Home Mesh Wi-Fi Coming This Summer From eero

[stevech]

Robert Burns Quotes
(About Wisdom & Knowledge)
Thou Graybeard, old Wisdom, mayst boast of thy treasures Give me with young Folly to live I grant thee thy calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures But Folly has raptures to give.

 

[headcase]

It's up to the client STA's (remember, in 802.11 speak, an AP is also a STA, hehe), and they're getting better all the time...

Apple's IOS/Mac OS X do 11r, and very nicely in a managed environment if it's supported on the network side - newer versions of Android have it as an option (if the client wifi driver supports it), and same with Windows (again, dependent on driver support)...

Thanks for the additional information, Tim and sfx2000. In researching this a bit on the Internet, it seems that true WiFi roaming networks that support 802.11k and 802.11r are the next "big thing" for home consumer use, which to me is an essential part of any decent setup (in the home or the enterprise). 802.11k and 802.11r seem to be lacking in most consumer routers/APs (not counting custom firmwares). Even though I have the latest OS X and iOS devices that support 802.11k and 802.11r, my MOBILE devices frequently tend to fail in jumping to the nearest AP when roaming around the house. Always frustrating, and it honestly shouldn't require throwing a wrench at it for such basic functionality.

I could go with something like Meraki to solve the problem, but I'm not up for the expense. Mesh or no mesh, eero might be the solution for me until other vendors provide true WiFi roaming networks in the home. And given I prefer a wired backhaul over wireless backhaul any day to the week, I'll probably connect each eero unit to Ethernet (or Powerline) anyhow.

 

[thiggins]

11k and r supported in APs and routers don't help if client devices don't also support them.

 

[headcase]

11k and r supported in APs and routers don't help if client devices don't also support them.

Exactly. I was referring to all my latest devices from Apple as having 802.11k and r. Still no joy if the consumer network doesn't support it.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

 

[thiggins]

Still no joy if the consumer network doesn't support it.

Yup. You're right about that.

 

[pete y testing]

my MOBILE devices frequently tend to fail in jumping to the nearest AP when roaming around the house. Always frustrating, and it honestly shouldn't require throwing a wrench at it for such basic functionality.

then i would suggest you have too much overlap between your Ap's in terms of signal coverage and thats what causing the roaming issue , you need to really focus on having only about a 20% overlap between ap's and the middle point between ap's read no more than about -50db rssi wise and when in range of an ap other ap's should drop below -70dbrssi to ensure the client can and will roam to the stronger signal

if your ap's overlap too much the client device has no need to move to a slightly stronger signal if the existing signal is still well within range

even with the new standard physics still applies , there is no magic in how clients move from one transmission and why , where it comes to handoff roaming where all the AP's become a signal transmission to the client and the control is done by pc based software then things change up a bit

but with standard ap's its all about the placement and overlap and power setting , as without this set as described roaming becomes problematic

 

[sfx2000]

I briefly mentioned that in the review. eero supports 802.11r for fast reassociation. But to get the benefit, the client also must support it. An IDLE test client (sorry, I forget which one) I tried switched APs within a second.

"Mesh" is not the solution for "sticky" clients that refuse to roam.

"Sticky" clients typically is an indication of AP's too close together - a client will typically camp on an associated AT until RSSI hits a certain level before it starts scanning for another AP...

in 11n/11ac, typically that trigger point will be around -70dB before it starts looking/probing for candidate AP's within the same BSS/ESS - the kicker here though, is that before they jump, many will look to see if the candidate is 8 to 12 dB stronger than the current AP.

If the AP's are too close together, one might not meet the threshold needed for the client to jump... I've seen this first hand, and was a tuning parameter back when I was exploring 802.11 meshing...

This could be a challenge with eero, if the AP's don't have enough separation...

 

[thiggins]

This could be a challenge with eero, if the AP's don't have enough separation...

eero says they can adjust transmit power level to help mitigate this.

 

[manners]

Great review of the eero, felt like the only really, proper in deoth review and test so far and theres enough reviews out there of this product.


thiggins can you comment on how you think eero's handoff works compared to Edimax's ac1750 and Cap 1200 ap's "fast roaming"/"smart handover" (I'm not sure which one they are calling it)?

 

[thiggins]

thiggins can you comment on how you think eero's handoff works compared to Edimax's ac1750 and Cap 1200 ap's "fast roaming"/"smart handover" (I'm not sure which one they are calling it)?

I did not test roaming with an active connection, i.e. streaming, VoIP call. As noted in the article, I did see < 1 second switching between BSSIDs for an idle client. I did not test this for all 8 clients in the article.

Roaming behavior is still very dependent on the device. eero is doing what it can through transmit power control and 802.11r. The rest is up to the device.

