I've been using Eero for about a year in two different homes. Up until the last firmware release (eeroOS v2.2.0-2478) I'd walk through my home and would lose WiFi completely (no signal at all). For some time I thought it was due to the iOS betas I was running but it wasn't. That issue was finally fixed with the latest release. As of release 2.x (November 2016) the speeds I see in practice have significantly increased. Now we see over 200Mbps which is great to see.
All that to say if you used Eero before early Feb 2017 you might want to revisit it. They've also been improving the iPhone app to give you more visibility into the performance of your system, hopefully that trend continues.
It's important to note that wireless signals propagate downward - if it were possible, it would be best to have the main router on an upper floor, and have it bathe the lower floors in signal. That's frequently not possible: when an internet service provider comes to do a job, they come and do things in the way that will optimize install time for them.
I didn't know this, is it always true? Should I be mounting my router high up?
The waves will propagate in a direction according to the symmetry of the antenna. If the antenna has axial symmetry then there will be no difference for a given point as you rotate that antenna about it's axis. Any axis it is assymmetrical in there will be a difference. Except for the case of a black hole gravity will have an infinitesimal effect of breaking that symmetry. Of course obstruction caused by external objects will effect the symmetry since they will absorb and/or reflect the waves.
"With the rumor that Apple is discontinuing Airport and Time Machine Wi-Fi products, it leaves some users looking for new solutions. One new option might be Eero, one of the latest entrants in the field.
A simple two-port switch, and USB you can't use."
This alone means it is NOT a valid replacement for Apple's line-up. I actually would like to see an additional Ethernet port on Apple's current offerings, especially for NAS or NAS/DAS Combo options.
Recently installed a Netgear Orbi with one additional satellite. So far it is awesome. I now get every Mbps that I'm paying for (100 Mbps) throughout my entire house. Easy to set up. Had the whole thing set up in 15 minutes. That includes waiting for the modem to reboot and changing the stock network name. Hopefully, it will stay reliable and not need to be rebooted every other day. Fingers crossed, but it's great now.
It's important to note that wireless signals propagate downward - if it were possible, it would be best to have the main router on an upper floor, and have it bathe the lower floors in signal. That's frequently not possible: when an internet service provider comes to do a job, they come and do things in the way that will optimize install time for them.
I didn't know this, is it always true? Should I be mounting my router high up?
No. It's blatant bullshit. Radio waves are not meaningfully affected by gravity except on a relativistic way, which is only measurable on a galactic scale. The reviewer simply doesn't know any better and made a patently false statement.
I'd be willing to bet Apple are working on another solution something along the lines of this setup.
But better tied together with the full eco-system of products like an AppleTV that can network bridge to other networkable devices nearby. Or An APFS Timemachine that features local capacity but can end to end encrypted sync via iCloud anywhere you have internet access.
"It's important to note that wireless signals propagate downward..."
That is simply not true; the signal propagation is determined by the antenna. Omnidirectional antennas (used in most (all?)) consumer grade wifi access points/routers usually have a toroidal propagation shape (they form a sort of doughnut around the access point, pinching down in the centre). That may also explain why the person writing the article was seeing worse signal close to the AP.
A new soon-to-be-commercialized MIMO is coming soon, that will coordinate multiple access points at the same time, on the same frequency, without creating interference it's called MegaMIMO 2.0 this Wi-Fi system is three times faster than traditional Wi-Fi and has double the range!
Apple still sell all models of time capsule and airport routers, even refirbished extreme and express models. If I didn't already have a extremes and time capsules of I would buy one. They have been the most reliable access points I have ever used if Apple stopped making them and I had to purchase something else I would probably go with Ubiquiti access points as they are the only units that are consistently reliable at client sites.
I would have to agree Ubiquiti is the way to go signal strength is much better compared to Eero 2
A small problem though. Eero is not available internationally, and as far as I know you can't even set it up outside US at the moment.
I really hope Apple still has some extra Magic and love for new Wi-Fi and Time Capsule.
To be forced to replace good old Time Capsule some day with eero or some more or
less random wi-fi thingy made by someone who doesn't really care about the thingy gives me nightmares already.
I returned my eeros - didn't like the fact I had to rely on the cloud and couldn't communicate from my Mac, the USB shouldn't be advertised as a feature unless it's usable by the consumer. I got 2 AirPort Extremes from Amazon and they out perform the eero and I'm in control of my network and I have USBs that function. I'll wait a year before I look at this "Mesh" tech and see if it matures and give me these features.
I got the three Eeros and they worked great, turning what was essentially 75% signal loss in the upper floor of my house to a complete and consistently great signal throughout. User experiences may vary, I guess
No replacement will have the Airport's audio output. I use a mini-tos-link to extract digital audio from the Airport to drive a sound system. No replacement will ever have this feature, never mind Airplay as well.
You're right.
At some point, those, a hacked up raspberry pi, or extracting out of a non-TV connected Apple TV are going to be your options.
Or, you know, Chromecast audio.
I'd appreciate it if AI reviewed a bunch of them and found one that scores >4.5 out of 5. Getting a 70% approval rating doesn't fill me with confidence to be honest.
We aren't stopping reviewing these products. Linksys Velop is next.
Message me to let me know what you'd like after that.
