![]() If you have more than three Eeros, the company can deduce you have a big house. and 10 p.m.), and a list of the top 40 devices connected to Eero networks (topped by the iPhone, iPad, and Sonos speakers). A 2017 Eero report with anonymized data collected from “hundreds of thousands” of its routers shows a glimpse into what information can be gleaned: Charts showing times of day users are most active (Sunday between 9 p.m. A router knows the number and brands of the internet-connected devices you have at home, and when you’re home using those devices. Buying a home network infrastructure company might sound like a boring move - but it’s a powerful attacking piece in Amazon’s quest to own the smarthome and, more interestingly, to obtain more data about its customers at the same time. On Monday, Amazon announced its acquisition of Eero, which makes a router system designed to cover hard-to-reach Wi-Fi dead zones. Now Amazon is looking to own your smarthome’s foundation too: the router. It also sells dozens of other devices - plugs, thermostats, lights, vacuums, even microwaves - with its chatty voice assistant Alexa stuffed inside. The company sells a voice-activated smart speaker that can tell you the weather (Echo), a security camera that can show you who’s stealing your packages (Ring), and a media streamer that can play films and shows on your television (Fire TV). Here’s Cult of Mac’s reviews policy.Amazon wants to fill your home with its products. The expense is worth it for the strong, whole-house coverage, the ease of use and the lack of headaches.Įero provided a review unit for this article. 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. 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. ![]()
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