 

[manners]

Thanks for that. The guy who reviewed the Edimax AP's seem to have some excellent results in roaming between two of them but they don't seem to be anything cleverer than kicking clients with a lower RSSI than a set RSSI - I'm not sure they're aware of each other like Eero and therefore adjust power.

I just can't fathom why Eero only operate on a single channel for each band. Even if there's no manual way to set the Eero on a specific channel you'd thought they'd auto switch to a less crowded channel??? My neighbour is pumping out on 6 and 44 the exact Eero channels I believe.

 

[Darcy]

Wonder how Luma will do since they have time to fine tune off the eero reviews.

 

[thiggins]

I just can't fathom why Eero only operate on a single channel for each band.

That's actually not true. I saw BSSIDs on 1 and 6. Don't forget that backhaul connections would not be available for client connection.

There is nothing wrong with using the same channel as a neighbor network as long as there is enough available airtime.

 

[manners]

That's interesting. Even so, just because they use different channels for the backhaul it doesn't help if you're using the Eero's in access point mode with wired uplink and want to use different channel to be on the safe side.

What do you mean by "available airtime" - I'm sending yet another gap in my WiFi understanding!

 

[thiggins]

The concept behind eero is that it knows how to adjust channel use and transmit power better than the user. This new breed of Wi-Fi systems takes those decisions away from the user.

With wired backhaul, eero can still make decisions about channel use, by monitoring retries (the number of packets that have to be resent because they didn't get through).

Re: available airtime. Every exchange between STA and AP requires time on the wireless channel. Applications like email, web browsing, chat, use less data, so less airtime. Video streaming uses more.

A nearby network with heavy video streaming is going to eat up most available airtime, leaving scraps for other applications to fight for.

 

[manners]

Thanks Thiggins, that's really helpful. Thanks for all your work on the site so insightful.

I'm thinking Eero will help my issues in my house. I have 3 stories; wired on ground and first floor but no wire to 3rd. If I use two standard APs on the first two floors they overlap too much and the clients don't switch. If I just use one powerful AP on the first floor I don't get proper coverage. I wanna get the eero three pack - wired to first two floors and then third floor can use the wireless backbone. Just gotta overcome my fears of losing control of my network and having a company collecting my data.

 

[sfx2000]

eero says they can adjust transmit power level to help mitigate this.

I have a few ideas on how they are/can do this - reserving any further comments here as I don't want to step in their sandbox (unless they have a job offer, lol)

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks for that. The guy who reviewed the Edimax AP's seem to have some excellent results in roaming between two of them but they don't seem to be anything cleverer than kicking clients with a lower RSSI than a set RSSI - I'm not sure they're aware of each other like Eero and therefore adjust power.

I think the big thing different between running multiple Edimax (or other vendors) is that Eero may have sorted some things in a small network way that Edimax/other AP vendors would need a smart wireless guy for...

 

[headcase]

Thanks for the insightful replies, sfx2000, Peter, and Tim.

In the past when setting up my network in my home or for others, I've focused my attention primarily on wired backhaul (Ethernet or Powerline), optimal AP placement to ensure there are no dead sports, and eliminating channel overlap. But I can see why even "power users" like myself (and someone who has been a frequent reader of this site for years) would be attracted to eero and other similar solutions now. Perhaps I'm just getting plain lazy in my age, but I'm feeling like its getting to the point where I need professional training to successfully set up a wireless network at home "that just works" (if going beyond one wireless router).

Btw, I think that with younger generations increasingly streaming video on their mobile devices vs. sitting in front of a television, and cellular carriers increasingly supportive of solutions like WiFi VoIP calling (e.g. Verizon became the latest player this week with the iOS 9.3 update) ...a seamless fast roaming WiFi network needs to be standard, and not the exception in homes today. And to think 802.11k and 802.11r were ratified in 2008. Doh!

(and now I fully understand why my own kids refuse to use our home WiFi and instead eat up all our cellular data each month!)

 

[headcase]

The concept behind eero is that it knows how to adjust channel use and transmit power better than the user. This new breed of Wi-Fi systems takes those decisions away from the user.

With wired backhaul, eero can still make decisions about channel use, by monitoring retries (the number of packets that have to be resent because they didn't get through).

Re: available airtime. Every exchange between STA and AP requires time on the wireless channel. Applications like email, web browsing, chat, use less data, so less airtime. Video streaming uses more.

A nearby network with heavy video streaming is going to eat up most available airtime, leaving scraps for other applications to fight for.

So are you saying that if eero is set up using a wired backhaul, that it can't dynamically adjust transmit power across the nodes? If so, that would be a bummer given I prefer to put as much of my network on the wire as possible.