Home Mesh Wi-Fi Coming This Summer From eero

[thiggins]

You still have at least until February to wait, IF eero holds its ship date.

 

[sfx2000]

I think if MESH was such a strong business case for the SNB/SOHO markets, the Tier 1 OEM's/ODM's would be all over it, as it sells more boxes - and this, at least for now, isn't the case...

 

[hifiguy]

I noticed that eero will be shipping this month and was reading about it, but what I would like to know is opposed to an extender which has a loss in performance does a mesh network not degrade in performance at all or just not as much as extenders do?

What do you guys think of eero system?

 

[L&LD]

I noticed that eero will be shipping this month and was reading about it, but what I would like to know is opposed to an extender which has a loss in performance does a mesh network not degrade in performance at all or just not as much as extenders do?

What do you guys think of eero system?

From everything I've read so far about mesh (not just specifically, eero systems), not much.

I think this will be a niche product and not worth it for home or small business use vs. what we have available today.

 

[schew]

Any reviews on this? I understand they have already shipped

 

[thiggins]

Any reviews on this? I understand they have already shipped

Shipments are supposed to start this month (February 2016). None have shipped yet, to my knowledge.

 

[sfx2000]

From everything I've read so far about mesh (not just specifically, eero systems), not much.

I think this will be a niche product and not worth it for home or small business use vs. what we have available today.

I don't think we're the target market - I'm keeping an open mind - wish them the best of luck.

 

[stevech]

I don't think we're the target market - I'm keeping an open mind - wish them the best of luck.

agree.
non-enterprise and non-military uses of mesh networking have largely been a flop for technical and "need" reasons.

 

[Nullity]

From the occasional glance at academia, many of the papers I have seen (titles only) that involve mesh networks also involve vehicles. Self-driving related perhaps?

 

[stevech]

mesh protocols are normally used when the clients and the access/gateway infrastructure all move, are on wheels, etc.
With the exception of training situations where the gateway can be pre-positioned and be immobile.

But for consumer broadband WiFi, nah. Just ask the mesh product vendors that have come and gone or have been acquired and sidelined. Such as Tropos, Fortress Tech. 3eti, meshnetics (now Atmel). And Cisco's adventures in meshing. T-h-e example is Earthlink + Tropos + Motorola (Canopy) failing after spending $MM trying to do metro WiFi on streetlights in big cities. I worked on that for quite a while.

Military battlefield (everything is a mover) mesh has slight traction with well funded programs.

There is an 802.11 standard, not popular, for meshing.
And there's 802.15.5, the only IEEE standard I know of for meshing, converged with 802.15.4. And there's Zigbee, such as it is. And a mess 'o proprietary ones like Zensys' Z-wave and Digi's Digimesh (for 802.15.4).

For home/SOHO/SMB, with WiFi client hardware, I can't see it.

 

[jramskov]

The first reviews are out and they are pretty positive:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11095610/eero-review-wi-fi-router-walt-mossberg
http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/23/eero-is-the-home-wifi-solution-ive-been-waiting-for/

 

[thiggins]

Dong @ Cnet raises some security concerns.

 

[Darcy]

Looking foward to your review thiggins.

 

[L&LD]

Dong @ Cnet raises some security concerns.

In fact, it appeared to me that every command I sent from the app (commands that would change a network setting) to the Eero system needed to go through Eero's server first.

As a single router, the Eero's speed is quite impressive for how small it is. In testing, at the close range of 10 feet (3 meters), it registered sustained speeds of 330Mbps (easily beating the Google OnHubs). At some 75 feet (23 meters) away, it averaged an impressive 177Mbps.


Things changed dramatically when I added a second Eero to the network. The client's real-world speed dropped significantly and averaged 166Mbps at close range and 60Mbps at long range.

I placed the third Eero even further out. Now the signal had to jump from the first Eero to the second, then to the third before it got to the test client. In this case, I was averaging 69Mbps at short range and 45Mbps at long range.

What to consider before buying
The fact that the system needs to connect to Eero before you can manage settings is unacceptable. If Eero's servers were to go down, or if you were unable to access the Internet, you would not be able to make any changes to your network settings. Because of this, for now, buying the Eero is like getting a home network that's not 100 percent yours.

This doesn't seem to be the silver bullet many hope it would be.

 

[jramskov]

The fact that it almost becomes a doorstop if your internet connection is down is certainly worrying and will probably make me stay away. It might be something they can change with a firmware update, who knows? However, for many I could see this as almost a silver bullet, it's easy to setup, makes it easy to cover your whole house and provides enough bandwidth for most use cases.

 

[Nullity]

The fact that it almost becomes a doorstop if your internet connection is down is certainly worrying and will probably make me stay away. It might be something they can change with a firmware update, who knows? However, for many I could see this as almost a silver bullet, it's easy to setup, makes it easy to cover your whole house and provides enough bandwidth for most use cases.

Absolutely. I understand cloud processing/off-loading with gaming or other high load apps, but not a simple service like this.

Though, this is a brand-new tech for consumers (?), so the not completely negative reception gives me hope for the technology.

 

[L&LD]

However, for many I could see this as almost a silver bullet, it's easy to setup, makes it easy to cover your whole house and provides enough bandwidth for most use cases.

If most use cases is just streaming video, sure. But getting almost 4x less speed with 3 eero's connected is not what anyone would pay $500 for (at least, not anyone I know).

The article even recommends a 'real' router be used alongside the eero's. More nonsense and dollars.

This just proves that a single WiFi router, placed optimally, is a far better solution than any promises 'mesh' fails to deliver upon. If or when they have a dedicated backhaul radio for sharing the connection (along with more LAN ports), this may become feasible.

As it stands? A very pretty and very expensive 'statement' device with just enough performance that some won't return it after half an hour of opening the boxes.

 

[sfx2000]

Let's see how the review goes - some objective numbers might shed some light on things...

eero is providing a solution to a perceived problem, much like OnHub and perhaps others in the pipeline - it may not solve a problem for many on the board here, but I don't consider some of the "old hands" as typical wireless users

I'm keeping an open mind...

 

[jramskov]

If most use cases is just streaming video, sure. But getting almost 4x less speed with 3 eero's connected is not what anyone would pay $500 for (at least, not anyone I know).

That's not quite how I read it, but I might very well be wrong. The worst speed they measured was when your connection had to pass through three Eero's before reaching the internet. If you only have one router and you're that far away from it, my guess is that your speed would be much slower than what the Eero system provides, if you even would be able to get a connection? And as I understand it, you'd still get the much faster speed if you're close to the first Eero?

 

[L&LD]

That's not quite how I read it, but I might very well be wrong. The worst speed they measured was when your connection had to pass through three Eero's before reaching the internet. If you only have one router and you're that far away from it, my guess is that your speed would be much slower than what the Eero system provides, if you even would be able to get a connection? And as I understand it, you'd still get the much faster speed if you're close to the first Eero?

Not necessarily. Particularly if the other eero's were being used (WiFi is time shared and half duplex).

Besides, at that point you are at most 120 feet away. Not a distance that a single WiFi router can't handle in similar (line of sight, no obstructions, as the article suggests) environments.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-3-0-0-4-374-38-is-out.14691/page-19#post-99500

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-378-55-3_hgg-final-mod.26524/page-2#post-199549

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-380-57-hgg-final.29548/page-23#post-237427