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.<p>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.
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.<p>Still, well done video, using your phone to connect for the first time (via Bluetooth) is clever etc.<p>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).
The Eero 3 pack is listed for pre-order at $299 and $125 per individual unit.<p>I can pick up a Ubiquiti UniFi 3 pack for $189 or individually for $64 at Amazon today.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EORRBW/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EORRBW/ref=olp_product_...</a>
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.<p>They are faster than ever, and have a bigger range than ever before. I suggest skipping the Eero and opting for something like this: <a href="http://www.cnet.com/products/asus-ac2400-rt-ac87u-dual-band-wireless-gigabit-router/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnet.com/products/asus-ac2400-rt-ac87u-dual-band-...</a>
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It's not hard to agree the "Admin Consoles" running at 192.168.0.1 look a bit outdated now, both in terms of ease of use and elegance of design.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.<p>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.<p>Well I guess $100 isn't too much for peace of mind, if it really works as advertised...
Fancy website. Here's another product creeping into the same space
- <a href="http://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/</a><p>Finally bumping out Aerohive, Meraki and others determined to destroy my wallet.
>No ethernet wiring or IT degree required.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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 <i>between</i> 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.<p>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 <i>both</i> 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.<p>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.
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.
Cool, but I don't have enough of an issue with my wifi to make the switch.<p>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".
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.
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.
Moderately off topic question for everyone who could whip up a superior solution over lunch with two Arduinos and a Raspberry Pi ;-)<p>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?)
"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"<p>There is another product Open-mesh which is a system which was before eero so this part of the FAQ needs to be updated.<p>Smart use of two radios though for the repeating stuff.
See the identical submission made an hour earlier, but with extra new-account voting.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8990369" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8990369</a>
This reminded me of the ever-failing WiFi at conferences.<p>I wonder if anyone is working on a relatively easy to set up system that could be rented out to small conference organizers.
<i>eero is the world’s first WiFi system</i><p>Huh?<p><i>Finally, WiFi that works.</i><p>My WiFi works just fine, always has. And if I ever upgrade to an A/C network it'll be fast, too.
For a moment there, I thought this was related to the Eero language project (<a href="http://eerolanguage.org" rel="nofollow">http://eerolanguage.org</a>).