operation can be supported both wirelessly or hard-wired (cat5). I am guessing (hoping) this means that a giga-switch could be installed between eeros, and I will be able to use my previously installed pulled cat5 cabling to reach from my Router in the basement to my top AP two floors up.... the guy indicated that wire based mesh will still be faster (at least from a latency perspective) than a fully wireless based mesh. I intend to have a hybrid wired-wireless mesh unless it proves to be too much hype.

3. I did not get a definitive answer (I don't think) about the usefulness of the 2 gigaports on each eero. They are both WAN/LAN auto-sensing, but was hoping to learn that they could both could be used as LAN ports at the same time.... Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but at least one can be a LAN.

4. I have not really received an answer on how "customizable" the QoS settings are. I have a lot of "critical bandwidth" devices (tivos, game consoles, VOIP) and I would like "massagable" QoS settings, by port and by fixed IP or MAC.

Eero – Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi

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