It's important to note that wireless signals propagate downward - if it were possible, it would be best to have the main router on an upper floor, and have it bathe the lower floors in signal. That's frequently not possible: when an internet service provider comes to do a job, they come and do things in the way that will optimize install time for them.
I didn't know this, is it always true? Should I be mounting my router high up?
Depends on where you need signal, what router you have, etc.
A lot of home wifi bases are designed to have antennae that propagate sideways, with some coverage plus or minus a floor. A lot of ones you see in offices are designed to have signal that spreads downward, and they're mounted on the ceilings. Apple used to sell a wall-mount clip for the AirPort Extreme base stations that were flat (this was about 2007 or so) - and then you could wall mount and then get other floors more reliably, but have presumably shorter horizontal distance inside a house.
It really depends on what sort of router you have, what the dispersion looks like for that antenna design. Most of them have some directions they're optimized for, and some areas of weakness in their pattern. Experiment with placement.
It's important to note that wireless signals propagate downward - if it were possible, it would be best to have the main router on an upper floor, and have it bathe the lower floors in signal.
That makes absolutely no sense. Radio waves are not like water falling down, they are like light, except they penetrate certain materials just like light can penetrate windows.
So they either beam in all directions like a light bulb, or they beam in a certain direction, or they used steered beams.
If it's the first, it doesn't matter: the waves will go in all directions, and that's what typically should be the case, or else wall mounted devices would beam away from the users into adjacent rooms or outside the house as "down" is now "into the wall".
If it were the second, then all that would require is to flip a device in the basement on its belly, and "down" would now be up, and the device would easily cover floors over the basement.
If it's steered beams, again it shouldn't matter, or else units couldn't be wall-mounted in a meaningful way, or the beams are directed where needed, up, down, left, right, ...
So the paragraph quoted above makes no sense at all, as it stands.
The only reason why high placement of a unit makes sense is the same as why many lamps are ceiling lamps: you have less furniture and clutter up high in your room, and thus less items throwing a shadow, i.e obstructing potentially radio wave propagation.
Did I mention that wireless is an interesting science?
Let me try to explain where I was coming from on this. Comparing it to lamps is a bad example. Lamps disperse pretty evenly unless there's something about the bulb that focuses it in one direction, like a spot. All bulbs have weaker dispersion in the area blocked by the bulb socket. Bulb makers overcome this with a bulb design that's wider to try and disperse light to the blocked area of the socket. They're mostly successful, so you don't really notice with in-home bulbs.
Antenna designs disperse in different patterns. There's azimuth, which is sort of a top down view of the dispersion pattern and elevation, which is the view from the side, horizontal. If you look at the patterns for different routers, you'll see the results of different antenna design.
If you go to an office, you'll find most of the wireless routers are mounted on the ceilings. This is because their antenna design has the wireless signal propagate downward. If you look at home routers, they frequently propagate out to the sides, with very little in the way of signal going up, but a lot more of it going downwards. It's sort of a flattened oval. You might get +1 floor out of a home router, but most of the signal is going sideways, not up. Experiment with placement accordingly. Beamforming is cool, but you can't beamform if your antenna dispersion won't get signal where it needs to go in the first place.
This dispersion map shows an example of a ceiling mounted router's antenna dispersion - look at the right side of that, and you'll see that the sides and below the router have much better signal than above the router (where the spikes are, rather than below and to the sides which have much greater coverage.)
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Or An APFS Timemachine that features local capacity but can end to end encrypted sync via iCloud anywhere you have internet access.
That is simply not true; the signal propagation is determined by the antenna. Omnidirectional antennas (used in most (all?)) consumer grade wifi access points/routers usually have a toroidal propagation shape (they form a sort of doughnut around the access point, pinching down in the centre). That may also explain why the person writing the article was seeing worse signal close to the AP.
I really hope Apple still has some extra Magic and love for new Wi-Fi and Time Capsule.
To be forced to replace good old Time Capsule some day with eero or some more or less random wi-fi thingy made by someone who doesn't really care about the thingy gives me nightmares already.
Let me try to explain where I was coming from on this. Comparing it to lamps is a bad example. Lamps disperse pretty evenly unless there's something about the bulb that focuses it in one direction, like a spot. All bulbs have weaker dispersion in the area blocked by the bulb socket. Bulb makers overcome this with a bulb design that's wider to try and disperse light to the blocked area of the socket. They're mostly successful, so you don't really notice with in-home bulbs.
Antenna designs disperse in different patterns. There's azimuth, which is sort of a top down view of the dispersion pattern and elevation, which is the view from the side, horizontal. If you look at the patterns for different routers, you'll see the results of different antenna design.
If you go to an office, you'll find most of the wireless routers are mounted on the ceilings. This is because their antenna design has the wireless signal propagate downward. If you look at home routers, they frequently propagate out to the sides, with very little in the way of signal going up, but a lot more of it going downwards. It's sort of a flattened oval. You might get +1 floor out of a home router, but most of the signal is going sideways, not up. Experiment with placement accordingly. Beamforming is cool, but you can't beamform if your antenna dispersion won't get signal where it needs to go in the first place.
This dispersion map shows an example of a ceiling mounted router's antenna dispersion - look at the right side of that, and you'll see that the sides and below the router have much better signal than above the router (where the spikes are, rather than below and to the sides which have much greater coverage.)